When Is An Ax Not An Ax?
Here begins the front page review in tomorrow’s New York Times “Sunday Book Review:”
John Julius Norwich makes a point of saying in the introduction to his history of the popes that he is “no scholar” and that he is “an agnostic Protestant.” The first point means that while he will be scrupulous with his copious research, he feels no obligation to unearth new revelations or concoct revisionist theories. The second means that he has “no ax to grind.” In short, his only agenda is to tell us the story.
And it concludes:
Norwich devotes exactly one chapter to the popes of my lifetime — from the avuncular modernizer John XXIII, whom he plainly loves, to the austere Benedict, off to a “shaky start.” He credits the popular Polish pope, John Paul II — another candidate for sainthood — for his global diplomacy but faults his retrograde views on matters of sex and gender. Norwich’s conclusion may remind readers that he introduced himself as a Protestant agnostic, because whatever his views on God, his views on the papacy are clearly pro-reformation. “It is now well over half a century since progressive Catholics have longed to see their church bring itself into the modern age,” he writes. “With the accession of every succeeding pontiff they have raised their hopes that some progress might be made on the leading issues of the day — on homosexuality, on contraception, on the ordination of women priests. And each time they have been disappointed.”
It seems the “ax” is magically transformed into a quill when wielded in support of the agenda of the Times‘ Executive Editor.
Is it fair to call “an agendum” what appears a self-evident axiom to its proponent?
Ax? Quill? Confusing metaphors. And Bill Keller’s “agenda”? What items are on that agenda?
Itmho, it’s just a review of a book that sounds okay, probably not as good as Duffy’s Saints and Sinners, but okay.
http://www.amazon.com/Saints-Sinners-History-Popes-Third/dp/0300115970/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310218027&sr=1-1
Have you read the book? Did Keller characterize it truthfully? Any historical errors that you spotted in the book or in the review?
Will a Commonweal critic be assigned to review it? From a particular point of view?
I thought the reciew was far too truncated to take away an appreciation, especially for a front page piece.
For example, what about Pius XII? Or the decree of infallibility and its use?
Bloggers should really take a lok at Verdicts if they haven’t, and especially Frank oveis yesterday on “Mournuing Becomes Roman Catholics.”
Father Imbelli’s metaphors are a little vague, but they become clear when you read the review. Both Norwich and Keller use their quills in a manner (and with all the elegance) usually associated with bludgeons. The book is said to be an “agnostic” “historical” account of the papacy, which seems to mean it is written from a purely worldly point of view. Its “Protestantism” seems to consist in its zealous documentation of the more risible and discreditable episodes in papal history. I think I’ll skip it, and I would recommend the Commonweal reviewers do the same.
(In an optimal universe, people would not use the wordagenda as if it were singular. OTOH the review is full of allusions to two “millenniums,” which seems to be NYT jargon for what the Church calls millennia. Oh, well. Tempora. Mores.)
But my main point is that agendum is passive periphrastic, denoting compulsion or intention. To call this Keller’s agendum implies he is trying to push something on his reader. But it is much more likely that it has never occurred to him that these are not “the leading issues of the day.” We all live in echo chambers these days.
I was impressed with what good sports the Mormons were about having their religion expensively lampooned in the New York theater district. Maybe we should try to emulate them and ignore non-scholarly works like this.
I’m reading an account of a well-to-do American Catholic family in the early 20th century that used to give bonuses to their servants in honor of special religious feast days and papal anniversaries.
I doubt they granted a day off for each of the 265 popes but the practice is worth remembering. When Catholics control the government we can proclaim holidays for each of the popes – even for Pope Joan.
By the time Catholics control the government, there may be more than 365 popes.
