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WORLD YOUTH DAY 2011 SAINTS
POSTED BY SMART HO ON THURSDAY, 18 AUGUST, 2011, 9:44 PM

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It did not once mention World Youth Day, the extraordinary global Catholic gathering that the pope is also visiting. That has brought something like 1.5 million young people from around the world to the Spanish capital to greet him. ... Share |

WORLD YOUTH DAY 2011 SAINTS

POSTED BY SMART HO ON THURSDAY, 18 AUGUST, 2011, 9:44 PM

If I were a Catholic, I would be feeling rather pissed off with the BBC. The news bulletin in this morning's Today programme carried an report of the pope's visit to Madrid that concentrated entirely on the "thousands" of protestors against the visit. It did not once mention World Youth Day, the extraordinary global Catholic gathering that the pope is also visiting. That has brought something like 1.5 million young people from around the world to the Spanish capital to greet him. Whether or not you approve of this, it is important and above all newsworthy simply because it is unexpected and goes against the grain of what the media tell us. So why is it not reported?

One might think this is an instance of consciously anti-Catholic bias and perhaps it is. But I doubt that. In many dealings with BBC radio I have only come across one producer who fitted the Daily Mail stereotype of someone actively biased . I suspect it isn't rooted in theological animus, but something far more cultural. The kind of young people who go on organised pilgrimages to greet the pope are not the kind of people most journalists want to become, or have been. They are quintessentially unfashionable.

Journalists are almost inevitably sensitive to fashion in ideas, in part because their own fates and careers depend so heavily on it. The ability to sense what people are interested in right now is a skill highly valued in the trade. At the same time, the desire to be one of the inner ring, to know things that other people do not, and to be wafted to the front of any queue, is powerful in us, not least because it is doomed to be unsatisfied. In the last analysis the people who know what's going on are those who have the power to change it, and very few journalists ever get that.

"Pope Benedict XVI arrived in the Spanish capital on Thursday to take part in World Youth Day celebrations. But his presence in Madrid, and in particular the taxpayer-funded price tag of the visit, has stirred much anger in a country mired in the economic doldrums.

"Around 5,000 people turned out on Madrid's streets late Wednesday to protest the pope's arrival for the six-day youth festival. The demonstrators included members of secularist, feminist, gay and lesbian, alternative Christian and leftist groups."

Of course this demonstration is news. But the ability of mainstream Christianity to attract a crowd of

1.5 million young people seems to me a damn sight more newsworthy, since we expect people to protest against the pope, and we do not expect them to turn out in large numbers to support or see him.

Numbers don't prove truth, of course. But they are measures of commitment, and of political importance. Three hundred times as many people have travelled to Madrid to see the pope as have travelled to protests against him. Which group is more important to know about?

18 August 2011 2:21PM99% of people working in the media want to be hip and edgy,but being hip and edgy is old hat now,they are not living in the fifties,and being hip and edgy is really all about being obsessed with what others think of you.As they get older it will dawn on them that other people arent thinking about them at all.

18 August 2011 2:22PMPeople behaving as they have been culturally indoctrinated to do is not news. People rebelling against their cultural indoctrination is news. To juxtapose: "1 million Mulsims attend Hajj" is not news. "5 thousand Muslims protest Hajj" would be news.

Exactly! Nicely put. And you'd think after the riots here the fact that 1.5 million kids are on the streets of Madrid doing something peaceful might deserve attention.

And for all its merits The Guardian is more tyrannized by the Cool Police than any other publication. So tyrannized that many reporters have internalized the critique and self-police.

Since a large part of being cool means having streed cred, and since street cred involves acting tough and invulnerable, it may be that the riots--an extreme manifestation of the relevant traits--will tilt culture away from its cool obsession.

18 August 2011 2:24PMwe expect people to protest against the pope, and we do not expect them to turn out in large numbers to support or see him.

But I take your point that there is something biased about reporting only the protests and not the huge numbers who turned out in support.

