BBC to Blight Pope's UK Visit

[Teddy Bear]

The Pope is making a state visit to the UK, the first in 28 years, and how does the BBC choose to welcome the head of the Catholic Church on the eve of his arrival?

Well, consistent with it's anti-religious bias, except where Islam is concerned, and only because they are too chicken-shit scared to portray that in its true light, they examine the worst cases that have surrounded this Church.

Panorama is aired to focus on the examples of paedophilia within the Catholic church. So whatever positive acts or benefits those within the faith might have received, the BBC is making sure that the general public will view it in a negative way.

Could you believe that if there was a visit to the UK by the chief Imam of Mecca, that on the eve of his visit they would show how Islamic terrorism is rife around the world? With over 16,000 deadly terrorist attacks committed worldwide by Muslims since 9/11, they would certainly have plenty of ammunition. Fact is, at any time we don't get this kind of reportage from the BBC, but not any event concerning Catholics can go by without the mention of paedophiles by the BBC.

Here's the programme blurb from the BBC website.

On the eve of the first Papal visit to Britain in 28 years, Fergal Keane investigates the Pope's personal track record of dealing with paedophile priests while an archbishop and top Vatican official. As the child sex abuse scandal continues to engulf the Catholic Church worldwide, he meets victims who want an apology for the Pope's personal handling of some notorious cases.

[Teddy Bear]

Just to make sure you don't miss the point in case you didn't watch Panorama, BBC2 is running another programme tonight.

Benedict: Trials of a Pope
Film-maker Mark Dowd examines the life of Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI. He visits his Bavarian homeland and the Vatican to explore how the clerical abuse crisis has interfered with the Pope's mission to combat Western secularism, and interviews the Pope's brother Georg Ratzinger to learn how the scandal has affected the head of the Catholic Church

[Teddy Bear]

The theme of BBC bias in relation to the papal visit has been picked up at the Daily Mail.

Note the BBC response is to say A BBC spokesman said: 'The first ever state visit by a Pope is an historic and significant event for millions of people in the UK - it is also an event that has divided public opinion.

The same can be said, if not more so, about any Muslim dignitaries arriving on these shores, but I don't see the BBC mixing it up with them because of 'divided public opinion'. As bad as paedophilia is, I find torture, murder, and terror a far worse crime. It's simply the BBC justifying what suits their agenda without any regard to really being fair and impartial.

'Blatant bias' in BBC's coverage

A Catholic MP has accused the BBC of 'institutional Christianaphobia' over its coverage of the Pope's visit.

Mark Pritchard is urging Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt to give the corporation's director general Mark Thompson a dressing-down for its news stories on Catholicism and Pope Benedict XVI.

The Tory, who is vice chairman of the parliamentary group for the Holy See, said the BBC had displayed a form of 'blatant, anti-Christian bias'.

He said he was fed up with wall-to-wall reports of the how the church was supposedly in decline.

The BBC's main bulletins have also led with debates on the Vatican's response to child abuse and homosexuality.

The Tory MP for the Wrekin also questioned why there were no positive stories about the church.

'The Catholic Church is an imperfect institution but it is amazing the BBC has found nothing positive to say about a church whose key message is to love thy neighbour including feeding the poor and helping the homeless,' he said.

'The coverage of the church ahead of the Pope's visit so far shows yet more evidence of institutional Christianaphobia at the heart of the BBC.'
Popemobile: The operation to protect the Pope will cost £1.5million

A BBC spokesman said: 'The first ever state visit by a Pope is an historic and significant event for millions of people in the UK - it is also an event that has divided public opinion.

'We will mark the visit with event coverage of the major ceremonies on TV, radio and online, as well as looking at different aspects of the Catholic Church, including investigating more controversial issues such as the recent child abuse scandals.'

In 2005, the BBC dropped plans to screen a cartoon satirising life in the Vatican.

Popetown, which was billed as a cross between Father Ted and the outrageous South Park cartoon, featured an infantile pontiff bouncing around on a pogostick.

[Teddy Bear]

Amanda Platell in the Daily Mail observes the double standard hypocrisy of the BBC in relation to the Pope's visit.

Twisted values of the noisy bigots

By Amanda Platell

Last updated at 5:15 PM on 18th September 2010

For a country that prides itself on religious tolerance, this has been a shaming week.

Thanks to the BBC and a noisy cabal of self-important atheists and Catholic-haters, we have been subjected to wall-to-wall attacks on the Pope and his Church.

Leading this vicious anti-Christian charge were Stephen Fry - who seems to get smugger by the day - and Richard Dawkins, who described Pope Benedict XVI as a 'leering old villain in a frock . . . whose preaching is responsible for the deaths of countless Aids victims in Africa.'
Unprovoked attacks: Thanks to the BBC and a noisy cabal of self-important atheists and Catholic-haters, we have been subjected to wall-to-wall attacks on the Pope and his Church.

