(Crisis Magazine) Monsignor
Ronald Knox, probably the most inspired preacher and apologist of the
twentieth century, wrote an essay in 1928 satirizing some skeptical
Biblical literary critics, in which he used their methods to “prove”
that the real author of Tennyson’s
In Memoriam was Queen Victoria.
Many who doubt the plausibility of the Scriptures are gullible about
hoaxes. I don’t just mean the rabbit with antelope horns called a
jackalope. There was the Cardiff Giant of 1869 promoted by P.T. Barnum,
and John Payne Collier’s forgery of Shakespeare letters. Some pretended
to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, and far earlier was the hoax of a
lady pontiff named Pope Joan. The New York Zoo hoax of 1874 convinced
many that animals had escaped. Henry Ford promoted the “Protocols of
the Elders of Zion.” While it is not certain that Teilhard de Chardin
was one of the perpetrators of the Piltdown Man ruse in 1913, Stephen
Jay Gould was convinced that he was a principle player in fabricating
the so-called Eoanthropus. There were aliens landing in Roswell, New
Mexico in 1947, and the Balloon Boy hoax in 2009. The
Da Vinci Code
claimed an albino monk hid corpses nearby on 34th Street. I confess
that I keep a warm spot in my heart for the Loch Ness Monster, which
also intrigued Pope Pius XII who discussed it with the above-mentioned
Monsignor Ronald Knox. Unfortunately, Nessie’s primary witness was an
English vicar, and such testimony is not potent in courts of law. And
let us not forget the many pious but parochial Catholics headed for the
hills with packaged rations during the Y2K scare at the start of the
Third Millennium.
Hoaxes gain credibility when they use respected sources. In 1938, Orson Welles’ adaptation of H.G. Wells’
War of the Worlds
convinced thousands because it was broadcast on radio. Monsignor
Knox did something similar on the sacrosanct BBC in 1926 with his
amusing “Broadcast from the Barricades” which reported the toppling of
Big Ben, by trench mortars and the torching of the lynching of a cabinet
minister. That may actually have stirred up the devil in Welles.
People today are inclined to believe hoaxes because they are mentioned
witlessly in the mainstream media.
In 2002
The New York Times spent a lot of printer’s ink on a bogus ossuary reputed to be that of a “brother” of Christ. The “Times” as well as the
Washington Post
featured this on their front pages, although neither journal gives such
publicity to huge events such as the annual Pro-Life gathering in the
nation’s capital. Recently
the same journal announced
on its front page the discovery of a fourth century parchment
translating a second century Greek text, claiming that there was a Mrs.
Jesus. Shortly thereafter, the parchment was judged a forgery by Coptic
experts. If a correction ever appears, it will be in fine print back in
the shipping news section. Or at least on page 8 which is where, in
the same week,
The New York Times reluctantly reported Pope
Benedict’s Mass for 350,000 in Lebanon—an event that astonished nearly
everyone except our mainstream media.
As
The New York Times generally gives the impression that
anyone who takes the Scriptures seriously is archaic and arcane, there
is an inconsistency in that newspaper’s affectation of interest in the
Christology dormant in Abysinnian paleography. Since journalists often
invoke pretentious scholarship to challenge the authenticity of the
Shroud of Turin and the Tilma of Guadalupe, the question begged is, “Why
do these people suddenly become so credulous about phenomena that
contradict Christian inspiration?” The answer speaks for itself.
The New York Times
would be delighted to find that Christ did not radically contradict the
norms of His age by forsaking all else and calling others to do the
same as a proclamation of the Mystical Union between Christ as
Bridegroom and the Church as Bride: “Let us rejoice and exult and give
him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has
made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine
linen, bright and pure—for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the
saints. And the angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who are
invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ And he said to me, ‘These
are the true words of God’ (Rev. 19:7-9).” But these are not the words
of
The New York Times whose editors do not include the Good
News among “all the news that’s fit to print,” and whose inverted
anthropology prefers to give frequent and gushing coverage in its
“Styles” section to ceremonies uniting bridegrooms with bridegrooms and
brides with brides.
Those branches of the media which of late have become flamboyant
propagandists of state policies, should, but obviously do not, take the
counsel of St. Paul, who probably would be fired after his first day at
work as an editor of
The New York Times: “I say again what we
have said before: If anyone preaches any gospel other than that which
you received, let him be anathema (Galatians 1:9).”
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