JOURNALISTIC TEACHING.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 140, 7 January 1876, Page 15

JOURNALISTIC TEACHING.

Pebsons who take newspapers for their guides — it is manifest that no Catholic can do this — appear unconscious that those newspapers are written mainly to please them, to trap them by pandering to their tastes. It is a happy thing that no Catholic cares one straw what any newspaper may " teach " about religion ; for when he wants to be instructed on such topics he consults authorities of a very different kind. But this is not the case with non-Catholics. With them the opinion of a leading journal, on some point of doctrine or devotion, may have parallel weight with the opinion of a Bishop j indeed in most cases considerably more weight. A leading journal will castigate a Bishop when his teaching is not strictly editorial j and whole " Churches " will be anathematised, or will be set right by the gifted theologians of the staff. It is just here that the real influence of newspapers becomes so incomparably important. For persons who have no authority to guide them more secure than the staff of a leading journal the certainty that the staff will write to please them is the certainty that they will be sometimes misled.

It is no imputation against journalists to say this ; for they, like their readers, are compelled to shape doctrines according to the popular bent. The popular bent is sole teacher. Somebody must decide about doctrines ; and as the newspapers cannot do so, and their readers cannot do so, the best way is to divide the imperium. Still, immense responsibility rests with those journalists, who, taking the teaching into their own hands, lay down the law insecurely. Sheridan says in his comedy of the Critic, that the number of persons who think for themselves is very limited indeed; and he makes " Puff " build an argument on this fact, to the effect that it •was his task to lead others. Journalists take much the same view. Keligion is a requisite of society ; non-Catholics have no accepted teachers ; so the " Puffs " of our newspapers may as well do the teaching as any one else who is less qualified. The chief fallacy of the arrangement is this, that these journalists will speak with authority, whereas they have no authority at all. If they began every article, "we are probably wrong, because we have no authority but our own," no exception could be taken to their " ministry ;" instead of which they imply that they are certainly right; and most readers take them courteously at their word. There are thousands of non-Catholics in this country, perhaps millions, who not only take a newspaper for their "fifth gospel," but who look to it to interpret the other four. " I take in such a paper " means that the trustful subscriber adopts that paper's views for his own. He believes all that paper may tell him. The little weekly tirade against " Popery " becomes his intellectual pabulum for seven days ; while he lives and dies in serene disregard of all that is said by other "weeklies." It may be affirmed that a .great many non-Catholics adopt religion like a family crest ; their fathers " took " an organ before them, and they take it as an old family friend. " Priest-ridden "is a participle which is applied to those Catholics who chiefly learn from their priests ; but "paperridden " would be certainly as applicable to masses of half educated sectaries. Now, to a Catkolic it is of comparatively little importance whether he reads one Catholic paper or another ; all Catholic journalists believe exactly the same doctrines, though they may be amiably at war upon politics. But non-Catholic newspapers are as various in theology as the inhabitants of any one English parish ; so that it is really a serious matter which "organ of party" a nonCatholic habitually reads. He may be led further from the Church, or led nearer to the Church, according to the weekly misrepresentation. We should say it is a duty of every one who is not a Catholic — just as it is certainly common sense — to read habitually a Catholic newspaper ; for since non-Catholic newspapers cannot agree in their Protestantism it is quite certain they must misrepresent the Church.—' Tablet.'