18 August 2011 2:28PMPeople are rightly fed up with the sexism and the hatred against gays bordering on evil that the Pope and the catholic church preach.

Most readers of the Guardian and most listeners to the BBC at the moment find the idea of a pilgrimage to met the pope difficult to understand, because they would never undertake one themselves.

Perhaps we could do with some Christian ethics, as much among tea-partyers as among youth on our streets, bankers, politicians, and murdochs.

Repeat and multiply this one example a hundred times, a thousand time, every day, every year and we start to see where the rioters got one of the sub-conscience examples they follow - challenge authority / establishment, latest runner/trainer/mobile-phones are desirable than going to church but you need money to get them and they have no money.

How much of what's reported and NOT reported are politically driven? Perhaps the Pope is not towing the line of what some people would like to draw for him and the Catholic church???

Of course, if you believe that the main purpose of sex is procreation, then I guess you will think gays are misguided. But that doesn't mean you hate them.

18 August 2011 2:32PMThree hundred times as many people have travelled to Madrid to see the pope as have travelled to protests against him. Which group is more important to know about?

I know which way one is supposed to respond to your rhetorical question, but without drawing any parallel with the Pope in Madrid, let me pose another rhetorical question that makes your implicit point not al all as self-evident as you imagine:

Three hundred times as many people have traveled to Moscow to see and honor the Czar as have traveled to protest against him; the small group of protesters, including someone named Lenin, couldn't be all that important.

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18 August 2011 2:39PMStrong youth turn out perhaps suggests my generation seeking stability

lost in turbulent times. Culture e.g. fashion trends or the rise of the Tea Party. Be interesting to see the make-up of the 1.

"Pope goes to catholic country, quite a lot turn up to protest" is something new and different, so it makes the news. A new development beats a repeat as a news story any day of the week.

It is very simple; the non cool people are willfully ignorant hypocrites, [an embarrassment to humanity] and the people protesting are intelligent and courageous and RIGHT, therefore worthy of comment.

I remember when the Pope visited the country last year, the mainstream media, including the BBC, had their noses so high up the Pope's backside, it was ridiculous.

18 August 2011 2:44PMThat's one and a half million people who've got it all wrong. They don't need to follow him. They don't need to follow anybody. They've got to think for themselves. They're all individuals. They're all different. They've all got to work it out for themselves. They shouldn't let anyone tell them what to do...

18 August 2011 2:46PMNo, Andrew. This is not about 1.5 million "Young Catholics attending" a superstitious jamboree headed by a childhood member of the Hitler Youth; it' s about 1.5 million gullible superstitious maniacs getting a free ride at the expense of the Spanish taxpayer.

the key question they throw up is why participants identify with the authority rather than with the victim, and hence are willing to follow him down the destructive path he sketches out.

18 August 2011 2:52PMN- the millons of people is not a story, thats just normal for a pope visit anywhere, and is not news. That is normal for a pope visit and is not informing the public of anything they didn't know before.

The story, the news, is that money's being spent on ths and there is widespread opposition. However, if you look at the royal wedding, they couldn't get enough....

18 August 2011 2:54PMThis comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.

"N- the millons of people is not a story, thats just normal for a pope visit anywhere, and is not news. That is normal for a pope visit and is not informing the public of anything they didn't know before.

The story, the news, is that money's being spent on ths and there is widespread opposition. However, if you look at the royal wedding, they couldn't get enough...."

Some pathetic idiots are pissed at the Pope and want to restrict his freedom of speech. That's not news. That happens at every Papal visit - see Dawkins et al humiliating failure in Sept 2010.

18 August 2011 2:56PMIt would be interesting to see what he said, on occasions when he spoke. But I suspect what a catholic worker might say would more engage with the youth intellectually, since they have firsthand experience of the problems. The youth are however engaging in a kind of hero-worship that is peculiarly catholic, so the fervour is genuine, and he isn't a bad guy for people's fervour to focus on. For the non-catholic it's a kind of celebrity thing, which has some surface interest, but we don't have the devotion towards him that the catholic faithful do. So I think we can't share in the event and it isn't very significant for us.

