Thinking Anglicans

Equality Bill: last week's Tablet articles

Last week’s issue of The Tablet had several articles on this subject, including:

Elena Curti Parliament in his sights – The Pope and the Equality Bill

An editorial: Deepest Human desire

and an article by Clifford Longley reproduced here below the fold, with the express permission of the editor.

Clifford Longley’s column from The Tablet dated 6 February 2010.

‘If something said by the Pope can be fitted by the media into one of its templates, it will be’

The Catholic Church, with Pope Benedict at the centre, was engulfed in a firestorm of mostly hostile media attention starting on Monday night. And the embers will not die quickly. There is every prospect that the papal visit in September will turn into one long shouting match of the same kind, with truth the first casualty.

I became aware of the spin that was developing when a correspondent rang me for my reaction to the Pope’s address to the bishops of England and Wales during their ad limina visit to the Holy See. Was it, the correspondent asked, an attack on the Equality Bill now going before Parliament, as people were saying? I said it was almost certainly about the gay adoption issue, because it criticised legislation already in effect, not legislation still under debate.

But this news desk wanted it to be about the Equality Bill whether it was or not. By evening, most of the rest of the media had joined in, with the BBC excitedly calling it an “unprecedented intervention” in British politics by the Pope. (Never mind that the Vatican called the invasion of Iraq a “crime against peace”.) Given the way the media herd-instinct operates and newspapers and the broadcasters follow each other’s lead, this quickly became the received view.

By the time the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, was being interviewed from Rome by John Humphrys of the BBC’s Today programme next morning, the trap was set. “This is the Pope getting involved in our politics, isn’t it?” he asked Archbishop Nichols. The “this” of the question obviously referred to the current Equality Bill furore in the morning’s papers; the “this” of the archbishop’s answer, however, was the well-known Catholic complaint about Catholic adoption agencies being squeezed out of business by the Sexual Orientation Equality Regulations, three years ago. As the archbishop knew, the Pope’s words were clearly about past legislation, not future. After praising British commitment to equality in general, the Pope had added: “The effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this
goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs.” Which the bishops have said many times, and apart from the word “unjust”, was a purely factual statement.

I later asked the correspondent who had rung me why the false interpretation had persisted beyond the point at which it had been realised, and the reply was: “As you know, sometimes newspapers are afraid to be a lone voice.” I have to say that by next day, leaving aside the obsession with the Equality Bill, that paper had got it more or less right – although one has to ask, without the Equality Bill angle, whether there was much of a story there anyway. “Pope endorses bishops’ stand over gay adoption” wasn’t going to set the world alight. But for ever and a day, people will believe that the Pope had joined the debate over legislation before Parliament, and they also believe this was in some way unprecedented and, with reference to John Humphrys, utterly improper.

“Houston, we have a problem.” The wheels haven’t yet fallen off the papal visit, but there is a warning here. This incident tells us quite a lot about the secular media’s willingness to twist the facts to create a story. It also tells us about the sensitivity of public opinion, or a certain section of it. On the right, of course, this papal “intervention in British politics” was wholly welcome.

But we should probe more deeply. News reporting works by templates. If something said by the Pope can be fitted into one of the media’s favourite current templates, it will be shaped for that purpose. The template here is about religion, and Catholicism in particular, as an anti-progressive force in society. So even if the Pope didn’t mean to attack the Equality Bill, the “greater truth” served by this type of news reporting was that he would have done if he’d thought of it. And never mind that he was speaking carefully, defending the Church’s religious freedom while praising the British tradition of freedom of speech, and indeed, of promoting equality. He was deemed to be trampling all over gay rights in general, not to mention parliamentary sovereignty.

It would be dangerous to assume that the papal visit will be conducted against a media background that is benign. What the Catholic Church needs is a sophisticated rapid-rebuttal unit that knows the way the media thinks, and that can intervene to put out media fires before they take hold. Sometimes spin-doctoring is a necessary evil.