Here is an idea. How about for the next book on the papacy, the “Book Review” enlist the aid of a trained historian, and preferably one with a limited number of axes to grind? Sure perfect objectivity is hard or maybe even impossible, but getting a “collapsed Catholic” to review a history of the popes or most any other topic dealing with Catholicism? Imagine asking James Dobson of Focus on the Family to review a book on the modern gay rights. No matter how objective he might strive to be, he would be coming at his topic with just too much baggage. It is clear that the same can be said of Bill Keller and his review of the papacy
Here’s the review from Library Journal for comparison:
Thanks, Fr. Bob, for the heads-up on the review. Following on Gerelyn’s comment on Eamon Duffy’s classic history of the papacy, I had to share my favorite passage from the book…especially its final delicious sentence, concerning the election of Angelo Roncalli:
“…Deadlocked, the cardinals looked around for an interim seat-warming pope. Their choice fell on the fat seventy-seven year old Patriarch of Venice, Angelo Roncalli, a genial Vatican diplomat who had been made Patriarch as a retirement job, with a reputation for peaceable holiness and pastoral warmth, and who clearly did not have long to live. He was too elderly to rock any boats, and everyone believed that a few years of King Log inactivity would give the Church time to take stock before choosing a younger and more vigorous man to set the Church’s agenda for the second half of the century. Human calculation has seldom been more spectacularly mistaken.”
It seems to me there would be no real cause to object to Keller’s review if he hadn’t claimed Norwich had “no ax to grind,” although I don’t think saying a person has no ax to grind is necessarily saying the person writes from a purely objective point of view. After all, Keller does say of Norwich that “his views on the papacy are clearly pro- reformation.”
My eye first missed the word progressive in the quote about what progressive want from the papacy, and I was ready to be very critical of generalizing about Catholics. But it seems a fair statement about progressive Catholics.
I am not sure James Dobson reviewing a book on gay rights is the same think as a “collapsed Catholic” reviewing a popular book on the papacy that deals with the political aspects of the papacy more than the religious aspects.
I believe Felapton is saying somewhat the same thing. Having a particular viewpoint is not necessarily having an “ax to grind.”
Oh, dear. Norwich’s book looks like one not to waste time on. And what harm would it do the NYT to get a historian to review what is, putatively at least, a historical work? (Except, of course, that the paper might not get the review it wanted!) Imagine a book arguing, for instance, that FDR actually made the Depression worse, or that Neville Chamberlain acted honorably in trying to keep Hitler from going to war. Could you imagine Bill Keller reviewing either one of those, and being taken seriously? No; we’d probably get a genuine historian, probably from the Ivies (or at least someone who knows what serious history is) to give us a reasoned judgment of the work.
And what on earth does it mean to say that being Protestant means there’s no ax to grind? No doubt there are many Protestants (and Catholics) who do not grind axes, but being one or the other does not mean that ax-grinding ipso facto disappears. This sentence is just plain stupid, and shows a terrible ignorance of (among other things) history and historiography.
By the way, no one mentions the new A History of the Popes from Peter to the Present, by John W. O’Malley, SJ. I haven’t read it, though some years ago I listened to CDs of his lectures on the subject. But O’M. is a superb scholar (try Four Cultures of the West, and What Really Happened at Vatican II (both from Harvard U, Press), and you will find a real historian whose ideas, no doubt, do not fit neatly into the world view championed by Mr. K. and the NYT.
A HISTORY OF THE POPES: FROM PETER TO THE PRESENT
By John W. O’Malley, SJ
I just want to add that there are IMO three parts to this thread:
the view of the NYT and its editorial staff towards the Catholic Church and especially things Roman. I suspect there is a broad variety of views among the posters here depending on their political or eccleiological views or both.
Then there’s the actual review,
I thought it did not offer enough for out local library (despite its NYT placement) to order, much less for me to seek it out on interlibrary loan.
Then, of course, there’s the book itself. Mabe we could get one of our distinguihed historians (e.g.Prof. McGreevy) to comment on its strengths and weaknesses, if he thinks it’s worth his time.
On their deathbeds, when the question of how far one can go with whom no longer seems like the leading issue of the day, the “collapsed” will all undergo last-minute conversions. The rabid zeal with which they attack the Church shows that they have not really ceased to believe. We will then have to welcome them back and enjoy their company sempiternally. We may as well start trying to be gracious about it now.
Felapton: “We will then have to welcome them back and enjoy their company sempiternally. We may as well start trying to be gracious about it now.”
Would semipiternally be in heaven or hell?
Dante says in hell no soul is able to take pleasure in the presence of any other. Paolo and Francesca are indifferent to each other, and even Ugolino doesn’t get to enjoy Ruggieri. So we’ll probably have to learn to enjoy Keller and Norwich without eating them.
I’ve kind of given up on the Times. They still have a comprehensiveness and richness and depth that seem lacking in other American papers, but they’ve slipped a lot, I think, in those regards in past decades. My guess is that their new pay-for-news model won’t work and they’ll gradually fade into the media noise. Too bad, but they’ve probably become – or are fast becoming – obsolete. That this thin review of this thin book should make the front page of their book-review section is symptomatic. Alas.
