One of the more curious complaints among Roman Catholics is that the msm focuses solely and exclusive upon the sex and abortion when it comes to all things Catholic, especially with regards to the Pope’s words and writings, while ignoring all the other wonderful things which the Pope says about love, grace, forgiveness and mercy and Christ’s Gospel, etc.

But behind this complaint is an implicit premise: That we can’t hear about all the other “wonderful things” outside of the Roman Church and that somehow, the Roman Church or the Pope possesses some unique insight or revelation about how to love and be merciful denied to those outside the Roman fold.

But this is patently absurd. Look at the Pope’s “wonderful” words, they are so general and vague that one can hear it from any Protestant preacher or even a non-Christian religionist. A Reformed pastor even noted that the Pope was simply espousing Lutheran theology! Behind the complaint lies a presumption and a premise that somehow, the world is inferior and in ignorance concerning works of love, mercy and compassion, and that the Roman Church alone possesses some divine revelation or insight into this denied to all outside the Roman fold, and that therefore we should greet with awe and wonder the Pope’s discussion on such topics, as if it would reveal something profound about the truth of love of which the rest of us are wholly ignorant.

But even the Romans themselves have long ceased to believe in their own distinctive love. How many of them are going to say that, yes, compared to the world outside of the Roman communion, we are superior in terms of how we practice and understand works of love and mercy, and that the rest of you are dwelling in the darkness of ignorance, practising an inferior or diminished/incomplete form of love and that therefore you should be waiting on end whenever our blessed Pontiff speaks on love and mercy because he alone has direct access to what true love is unlike the rest of you who don’t know shit and will be able to set the rest of you straight on this.

No Pope is going to say this, no official Roman official is going to affirm any of this, that both their practice and knowledge of love is superior to the rest of us, which warrants some special attention on their teaching on love and mercy, etc.

In short, there is simply nothing distinctively Roman about their teaching on love, mercy and grace, etc. Such teachings could be heard anywhere and in any Protestant denomination, and even other religions and secular ethics and morality, there is nothing special about what the Pope has to say on those topics. And if there is indeed nothing distinctive or special about his teachings, why should the world bother to report what everyone else already knows? On what is “not news” at all?

But what the Romans are distinctively known for is their persistent resistance against abortion and liberal sexual morality, etc. This is news and a distinctive mark of the Roman Catholicism, and it is only natural that the msm would indeed focus upon changes in what defines Roman Catholicism rather than in what isn’t really distinctive of them.