Cardinal Newman Society Refutes Catholic News Service

Cardinal Newman Society Decries False and Misleading Catholic News Service "Attack"

MANASSAS, VA (February 8, 2006) - The Cardinal Newman Society, a national organization to strengthen and renew Catholic identity at U.S. Catholic colleges and universities, has demanded that the Catholic News Service issue a correction and apologize for a highly misleading and damaging article about the Society posted Tuesday evening.

The article’s headline (“Cardinal Newman Society head says group operates within magisterium”) and first seven paragraphs focus on the malicious allegation that the Cardinal Newman Society is “setting up a teaching authority independent of the bishops.” No facts or arguments are presented to support the allegation, and no source is identified as making such a complaint.

Catholic News Service, affiliated with the USCCB, seems to operate much the same way as the USCCB. Anyone who has read its articles for any length of time can detect the leanings of Catholic News Service. Facts seem to get it the way, at times, and it appears to lack objectivity in its reporting.

As a matter of fact, Catholic Culture (formerly PetersNet) rates the site with a Yellow Caution indicator stating:

"The site itself is filled with news and articles, but needs to be used with caution as some of the articles contain some very questionable material. A better source for national and world news affecting the Church would be Catholic World News or Zenit."

Faithful Catholics would have to agree, I believe, with this assessment. Catholic World News (CWN) is soooo much better than Catholic News Service and one will not encounter the heterdoxy on CWN that one is very likely to find at Catholic News Service. One might wonder how the bishops permit this to continue at Catholic News, but then again, we probably already know the answer as to why.

Catholic News Service has links to dissident sites, such as National Catholic Reporter and others...See Catholic Culture's report here for details.

The attack on the Cardinal Newman Society by Catholic News Service is really no surprise...it's an organization which seems to be infected with the same disease as its father, the USCCB...

See Patrick O'Reilly's rebuttal and letter here...