David Smith writes:
“That this thin review of this thin book should make the front page of their book-review section is symptomatic.”
As Hercule Poirot would say: “Exactement!”
What this thread may show more than anything is how we identify with the papacy more than anything. As if our Catholicity depended on it. We talk of the pope more than of Jesus. We do not need Norwich nor Keller to tell us about the long sordid history of the papacy. Beginning with the thugs of Pope Damasus leaving hundreds of his rivals dead in the Roman church, the papacy has been more about power than discipleship. While modern popes are not into excesses like many others, the trappings of power. He still appears in public in majestic settings with the regality of the papacy in full exhibition. The coat of arms is still a huge presence in contradistinction to the crucified and humble Lord who had no home. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=1280&bih=935&gbv=2&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=benedict+xvi+coat+of+arms&oq=benedict+xvi+&aq=6&aqi=g10&aql=undefined&gs_sm=c&gs_upl=57415l58591l0l5l5l0l0l0l0l170l546l3.2l5
We are in a papal bubble which we need to get out of.
Be sure to read the “Up Front” column by the editors at the start of the Book Review. What is written there should have clearly disqualified him from reviewing this book. But I guess when you are the managing editor of NYT, you really do have absolute power.
Fr. Andreasse –
I agree that at least Keller’s position should have been made clear, mainly because he himself is not a historian, though his paper is perhaps the chief recorder of contemporary events. His comment about still being Catholic in some way was quite interesting. Somebody should ask him why he thinks people are leaving the Church in droves. Should be interesting.
Given its history and the fact that it’s one of the few remaining absolute monarchies still left on the planet, I don’t really think is the fault of the New York Times that the papacy is often an object of derision.
Jeanne,
Would you feel comfortable if the NYT held other religious institutions as “objects of derision.” It amazes me how many people bend over backwards to excuse the Times on so many issues. It reminds me of the ultramontanism of some on the extreme right of the church. Fideism in any form is quite distasteful.
AA
Did Bill Keller misrepresent the book? He quoted the author, after all. Is what Norwich says about “progressive Catholics” untrue? It seems to me that the entire criticism rests on the interpretation of “no ax to grind.”
He may not have misrepresented the book but again, I have a deep problem with him as the reviewer. Given his background, I think he has a huge ax to grind. For example, Keller misses the mark in his implication that Pius XII was an enabler (if not collaborator) of Hitler. Even the casual reader of World War II knows how complicated it is to evaluate Pius’ diplomacy with the Third Reich, but Keller seems not to have much time for any gray. For this review, it seems for Keller, most if not all of his popes wear black hats, not white mitres. Yet maybe this description of Pacelli flows not from a lack of familiarity with twentieth century but to do with being “a collapsed Catholic” and so trying to get in a cheap shot. Given Keller’s brilliant intellect and clear accomplishments as a journalist, I would think it is the latter.
There is a brief but interesting exchange on Mirror of Justice about the Norwich book between Marc O. DeGirolami, Professor of Law at St. John’s University and Ellen Wertheimer, Professor of Law at Villanova University. It is about the book itself, although they are discussing the book based on Keller’s review.
Keller’s well-written review is the most e-mailed and the most viewed in today’s Book Review.
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/index.html
This morning’s NYT review and this dotCommonweal conversation put me in mind of a review of another controversial book about the papacy. In Commonweal’s July 14, 2000 issue, Eamon Duffy reviewed a very much more substantive book, “Papal Sin,’ with an indisputably scholarly author, Garry Wills.
A bracing back and forth ensued in subsequent issues, with both Wills and Duffy entering the fray. In his letter, Duffy shared this observation: “The past is another country, and travel, they say, broadens the mind. But only if we are empathically alert t difference. The historian has no business stamping around his subject matter like an outraged tourist, denouncing the sanitary arrangements and berating the low morals of the natives. The popes in Wills’s book are caricatures, men driven by a single motive, the aggrandizement of their office. But people, the past, the church, are all more complicated than that.”
To his credit, Duffy doesn’t fit binary conservative/liberal categories. But is comments address one of the most intractable differences between liberal and conservative Catholic worldviews: loyalty. For conservatives, loyalty involves binding the group together and supporting institutions deemed essential. For progressives, loyalty includes denouncing, even deriding, the institution when deemed appropriate in the defense of truth.
