Sword of illogic

06.JUL.07

EDITOR: One wonders why The News newspaper in its June 8, 2007 edition has published such a brazen display of anti-catholic prejudice in its Sword of the Spirit Column?

In this day and age I am alarmed that a reputable media house would allow itself to be party to such slander, and illogic. In publishing the column, the editor completely ignores fact, the column actively seeks to drive the wedge of hatred between Vincentian Catholics and our Protestant Brethren. If the column had encouraged hatred of Black people, or Jews, or Muslims, would it have been published?{{more}} Yet again we see that hatred of Catholics and the Catholic Church is the last permissible prejudice.

Prejudices aside however, shouldn’t what is published in a national newspaper by a weekly columnist at the very least be required to be logical? If newspaper editors and weekly columnists are incapable of sound logic what can we expect from our secondary and tertiary level learning institutions? This question is the one that alarmed me most.

Use of the most elementary logic could have prevented this abuse. Firstly “The Papacy” is an institution not a person, while the Anti-Christ has always been understood to refer to a person. It is therefore beyond me as to why the columnist is attempting to equate an institution with a person. If the columnist insists on the use of the term Papacy this can only mean the he is in fact accusing each of the 265 Popes who led the Catholic Church in its 2000-year history of being each themselves the Anti-Christ. This accusation would then fall on the Apostle Peter; the first Pope, and on to Benedict the 16th, the current Pope. If Saint Peter was the Anti-Christ, the logical question is why did he write letters to the early Christians, which are easily found in the New Testament exhorting them to follow Christ?

If John Paul II and Benedict XVI are the Anti-Christ why do so many video recordings of them encouraging people to pray to Christ, follow Christ, and to avoid sin exist? Both of the above Popes were very much involved in the production of a document known as the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catechism, which is available in any Library or at the Catholic Pastoral Centre at Edinboro, St. Vincent contains the full body of doctrinal teaching of the Catholic Church; it too encourages faith in Christ and avoidance of sin. All of the 265 Popes down through the ages sinful though they were, urged faith in Christ and avoidance of sin. Therefore to suggest that the officially elected legitimate successor of Peter; the Pope is the Devil, is in fact to suggest that the Devil encourages faith in Christ and avoidance of sin. Such a suggestion is of course the height of lunacy.

SALT