Tag: nyt

Party of the Kingdom of Heaven

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An excerpt from Kathryn Harrison’s op-ed in the New York Times on Friday about Joan of Arc, the subject of Harrison’s forthcoming biography:

Like all holy figures whose earthly existence separates them from the broad mass of humanity, a saint is a story, and Joan of Arc’s is like no other.

The self-proclaimed agent of God’s will, she wasn’t immortalized so much as she entered the collective imagination as a living myth. Centuries after death, she has been embraced by Christians, feminists, French nationalists, Mexican revolutionaries and even hairdressers. (Her crude cut inspired the bob flappers wore as a symbol of independence from patriarchal strictures.) Her voices have been diagnosed retroactively as symptoms of schizophrenia, epilepsy, even tuberculosis. It seems Joan of Arc will never be laid to rest. Is this because stories we understand are stories we forget?

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Smear the Pope

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Diane Winston, Knight Chair in Media and Religion at USC and friend of The Revealer, writes at her blog, The Scoop, about criticism The New York Times has received for it’s recent story about Pope Benedict‘s role in covering up sexual abuse in the church:

Critics complain that the Times is out to get the Church and Pope Benedict, in particular. They cite theological inaccuracies, historical misunderstandings and editorial intimations to justify their stance. But they miss the forest for the trees. The intricacies of priestly ordination, Vatican law and institutional preservation are important to the story, but they’re not the point. The point is the church’s choice: opting to safeguard the institution, its priests and reputation at the expense of children and families. The Times is, as any news outlet should be, interested in making sense of this decision and, of course, grabbing readers’ attention.

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