Conservatives generalize that we are tolerant, even enthusiastically supportive, derisive and disdainful caracterizations of the church. Even as we regard this perception as erroneous, can we understand why they feel this way?
Gerelyn,
Does that surprise you? Or do you offer as a manifestation of the “vox populi” and the infallibility of the NYT. And I am somewhat serious about that. it seems to be that a fair number of readers of this blog believe in the indefectability of the NYT, or at least their comments seem to suggest this.
“And the name of the New York Times, every knee must bend, every tongue confess it…”
:)
More wisdom from the Viscount Norwich:
From the New Statesman Interview – -
Why are you so critical of the current Pope? I’m sure he’s well-meaning, but I do think he’s a terrible donkey.
. . .
John Paul I would have handled it infinitely better. He was just about to blow it open when they bumped him off.
Do you believe he was murdered? It’s such a strong case. Except I do have this one doubt: they would have poisoned his bedside glass of water, which means that someone would have had to get in there in the middle of the night. The Vatican lost its head and started contradicting itself. There was no post-mortem, no autopsy, nothing. The Vatican is the easiest place in the world to commit murder because there’s no police force. It is deeply mysterious. We shall never know.
http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2011/03/john-paul-interview-church
From the Telegraph interview – -
“And what of the Pope’s divisions? ‘Benedict’s visit to Britain last year was – contrary to many expectations – a remarkable success. The Roman Catholic Church is flourishing as never before, despite everything. St Peter would be proud.’”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/8388203/A-Page-in-the-Life-John-Julius-Norwich.html
Fr. Andreassi,
I think the reason that some religious and/or political people defend the Times is because some others, largely religious and/or political conservatives, appear to have a “thing” about the Times (or The Atheists’ Bible, as some conservatives calle it, that seems irrational. There is nothing about that book review that couldn’t easily have appeared in almost any other publication without upsetting anyone. A Protestant writer of popular history has written a kind of “secular” history of the papacy, Bill Keller has reviewed it and quoted from it, apparently accurately reflecting what Norwich says, and somehow it is an act of anti-Catholicism on the part of the Times.
This seems to me an extremely small example of something that I see on First Things and Mirror of Justice in a much more blatant form. There’s a kind of paranoia among some religious and/or political conservatives that prompts them to say things like we are living under “tyranny” in the United States and things like the following (about promoters of same-sex marriage):
Meanwhile, of course, we have just had two rather stunningly broad applications of the First Amendment right to freedom of speech (protests at military funerals and violent video games) from a Supreme Court with six Catholic justices. Religious conservatives are trembling in their boots about being persecuted for hate-speech crimes and put in reeducation camps, when the Court just affirmed the right to scream “God hates fags” at military funerals!
From the story Patrick Malloy links to in The New Statesman:
Norwich: “And then he [Pope John Paul II] did this idiotic thing, making 500 saints. No previous pope had made more than about two. Suddenly we have saints like other people have mice.”
Agree, David. A tinge of paranoia (or jealousy) in the constant complaints about the NYT.
As an old Catholic, hyper-sensitive to anti-Catholic bias, I don’t see it. I’ve read the great NYT every morning for decades, and I don’t see it. Quite the opposite, if anything.
What other religion gets the thorough and respectful coverage? Do we know what’s roiling the Seventh Day Adventists? Do histories of the Church of Christ get reviewed?
—
Anthony, yes, I guess it surprised me a little. I didn’t think many people would be interested in a review of a book about the history of the popes.
Hi Fr. Andreassi,
I didn’t say that the NYT held the papacy as an object of derision. My point was that if the papacy is held as an object of derision, it is often the result of its own behavior. I read the review in question and didn’t think it was any more pointed or snarky than any other NYT book review. It was certainly less off the wall than the one a couple of weeks ago on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics in which the reviewer claimed Thomas Aquinas never wrote a book about ethics.
Following up on Mike McG’s comment: “For conservatives, loyalty involves binding the group together and supporting institutions deemed essential. For progressives, loyalty includes denouncing, even deriding, the institution when deemed appropriate in the defense of truth.”