Unprovoked attacks: Thanks to the BBC and a noisy cabal of self-important atheists and Catholic-haters, we have been subjected to wall-to-wall attacks on the Pope and his Church.

Put aside for one moment the sheer crudeness of this personal abuse, and imagine the outrage if the world's most senior Imam was accused of being a leer ing criminal who encouraged the spread of sexually transmitted disease.

Yet, in a case of breathtaking double standards, the Left is given airtime to attack the Pope - and by implication 42 million Christians in this country.

I am not a Catholic. I, too, am appalled at the Church's past attempts to suppress the scandal of paedophile priests.

Yet, the BBC in its reports this week has seized on the scandal as if the whole Christian creed was to blame, and that the Pope were no better than Gary Glitter.

Even as the parade of priests walked to the altar in Glasgow on thursday, the BBC coverage had pundits and presenters discussing the crisis surrounding the Catholic Church.

But, then, for decades now, Christians in Britain have been made to feel their faith is not just unfashionable, but shaming and ignorant.

We have been bullied into silence so that the Liberal elite who really rule Britain can impose their atheist, politically-correct values upon us.

I hope that, if nothing else, the Pope's visit has served to expose the empty hatred that motivates Messrs fry and Dawkins.

The time has come to stand up to these bigots, whose twisted values are to blame for so much that's wrong in Broken Britain.

Curious, isn't it, how Stephen Fry and Richard Dawkins have made their highly publicised attacks on the Pope at the same time as they have books to promote.

The ads promoting Fry's latest tome say he's: 'Honest, funny, touching. Try Mr Fry.'

We have tried him this week - and have found him dishonest, unfunny and offensive.

[Teddy Bear]

I don't think the Church do themselves any favours if they think that they benefit if the BBC skewers another similarly aligned faith. Apparently the spokesman for Rowan Williams the Archbishop of Canterbury has praised the BBC for giving the Pope such an easy ride - even to the point of being 'reverential'.

I reckon that while Catholics might have the reputation as paedophiles, at this rate Anglicans might get the reputation as Sodomites - where they insert their whole body up the rear orifice - in this case, of the BBC.

BBC gave the Pope an easy ride, says Archbishop of Canterbury's spokesman

By Damian Thompson Religion Last updated: October 26th, 2010

The Times’s paywall is mysteriously down, so I nipped behind it and found a blog post from my former colleague the Rev George Pitcher, now the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Secretary for Public Affairs. Writes George:

I confess to having been bemused by the media treatment of the Pope here in October [sic]. If British society is post-Christian you could have fooled me. He enjoyed comprehensive and largely unmediated and uncritical reportage in the British media. The BBC was especially reverential – wall-to-wall coverage, with little or no challenge in the studio from the usual pundits and antagonists.

There may be good reason for that; the Beeb will have been conscious of Roman Catholicism’s minority status in the UK and its responsibilities to religious diversity. More cynically, it was any easy hit – the BBC may feel it can have a go at the Pope in future and point to the free ride it gave him when he visited, should anyone claim undue victimisation. But the point still holds: The Pope’s visit was recorded as an unqualified success.

Is that what Dr Williams thinks, too, George?

The comment I posted there was this

With Panorama on BBC1 focussing on paedophile priests, along with 'Benedict - The Trials of a Pope' on BBC2, both aired at the time of his visit to 'welcome' the Pope, I have to wonder how this Pitcher thinks of BBC coverage as an 'unqualified success'. The Daily Mail ran 2 articles that week to tell just how negatively biased the BBC were over it.

'Blatant bias' in BBC's coverage

Twisted values of the noisy bigots

Perhaps Dr. Williams is of the opinion that the only kind of priest that the public are likely to accept are those without testicles, and he's anxious to show that he's one. Or else that if the BBC are attacking the Catholics, his faith will benefit as a result. The BBC certainly aired the views that he himself shares - Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams claims Irish Church 'has lost credibility'

[steevo]

I remember reading an article about his comments on Sharia law in Brit society over at Tim Montgomerie's a few years ago. As an outsider my understanding wasn't so good as to comment but with all the difficulties of Brit identity why he felt it necessary to emphasize acceptance for at least some aspects of Muslim culture seemed out of line. I suppose I'm being much too politically incorrect (I do care), he's probably a good man, but I kinda wonder if he lacks clear identity on what it means to be a Christian? A man too

[Teddy Bear]

His 'stance' (or lack thereof) might well originate from his interpretation of the Christian tenet to 'turn the other cheek', or in this case avoidance of confrontation even if it means being a doormat. Fact is, if he truly understood what Jesus did in his life, he would see that this was far from it. It might well be that the lack of spirit displayed by Christians to face up to the real issues that threaten their faith is why their adherents are diminishing. Appeasing evil is cowardly and encourages further abuse.