The TV networks have weighed in on Monday's surprise resignation of Pope Benedict XVI: All he did is lurch from one scandal to another, along the way refusing to give in to liberal American Catholic urgings.
"ABC, CBS and NBC all danced the 'The Papal Reporting Two-Step': dwell on the negatives of the recent past before wondering hopefully if the Church will now finally step out of the dark ages of orthodoxy," said the conservative Media Research Center after reviewing the network stories.
In an analysis, ABC was dubbed the worst of the Big Three. Anchor Diane Sawyer, for example, suggested the pope's poor health was brought on by the "burden of what the Church has been through with the scandals." She also suggested the church had lost touch with its flock and called for "fundamental change."
Ditto at CBS, which played up the sex and other scandals in the church, and called the pope too old school to wow Americans.
Said the Center: "Since journalists seem to believe the succession to the Throne of St. Peter is something akin to a new NFL Commissioner coming in to do something about helmet safety and liberalize end zone celebration rules, they loaded the moment with their own hopes."
Media Research Center President Brent Bozell said, "The liberal media's snarling, bigoted anti-Catholicism is on full display, and ABC World News has won the race to the bottom." Upset that ABC didn't mention a single accomplishment of the pope, he added that Sawyer "and The Walt Disney Company owe 1.2 billion Catholics an apology. And she should go to Confession."