IMHO there are related differences in the trust each group has in institutional authority. Conservatives typically still trust in the authority of the institution. For progressives that trust is often broken. If your beliefs are still validated by authority (i.e., you’re conservative), you don’t see the need to validate them by arguing them from reason. You don’t want to reform authority, you want to reinforce it. Conservatives see any attempt to dilute authority as an attempt to dilute the faith. If you’re progressive, anything that smacks of unreason just further erodes trust; unreason is much more crazy-making for progressives than it is for conservatives, which is why progressives are so much quicker to denounce it.
The reason I defend the NYT is I think it’s a great newspaper and I enjoy reading it. (I am an online subscriber.) It has a definite political bias, but it’s not like they’re making a secret of it and it’s easy to take it into account as you read.
Moreover the NYT has a secularist bias. Most of their staff probably think religion is bunk. So what? Most people I know think religion is bunk. I think they’re wrong, but as long as nobody’s getting roasted on a grill like St. Lawrence, it’s hardly a reason to end a friendship. It makes for some interesting conversations.
More specifically, the NYT staff and upscale society in general have an idiosyncratic relationship with Catholicism. The vast majority of self-identified Catholics they have ever met have been people who have stopped going to mass and who are either dismissive of or hostile toward the institutional Church. It is pointless for us to protest that people who don’t go to mass aren’t “real Catholics.” There is no agreed-upon definition of a “real” Catholic.
I agree that it is frustrating to hear statements like “A majority of Catholics think the Pope is a drooling idiot.” or “A majority of Catholics think abortion is OK.” or “A majority of Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence.” But it is also annoying to hear self-described “real Catholics” grouse and whine and complain about it and declare they’re being “persecuted” by some “tyrannical dictatorship of relativism.” Come on, you guys, the martyrs are laughing at us. This is not persecution.
Sorry to intervene again when serious issues are at stake but here’s some amusing trivia, amusing to me at least as a Waugh devotee. The mother of John Julius Norwich, the author of Absolute Monarchy, was Lady Diana Cooper, at one time reportedly the most beautiful woman in all of England. She was also a longtime friend of Evelyn Waugh. One author refers to this relationship as the most deep and enduring of all Waugh’s friendships.
Here’s William F. Buckley on one of the Waugh-Cooper epistolary exchanges. It’s found, where else, in a 1999 book review in the NYT:
————————
I have jocularly ventured for some years now that a dispositive proof of the existence of the Holy Spirit is that Evelyn Waugh died just after attending church on Easter Sunday in 1966, immediately after which the convention was introduced in the Catholic Mass of the sign of peace, a moment when worshipers are bid to shake hands with fellow worshipers to their right, to their left, in the pew ahead and in the pew behind. Such an exercise could not have coexisted with Evelyn Waugh, defender of the faith. Either he had to go, or else the ritual had to be postponed. The Holy Spirit made His choice. Waugh went, but not before having a certain satisfaction at the expense of the Cardinal most responsible for the “reforms” of the Second Vatican Council:
Combe Florey 7 February 1965
Darling
. . . Nice to go to Rome. They are destroying all that was superficially attractive about my Church. It is a great sorrow to me and for once undeserved.
If you see Cardinal Bea spit in his eye.
All love Bo
To which Lady Diana replied:
10 Warwick Avenue [ postmarked March 7, 1965 ]
Can you imagine the luck — I went up in a tiny lift with Cardinal Bea in full canonicals preceded by two candles — so with a spluttered greeting I was able to spit in his eye for you. . . . Pug
http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/10/10/specials/waugh-cooper.html?_r=1
Presumably Norwich, a cheerleader for “progressive” reforms, would have been profoundly embarrassed by his mother’s behavior.
When I hear Catholics (or other Christians over on First Things) getting so worried about being marginalized, or ostracized, or imprisoned for their views, I always think of this little moment from Annie Hall, after Annie and Alvy have seen The Sorrow and the Pity, the 4-hour-plus documentary about Nazi Germany:
Apart from this book, I think David is right that there’s to much whining from the Catholic right,
A touch of infantilism?????
I think David is right that there is too much whining from the Catholic right.
And I think there are some segments of the Catholic left who are also overly proficient at melodramatic displays of self-pity.
Anybody who finds compares the horrors of encountering people who disagree with him/her to slavery, genocide, gulags, terrorism or lions in the Coliseum is a disgrace to the faith. IMHO.
Last evening I quoted David Smith’s digest of the issue: “That this thin review of this thin book should make the front page of their book-review section is symptomatic.”