18 August 2011 2:58PMI do find it kind of amusing that the unpaid commentators here are queuing up to tell the paid journalist about the first rule of journalism: http://en.wikipedia.

Would be interesting to see the reaction here if one and half million ant-Pope protesters gathered and were ignored by the BBC who instead covered several thousand supporters of the Pope. (But a rather unlikely scenario).

Vatican responses to the numerous abuse scandals, and decades of subsequent (and confirmed) cover-ups means that victims suffer twice at the hands of THEIR church.

Doing the same in the Western democracies is offensive and deeply insulting. It's also psychologically damaging to Catholics who just happen to be born gay.

Spain has moved away from an oppressive, religious, medieval, almost-theocracy, and what we are seeing is people acknowledging that new-found freedom.

The fact that 1.5 million youngsters who were indoctrinated into a repressive ancient mythology turn up to confirm that childhood indoctrination - isn't.

18 August 2011 3:01PMIn one sense it is news as the Pope doesn't go to Spain very often and there isn't often a World Youth day. It does raise the suspicion that being thought of trying to be good, they are automatically boring and not worthy of notice (not that they'd care).

They've got to think for themselves. They're all individuals. They're all different. They've all got to work it out for themselves. They shouldn't let anyone tell them what to do...

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18 August 2011 3:07PMHow true! The Guardian has spent the last eight years insisting that the Iraq war was wrong, not for the many reasons that it was but because (ad nauseum) "a million people marched in London against it." By extension of this logic, the paper should now be arguing that we are all obliged to be come Catholics, and quite possibly Youths as well.

18 August 2011 3:08PMI wonder if the Borgias, the Original Crime Family is on TV in Spain yet. Mind, if any folks have ever visited art museums and checked out horrific paintings based on the theme of Inquisition, then how is it possible to be an observer of atrocities and not a doer?

Even if one thinks the purpose of sex is procreation I don't see how that would lead to one thinking that gay people are misguided, unless of course one most ignorantly under the impression that ones sexual orientation is a choice.

Intellectually cowardly and completely disingenuous reasoning. Intelligent people oppose the Pope visiting anywhere because of the obvious absurdity and repellant hypocrisy of his 'teachings', you know condemning the loving union of two same sex people as being 'evil whilst covering up the systematic rape of children. Preaching the 'virtue of poverty form Vatican City FFS! and so on. All apologists for this unpleasant nonsense should be ashamed of themselves.

In his book Bad Thoughts Jamie Whyte writes about these kind of statements. The difficulty comes from the way that lots of 'christians' behave in rather 'unchristian' ways, which confuses us all as to what 'christian' means.

18 August 2011 3:09PMSo sick of Christians complaining that they're not as popular as they used to be. You owned the Western world for 2000 years; people woke up to how ridiculous your dogma is!

18 August 2011 3:10PMThis comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.

18 August 2011 3:10PMThis comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.

"Intellectually cowardly and completely disingenuous reasoning. Intelligent people oppose the Pope visiting anywhere because of the obvious absurdity and repellant hypocrisy of his 'teachings', you know condemning the loving union of two same sex people as being 'evil whilst covering up the systematic rape of children. Preaching the 'virtue of poverty form Vatican City FFS! and so on. All apologists for this unpleasant nonsense should be ashamed of themselves."

18 August 2011 3:12PMI was struck, in the photos I saw, by the contrast between the , on the whole happy looking pilgrims and the hate filled protesters.

This reverse discrimination nonsense has gone far enough. No one is trying to stop Christians from freely practising their religion and freedom of speech.

18 August 2011 3:12PMThis comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.

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This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 14.10 BST on Thursday 18 August 2011. It was last modified at 14.11 BST on Thursday 18 August 2011. Share |

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