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Rev L Roberts
Rev L Roberts
14 years ago

Not too keen on Elena Curti’s tone.She seems to imply we should keep quiet in the face of Joseph Ratzinger’s criticisms. We are ‘secularists and gay groups’– anything wrong with that ? Implied : Yes, but why is only hinted at hinted at– if only Ratzinger would stick to hinting instead of SHOUTING so.

Not all who protest at Razinger are secularits or gay though.

EC seems to think we have the temerity to question her denominational head. What cheek. Whereas I think she has a cheek impling we are ‘anti-catholic'(sic)’ !

Rev L Roberts
Rev L Roberts
14 years ago

‘Aggressively secularist groups like the National Secular Society seized on the incident to whip up support for their campaign against Pope Benedict’s visit to Britain in September, which his address was mainly about. But the larger jury, the British public, will not yet have made up its mind and can still be persuaded either way. That is why the Church must take seriously, and ponder deeply, the underlying reasons for this week’s furore. It is a pity the bishops missed it.’ And the Tablet is supposed to be the liberal voice of the RC denomination ! Heaven help us all… Read more »

Rev L Roberts
Rev L Roberts
14 years ago

‘The Catholic Church (sic), with Pope Benedict at the centre, was engulfed in a firestorm of mostly hostile media attention starting on Monday night. And the embers will not die quickly. There is every prospect that the papal visit in September will turn into one long shouting match of the same kind, with truth the first casualty.’ Clifford Longley So badly done by. Such injured innocence. But hardly ‘the Catholic Church’ though –only the RC denomination –which takes too much upon itself as usual. We hardly need templates they do it all by themselves. I don’;t often say this, but… Read more »

drdanfee
drdanfee
14 years ago

Interesting reads, these bits, especially from a defensive RC angle. Yet, alas, insufficient to offer resolution or a common sense way forward, let alone an intellectually respectable way forward – properly, on the presenting hot button controversies about queer folks, and related. The first opening is supposed to be some neat, able distinction between official RC doctrine which grandly preaches entirely flat earth notions of queer folks as nothing but disturbed-pornographically sexual people – no pairbonding there, or have I misread? Then tries to sometimes go on quite differently, as if to offer some pastoral RC bending of these same… Read more »

Chris Smith
Chris Smith
14 years ago

It is important to remember that the far right reactionary elements that succeeded in seizing Vatican power in the autumn of 1978 with the election of John Paul II, moved much further to the right when Joseph Ratzinger became Bishop of Rome. We are dealing with backward thinking people here. There is a meanness that becomes most clear when it comes to women’s ordination and equality and the treatment of homosexual people. The more the Vatican Spin Machine tries to stir up animosity against these two groups, the more they fail to win over the vast majority of Roman Catholics… Read more »

Robert Ian williams
Robert Ian williams
14 years ago

The sad thing is that unlike the spirit of generosity on this site, The Tablet will not allow a fair hearing of those opposed to their views. May Thinking Anglicans never sink to that depth and thanks for your tolerance.

Rev L Roberts
Rev L Roberts
14 years ago

You have written something with which I can agree !

‘The sad thing is that unlike the spirit of generosity on this site, The Tablet will not allow a fair hearing of those opposed to their views. May Thinking Anglicans never sink to that depth and thanks for your tolerance.’

Posted by: Robert Ian williams on Saturday, 13 February 2010 at 3:12pm GMT

May your sincere prayer ever be answered.

Father Ron Smith
14 years ago

“Tablet will not allow a fair hearing of those opposed to their views” – Robert I. Williams – On the contrary Robert. I find the TABLET far more tolerant of different views than the Church of England Newspaper, for instance, or the Tablet’s rival Catholic newspaper in the UK. Perhaps it takes an Anglican Catholic like me to appreciate the Tablet’s generally liberal take on Anglican initiatives towards the inclusivity of women and gays in the Church. Furthermore, I find it’s critical approach to Vatican politics quite refreshing – and perhaps more realistic than the usual apologetics for the ‘Magisterium’.… Read more »

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