A View From England

A view from England of Fox News . . .

“Since the presidential election, I haven’t been watching the American news channels much, I haven’t had the heart. The US appears to be about to go over something they are calling the fiscal cliff because of Obama’s triumphalistic behaviour: he won, so he’s not compromising with congressional Republicans who want much-needed public spending cuts, and he’ll blame them if they do all go over this cliff (there are, I understand, other analyses of what is happening, but I like this one best). This cliff may not seem like our business, but it is: if they do go over it, it will have a very severe effect on the American economy and therefore on everyone else’s, including ours.

Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to write about: watching, for old time’s sake, the wondrous Megyn Kelly on Fox News the other day (she comes on at the most convenient time for English observers) I came across an interview with a Fox anchor called Bill O’Reilly, who seemed like a good egg, so I had a look at his own more primetime show, The O’Reilly Factor. This, according to Wikipedia, is “the most watched cable news television program on American television”. I found, interestingly, that he is not only currently running a campaign in defence of Christmas against the atheists who want any mention of it banned in all public places and institutions, but also one more broadly in defence of Christianity itself, against the increasingly aggressive secularism more and more endemic in American culture. Inter alia, he protested last week at having to lead such a campaign himself because of the total failure of leadership in all the mainline churches. He didn’t say so, but he sounded like a Catholic to me (Wikipedia confirms this). This is what he said: “There’s a lack of will and a lack of leadership in the Christian communities generally speaking. I have to lead this campaign. The biggest sinner in the world is leading this campaign. What God’s saying is, is there anyone else who can lead this campaign? Anybody except O’Reilly? Anybody? I have to lead this campaign. We don’t get, what we’re not getting, is organised leadership from any of the churches. They just don’t engage.”

Sound familiar, dear English readers?”

William Oddie

Dr William Oddie is a leading English Catholic writer and broadcaster.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2012/12/11/why-is-there-in-the-church-on-both-sides-of-the-atlantic-such-a-failure-of-leadership-is-it-because-it-is-being-frustrated-by-bishops-conferences/