That is the nub of the matter as far as I am concerned.
I agree with Anthony A. that one would expect someone more qualified to review a book that purports to be a historical (even if non-scholarly) study. It at the very least raises questions regarding the standards that govern the Book Review’s choice of reviewers.
But, obviously, Mr. Keller is a very intelligent man. And, unless, I misread his review, he himself finds it a “thin” book. So the further question is why did he choose/was selected to review it; and why did it receive front page trumpeting?
Analogies often limp, as my hero Poirot knows, but let me hazard one.
One of the features of “Commonweal Magazine” for which I have the highest regard, is its book review section. The reviewers are carefully chosen, and deliver a substantive reflection.
If I noticed that the editor had arrogated to himself the review of a certain book, and that, in addition, it received prominent featuring on the cover of the magazine, I think I would be entitled to assume that an important issue was at stake to which the editor felt a compelling need to take a stand.
Mutatis mutandis.
P.S. I have never written for “First Things” or “Mirror of Justice” (though I appreciate much that I find there); and so if there be an innuendo that I form part of some notorious “whining right,” I would appreciate if the charge were made straight-forwardly and not behind veiled allusions.
Sam Tanenhaus is the editor of The Book Review, and has
been for several years. (That it has not, in my estimation, flourished during those years, is not under discussion here.) Bill Keller is the (outgoing) managing editor of the News. It would surprise me if these are not two totally different bailiwicks.
The Times Literary Supplement ran a review of this book a few months ago, and Eamon Duffy gave it a poor review. (Unfortunately one has to be a subscriber to view the piece.)
How about we play a game? Let’s see who will win. I bet I can make a valid criticism of the papacy (even of Benedict XVI) but none of you will be able to make a criticism of the NYT. I just don’t get it. Can anyone say the NYT has done ANYTHING wrong or inappropriate in the last 40 years? Pius XII would be a lot better off if his apologists were only half as loyal as some of my good friends on dotCommonweal in their filial obedience for the Gray Lady.
P.S. I have never written for “First Things” or “Mirror of Justice” (though I appreciate much that I find there); and so if there be an innuendo that I form part of some notorious “whining right,” I would appreciate if the charge were made straight-forwardly and not behind veiled allusions.
Fr. Imbelli,
I should have made it clear that I was referring not to the official contributors at First Things and Mirror of Justice, but to the “little people” (like me) who comment on what the official contributors say. So I wasn’t talking about you except to say that your take on Bill Keller’s review is an “extremely small example” of what I see elsewhere—an inordinate concern that Catholicism or Christianity is threatened by enemies.
I think more likely than your scenario is that the editor of the Book Review asked Bill Keller if he’d like to review the Norwich book, Keller agreed, and wrote the review without any ulterior motive.
Thank you, Anthony, for mentioning Eamon Duffy’s review in the TLS. I was scrolling through the comments hoping that someone would call it to everyone’s attention. Just a few snippets:
“A history of the popes with most of the religion left out is a matter of some wonder.”
And: “In dealing with the modern popes, Norwich is heavily dependent on other papal histories, but he allows his opinions free rein.”
Duffy concludes that the book is “entertaining” and “tells many good stories” but “its overall effect is curiously trivializing. The papacy depicted here is in the end unintelligible,” its power over two millennia “reduced to a handful of vivid personalities and the to and fro of power politics. Anyone seeking to understand more of the inwardness of the world’s most enduring religious institution will have to look elsewhere.”
But Anthony I’m quite baffled by your comment that none of those commenting here will ever criticize the Times. I bumped into a number of criticisms in my quick scrolling. I do think that there is an unhappy reaction-counterreaction that goes on in dotCommonweal. Some high ecclesiastic attacks the Times in outlandish terms (or even a mixture of sensible and outlandish terms) and lots of people rush to the paper’s defense in reaction or embarrassment.
To put you at ease, I am quite willing to say, with better knowledge than most, that the NYT has done quite a number of things wrong in the last 40 years — and I was personally responsible for a few of them. It remains the greatest paper that I know of, and were it not for its standards and the skills of some of its editors I probably would have done a few more things wrong.
Bill Keller appears to have done an excellent job as executive editor. Having him review a history of the papacy was not one of the brightest ideas that popped into someone’s brain. Perhaps Annie Sprinkle was unavailable.
