Skottlands kardinal Keith O’Brien sier i the Telegraph at han opplever en sterkt negativ holdning til kristendommen generelt og til Den katolske Kirke spesielt hos BBC, og at han frykter for hva som vil skje når pave Benedikt kommer til England og Skottland om kort tid:
Cardinal Keith O’Brien said the BBC’s news coverage is contaminated by “a radically secular and socially liberal mindset”. The Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh said the corporation’s intolerance of religion is equivalent to its “massive” political bias against the Conservatives in the 1980s.
He also accused the corporation of plotting a “hatchet job” on the Vatican in a documentary about clerical sex abuse on the eve of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Britain.
Cardinal O’Brien believes that atheists like Professor Richard Dawkins are given a disproportionate amount of airtime while mainstream Christian views are marginalised. …
He said: “This week the BBC’s director general [Mark Thompson] admitted that the corporation had displayed ‘massive bias’ in its political coverage throughout the 1980s, acknowledging the existence of an institutional political bias.”
“Our detailed research into BBC news coverage of Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular, together with a systematic analysis of output by the Catholic church, has revealed a consistent anti-Christian institutional bias.”
He added that insiders at the BBC had privately admitted that there is a cultural intolerance of Christianity at the corporation.
Jeg er personlig urolig for pavens sikkerhet siden det er uttalt at noen vil prøve å få han arrestert under besøket. Det vil bli mye bønn, tanker og håp om en god ferd for pave Benedict XVI. Måtte Gud stå han bi under hele dette oppholdet som ellers.
En kan da ikke forvente at Kirken ikke skal bli forfulgt av dem som hater henne. Bibelen er helt klar på at Kirken vil bli forfulgt. Vi må derfor be om at paven holder ut prøvelser forbundet med sitt vitnesbyrd om Vår Herre Kristus Jesus. Amen.
Vi må også huske å be for alle dem som forfølger Kristi kirke (jf. Matt 5,44 og Rom 12,14).