I have said it before and I will say it again: The media’s three greatest blind spots are firearms, faith, and abortion. The ignorance of journalists on these matters seems to be ever-expanding.
The following story, which was flagged first by the New York Post’s Sohrab Ahmari and then explained in much greater detail by the Washington Free Beacon’s Alex Griswold, is about religious illiteracy at the New York Times.
On Monday, as Notre Dame Cathedral was ablaze, Paris Fire Department chaplain Rev. Jean-Marc Fournier braved the flames to rescue both a famed relic as well as consecrated hosts intended for Holy Communion. These hosts are known more commonly as the “Blessed Sacrament” or the “body of Christ.”
An on-the-ground reporter claimed Monday that Fournier saved “the crown of thorns and the Blessed Sacrament.” The chaplain is also quoted by CNN as saying, “The police took the crown and I took the holy sacrament [the wafers, or body of Christ].” Additional footage shows Fournier recounting how he saved the crown and the sacraments, according to Griswold.
To be clear, Fournier, CNN, and the French reporter all tell a story wherein the chaplain rescued the crown of thorns and the Blessed Sacrament. Nothing else. Now, here is how the New York Times initially recounted that story on Wednesday with direct quotes from Fournier [emphasis mine]:
[…]
As the chaplain began removing a statue of Jesus, he said, his colleagues were fighting the fire from the cathedral’s towers. The flames had started to threaten the wooden structure around the belfry — putting the whole cathedral at even greater risk.
With the statue in hand, Father Fournier, alone in the nave, gave a benediction to the cathedral, he said.
[…]
As for Father Fournier, he said he hoped to hold that statue of Jesus again soon. “Preferably in a safe place,” he said. “One that has a roof.”
What is this statue business? No one, not even Fournier, has mentioned anything about a statue in any other report.
Oh, wait. Oh, no.
The Times reporter, Elian Peltier, almost certainly heard Fournier say “body of Christ” and thought he meant something like a statue. This is the only possible explanation for how a story about a relic and the “body of Christ” became a story about a relic and a “statue of Jesus.” What is worse is that this does not seem to be an issue of “lost in translation.” Peltier appears to be fluent in French. That means the Times really assigned the biggest story in the Catholic world to a person who appears to be totally unfamiliar with the basic language of the defining sacrament of Catholicism.
For what is it worth, a correction has by now been added to the Times report, which reads, “An earlier version of this article misidentified one of two objects recovered from Notre-Dame by the Rev. Jean-Marc Fournier. It was the Blessed Sacrament, not a statue of Jesus.”
This is the best example of religious illiteracy at a major newsroom since the time NPR incorrectly described Easter as “the day celebrating the idea that Jesus did not die and go to hell or purgatory or anywhere at all, but rather arose into heaven.”
Misidentifying the “body of Christ” as a little statue of Jesus is almost as funny as when the Times claimed the late St. John Paul II was laid in repose in the papal palace with a “crow’s ear” tucked under his left arm. The Times, of course, meant “crosier,” the hooked staff used by shepherds. A “crow’s ear” is not a real thing, not in Roman Catholicism or anywhere else I know of.
It would be one thing for the Times to bungle some esoteric detail regarding the minutia of Catholic theology. But apparently not knowing that the “body of Christ” is in reference to consecrated hosts, which embody the most fundamental belief of a religion practiced by an estimated 1.3 billion people, is embarrassing and borderline inexcusable.
