The Pope's funeral and the New York Times
Such an event, but what happened with the Times' lead article this morning? The piece reads like a paper by an undergraduate who slept through Christianity 101:
The coffin was placed on a large ornate rug and a liturgical text [which one?] was placed on it and opened. At the side of the coffin was a statue of Jesus on the cross bleeding from his thorns [that's known as a "crucifix", boys]. . .
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, dean of the college of cardinals, who delivered the sermon, spoke first after crossing himself [quelle surprise]. He sang in Latin from a holy book [now that's reporting] held up by an assistant and read the confession of sins that begins the Catholic Mass. . .
Some 35 minutes after the funeral began, a young priest in red vestments sang the gospel in Latin ["the gospel"? -- the writers use the word liberally to denote anything Christianish that they can't quite pin down].
This illustrates a real problem at the NYT -- their total incomprehension of matters of faith, and in particular Christian faith. [A friend of mine who is a distinguished physicist tells me that they don't comprehend science very well either.] Middlebrow stuff like what you see in the NYT or on PBS confers the illusion of understanding rather than the substance.
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