Can anyone say the NYT has done ANYTHING wrong or inappropriate in the last 40 years?
A Andreassi,
They print Maureen Dowd’s column. They were way too supportive of invading Iraq.
The Times is doing daily journalism, which I think it does extremely well, but it doesn’t lend itself to satisfying coverage of Catholicism. That is why there are Catholic publications.
I was pretty close to the core of a newsworthy event some decades ago, which was covered in the Times and in Time Magazine. Neither publication got all the details right, but they were both close enough that although I thought briefly of writing letters to the editor, it would have been a waste of time even if they had printed them. My point is that there are limits to daily journalism. As for what MoDo says, or what Bill Keller says in a book review, we’re talking about opinions of individuals.
I really don’t see the Times as anti-Catholic or ant-religious. What I think is happening is that the influence of the Catholic Church and other religious institutions that used to be very powerful is waning. As a consequence, at the Times and elsewhere in American culture (and Western culture) religion isn’t paid as much deference as it used to be, and religious people find that upsetting. The Catholic Church is much diminished from what it was 50 years ago, and it is very difficult to pin that on the New York Times.
I am a natural-born pack animal; loyalty is near the top of my list of virtues. But when Bill Keller gleefully promotes a book which ridicules the papacy and the New York clergy call foul, I experience a case of divided loyalties. Keller, after all, is a Catholic layman, albeit not a particularly devout one. Should this be considered a case of secularists against Catholics, or is it just the ontological aristocracy bashing away at an insubordinate ontological peon?
Haven’t we heard, again and again and again, that we untransubstantiated laypeople are not at all like the exalted clerical folk? Haven’t we been told that our courts are too profane to try their crimes and our money supernaturally ordained for their pockets? Don’t we have before us now an new missal, full of “We beg you, we entreat you, we beseech you, we abase ourselves before you …” with the celebrant artfully placed between the pews and the crucifix so as to intercept as much groveling as possible?
I do not feel obliged to take their part against my fellow unordained, not even my fellow Protestant or Bright unordained. My internal us-versus-them differentiator tells me the NYT is Us and the Pope, the Archbishop, Father Imbelli and Father Andreassi are Them. They that sow the wind and shall reap the whirlwind. (Hos. 8:7)
Happy Bastille Day, Fathers! (Thursday)
Peter,
thanks for the quotes from Duffy that certainly buttress the case regarding the book’s “thinness;” and thanks too for wondering about the appropriateness of the review being assigned to (requested by?) Bill Keller.
A minor demurral: you write, “Some high ecclesiastic attacks the Times in outlandish terms …”
I’m not even a Monsignor!
Remember Daniel Okrent? In his last column as public editor at the NYT he posed the question “Is the New York Times a liberal newspaper?” His response: “Of course it is.”
“These are the social issues: gay rights, gun control, abortion and environmental regulation, among others. And if you think The Times plays it down the middle on any of them, you’ve been reading the paper with your eyes closed.
. . .
“if you are among the groups The Times treats as strange objects to be examined on a laboratory slide (devout Catholics, gun owners, Orthodox Jews, Texans); if your value system wouldn’t wear well on a composite New York Times journalist, then a walk through this paper can make you feel you’re traveling in a strange and forbidding world.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/opinion/the-public-editor-is-the-new-york-times-a-liberal-newspaper.html?src=pm
The nation has become even more polarized in the years since Okrent wrote. But the number of reporters and editors at the NYT on one side of the barricades is so overwhelming that the situation he described has only gotten worse. Can anyone identify more than 5 out of the 1,000 professionals on the NYT staff who are conservative? Are there more than 25 who would vote for a Republican against Obama?
It’s not the end of the world (and no one here has claimed that) but it’s not hard to conclude that intellectual diversity isn’t very highly valued at the NYT. And I don’t expect them to hire anyone like Okrent ever again.
In general I disagree with the whole “The New York Times is anti-Catholic” trope. The Times, as Peter Steinfels, has pointed out, is a great paper that sometimes gets things wrong. This is one of those times: Having Bill Keller review a book by John Julius Norwich? Even a book reviewer on his or her first day would know that you need a scholar (or at least an expert) to review a scholar’s book. I look forward to having the Times ask me to review any upcoming books on quantum mechanics.
One thing I always enjoy in the NYT Book Review — letters to the editor from authors complaining about the choice of reviewers.
