Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Friday October 17, 2003
Philip Pullella
A statement issued by the bishops, who are currently in Rome, was made even more forceful because it was issued through the Vatican press office.
It said the BBC's reputation for fairness and objectivity was proving to be "increasingly tarnished" and that there were "elements within the BBC" who were hostile to religion.
The statement, very blunt by Church and Vatican standards, specifically attacked two recent programs, "Sex and the Holy City" Panorama program aired on October 12, and a Kenyon Confronts program broadcast on October 15.
It said the Panorama program had asserted that while Pope John Paul preaches peace and life, his teachings and the actions of the Catholic Church in opposing abortion and contraception bring about widespread poverty and death.
The Panorama program said the lives of Roman Catholics in some of the countries worst hit by HIV/AIDS are being put at even greater risk by advice from their churches that the use of condoms does not prevent transmission of the disease.
"The main argument of the program...cannot be sustained," the statement said.
It said that while it did contain some "significant disclosures," the Kenyon Confronts program on pedophilia by priests included "contentious and biased reporting of the Church's actions, both past and present."
It said the pedophilia program "regrettably persisted in using a single, uncorroborated source of proven unreliability as the basis for serious allegations against the Church."
The two programs were "biased against and hostile to the Catholic Church" and had "given offence to many Catholics," the statement said.
"In England and Wales there is considerable concern that elements within the BBC are simply hostile to religious belief and to any traditional sense of the sacred," it added.
The bishops said the BBC had shown a "distressing sign of insensitivity" by running the programs the same week as Catholics throughout the world were marking the pope's 25th anniversary and preparing for this Sunday's beatification of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
"It contributes to a further loss in the trust of many in the BBC as a public service broadcaster," they said.
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