Standing in line at the supermarket the other day, my eyes fell upon the cover of the latest issue of TIME Magazine. The image on the cover was a striking one, featuring a shot from behind of the mitre-capped Holy Father. The obnoxious title of the cover story was rather elongated and clumsy: Why Popes Never Have to Ask for Forgiveness: the limits of atonement. Or something like that. It was one of those profound "ugh" moments. I thought to myself, "Is any other religion so singularly examined for public humiliation and scrutiny?" Of course not, and there's a reason. For but a second, I thought about snatching up the remaining copies in order to spare others like myself from the sheer annoyance and to shield the ignorant from the deceptive poison. The consolation of TIME's ever-dwindling circulation was mitigated somewhat by the realization that many shoppers passing through store check-out lines across America, while perhaps not purchasing the piece of journalistic flotsam and saving the three bucks, will nonetheless be drawn to it and smugly concur with the absurd assertion stated in bold on the cover.
The editors of TIME are not interested in eliciting apologies but rather in advancing an agenda; a sordid agenda that the Pope's moral authority and intellectual arsenal severely threaten and undermine. So the solution lies in destroying the man and the institution he helms. "The gates of hell..." We cannot forget that.
For the record, the Pope has absolutely nothing for which to apologize personally. Fr. Raymond J. de Souza's excellent defense of Pope Benedict clearly passed by the selective eyes of the editors of TIME, wholly unnoticed. Jay Scott Newman and George Weigel also took a wrecking ball to the spurious charges against the Pope.
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