Heh.
Peter,
I was exercising a fair amount of hyperbole in that challenge/game. Please forgive me if I overreached. I too read the NYT almost everyday and find it a very worthwhile experience for the most part, and I do not see anti-Catholicism lurking on every third page or so. That said, I do grow weary at times with some people’s unthinking and doctrinaire defense of the paper no matter what and a few of them are know to lurk these precincts. (Not you, of course, Peter).
Truth be told I had had two glasses of wine before writing that post last night, so I can blame it on the demon spirits.
AA
If you google “New York Times scandal” you get about 63 million hits. At the top are links to the Jayson Blair plagiarism scandal, which eventually brought down the paper’s two top editors. The Times also reported on the story itself, on the front page, calling it “a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper.” The faithful still await such accountability and transparency from the hierarchy (i.e., a bishop going down when there’s a scandal in the diocese; honest reporting from diocesan newspapers, etc.) Without such behaviors, which have become expected behaviors in the rest of the developed world, the Church has very little standing when complaining about the treatment it gets from the secular press.
Gerelyn, those letters to the editor are so gloriously snarky! First thing I read every week.
My last comment. I promise and I quote Ken Woodward’s great article in “Commonweal”:
“I remain a dissenter in the pews of the Church of the New York Times.”
It seems here at Commonweal there is a tradition of welcoming dissent, so all is well!
Fr. Imbelli’s comment on the Keller review is on target. Does anyone seriously doubt that the Times’ coverage of the Catholic Church would become more positive if the Church were to embrace the agenda outlined by Keller at the end of his review?
Is this a revelation that the Times makes mistakes??? Do we want to become known for complaining that the NY Times does not treat the hierarchy fairly or do we want to become known for Matt: 25, 31-36. If you think the NY Times is unfair look at this from the National Catholic Reporter:
“Rather, affirmed in the recent vote is the disturbing reality that the Catholic hierarchy has lost most of its credibility with the wider culture on matters of sexuality and personal morality, just as it has lost its authority within the Catholic community on the same issues. There are reasons — and they have little to do with secularism, relativism or lingering influences of the wild 1960s — why people are no longer listening to the bishops.
While we don’t want to minimize the seriousness of the concern of some over a societal redefinition of marriage, there are reasons we think the bishops’ hyperbolic reaction to laws such as that enacted in New York are not only wrong-headed but counterproductive.
First, even if bishops retained the stature they once had in the wider culture, it is evident in polls and politicians’ votes that neither most of the Catholic world nor the wider culture buys the church’s teaching that homosexuals are disordered and are thus relegated to sexless lives in order to remain in the Christian community.”
The rest is here: http://ncronline.org/news/gay-marriage-bishops-and-crisis-leadership
Felapton said: “There is no agreed-upon definition of a “real” Catholic.”
Well, there is at least one pope who defined it for us. I’ve posted this often enough that it should be emblazoned in your mind and heart. Don’t all good Catholics listen to the popes?:
“When Pius X died, the conclave of 1914 elected Benedict XV, who immediately issued an encyclical (Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Beatissimi_Apostolorum) calling on Catholics ‘to appease dissension and strife” so that “no one should consider himself entitled to affix on those who merely do not agree with his ideas the stigma of disloyalty to faith.’
‘There is no need of adding any qualifying terms to the profession of Catholicism’ he concluded. ‘It is quite enough for each one to proclaim ‘Christian is my name and Catholic my surname’ “
David Gibson, “Who Is a Real Catholic?” The Washington Post, Sunday, May 17, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/15/AR2009051501390.html
Would the same people who claim the NYT is a great paper claim that First Things is a great journal of opinion, or does the assessment depend on one’s politics?
I saw somewhere that the NY Times is actually fourth in circulation, about 1/3 of the Wall Street Journal’s. I attribute the latter’s market dominance to the superiority of its comics section.
Ray Schroth chimes in on the “America” blog:
http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&entry_id=4377
– though without referencing the interesting discussion on this thread.
Jim–
Have to disagree with you there. The NYT has the superior comics, though for some reason they put them on the editorial pages.
I thought fr. schroth’s coments were quite similar to the balanced approach of peter here.
But i guess we had to have a few more “superior” coments from the NYT hating partisans -yawn!
Mark P – can it be that you’re not a fan of Pepper … and Salt?!