UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald
Channel Four’s latest documentary on the Vatican presents the Church as the scarlet woman of ancient propaganda
By FRANCIS PHILLIPS on Wednesday, 26 March 2014
If you put together the words “Secrets”, “Vatican” and “Channel 4”, what do you get? A late night programme heavy on “crime, corruption and cover-ups” as the narrator put it, in which any attempt at objectivity has largely gone out the window. For an hour last night viewers were treated to shots of the majestic interior of St Peter’s and flash pictures of Pope Emeritus Benedict, wearing red vestments, processing wearily down a long corridor, flanked by a posse of senior churchmen. Naturally enough, the subliminal message of this “docudrama” was the Church as the scarlet woman of ancient propaganda, flaunting her pomp and power like a Renaissance court.
Channel 4 built its investigation around three main indictments: the paedophile sex abuse scandal in the Church, in which it focused on the record of the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Fr Marcial Maciel; homosexual behaviour among Vatican clergy; and the activities of the Vatican Bank. Of the first, it is worth pointing out that the scandal was real enough – the secret double life of a man publicly revered, who was also unfortunately trusted by the late Pope John Paul II – but it is not a new story. As soon as he was elected pope in 2005, Benedict XVI investigated the rumours of scandal surrounding Maciel and as a result ordered him to “embrace a life of prayer and penance”. Channel 4 thought this was letting Maciel off the hook. Actually his fall from grace and public punishment was absolute and the Order he began has been struggling to cope with its founder’s heavy shadow ever since.
Although the programme showed that in this case the Pope acted swiftly to sort out an appalling scandal when he had the power to do so, it did not commend the Church for putting its house in order. It was keen to move on to its second charge: that the Vatican’s personnel is rife with homosexuality. This was the weakest link in Channel 4’s case. It seemed to be based on a single, undercover, rather blurred and grainy film taken at a gay night club in Rome in which we were informed that “half the people at the party were priests.” Unlike the Maciel case no hard evidence was produced; just unsubstantiated insinuations, allegations and sweeping statements such as “many bishops and archbishops are gay” of the kind that would appeal to an evening audience of hostile Rome-bashers.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.