Cardinal George Pell of Sydney has said that Pope Francis’s popularity with the media is “too good to last.” The Catholic Herald reported that the cardinal made the remark in a reflection on World Youth Day in Rio. His comment followed the Pope being called “awesome” by the men’s magazine Esquire and his face appearing Read more
A direct descendant of Charles Darwin has joined Catholic Voices, the project founded in Britain to speak up for the Church in the media. The Catholic Herald reports that Laura Keynes, a great-great-great-granddaughter of the English naturalist, returned to her childhood Catholic faith after a period of agnosticism. The daughter of an atheist father and Read more
Bill Maher, the atheist host of HBO’s “Real Time” show announced that he believed that Pope Francis is an atheist and because of that, it’s likely that the Vatican will attempt to kill the Pope first chance they get. Another display of just how little some people who comment on the church actually know about the Read more
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’ve commented once or twice or 429 times about how the Catholic Church around the world, and in Australia and New Zealand in particular, often fails to adequately communicate the message of Jesus Christ to the faithful, not to mention to non-Catholics. It’s hardly a view Read more
The May 1 appointment of Kim Daniels as the first lay media relations officer for the president of the US Catholic Bishops signals the beginning of a new phase in media relations for the US Catholic Bishops. The appointment, which has surprised some, was foreshadowed last year by US Bishops’ President, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, when he Read more
In one of the last acts of his pontificate, Benedict XVI gave an address to the clergy of the Diocese of Rome on the Second Vatican Council. In the address he drew a distinction between what he termed the Virtual Council, or Council of the Media, and the Real Council or Council of those who actually produced Read more
As a somewhat old-fashioned, traditional type, I welcomed the engaging presence and comment of Dame Lyndsay Freer to my radio and TV during the recent papal conclave. Long before the advent of television, St Thomas Aquinas said, “faith comes from hearing“, and the Catholic Church in New Zealand, once again, at least for a limited Read more
Shutting down the US Cardinals’ media briefing is akin to shutting down efforts in New Evangelisation. This is how conservative Catholic columnist George Weigel, writing in the National Review Online, describes the media blackout on Cardinals that came into force yesterday. In the name of transparency, U.S. cardinals had held a series of parallel news briefings with the Read more
In the absence of actual news, the 5,000 journalists gathered in Rome for the election of a successor to Pope Benedict XVI are awash in conspiracy theories. Some may have substance, but probably only by coincidence. An example is the question of why three of the four cardinal-electors with archdioceses in Germany were among the Read more
As I was looking for a lens through which I could frame a 2012 retrospective editorial, a colleague asked me to recommend a good article on the topic ‘the media and the vulnerable’. Looking at our archive, I discovered this was a constant throughout the year. Still current is the fallout of actions of 2DAY FM employees Read more