Dan Rather swings and misses

Demonstrating a lack of understanding of Catholic teaching, religion, doctrine, moral philosophy, and ability to understand the spoken language, Dan Rather wades into the whole condom debate.  Yeah, Dan Rather.  The one who got canned by CBS.  My guess has been he didn't get canned because in 2004 he ran with a forged document in a media blitz that was coordinated with the Democrats in an attempt to dethrone George Bush.  I've always suspected he got canned because of his embarrassing lack of knowledge of the modern social context of the Internet age he was supposed to be reporting on, and his insistence that all of this stuff about facts and evidence were small potatoes when we knew someone was guilty anyway.  Networks have this thing about being made to look that stupid.

So with that hunk of credibility under his belt, he writes this piece for the Huffington Post.  There is no way I could comment there, as the Huffpost closely censors any responses to its contributing editors.  If you are going to disagree with them, it had best be couched in the most abstract and vague language possible. 

But back to the article.  It really isn't an editorial as much as a promo piece for an HBO special Rather is doing with the help of John Allen, who the piece labels 'United States' leading Vatican watcher' (whatever that means).  But here's where I stumble going into it.  In winding up for the pitch, he gives a brief account of the recent condom controversy from Pope Benedict.  This is what he says:

An interviewer asked him casually, could he see any circumstance where the use of condoms would be preferable to the alternative? He thought for a while, and responded that perhaps it would be permitted for an HIV-positive male prostitute.

Pope Benedict did not, repeat did NOT say that.  How many times is the Vatican going to have to tell them this?  The more I hear the Vatican tell them what Pope Benedict said, and the more I hear them refuse to hear what Benedict said, the more I think of this:




Either he just doesn't understand what Pope Benedict is saying, which makes me question why I would then want to watch a special hosted by a man who obviously doesn't understand what the Pope is saying.  Or he doesn't want to understand, which brings back the same question.  Either way, this is an example of why I beseech people to never, NEVER, get their understandings of religion (as well as a host of other topics) from our media professionals.