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Worse, it makes protestants realize their estrangement from the Catholic Church.
I think, more to the point, that what it makes many non-fundamentalist Protestants (as well as Anglicans and Orthodox) realize is their total irrelevancy in the eyes of the media.
Now, I will grant that the Roman Catholic Church is by far the largest Christian denomination, and so is going to get more media coverage by default. However, the hierarchical structure of the RCC is, by chance, tailor-made for the deficiencies of the current Corporate Media. To wit, they don't cover issues with any competence, but are great at elections and good at speeches. So, this is their great chance to cover a religious election, with lots of coverage about the positions of the "candidates" on a few hot-button issues, speculation on conflicts and who is lining up on which "side," etc., etc. All building up to a great crescendo with the reporting on "the winner" -- after which coverage will subside into the week-to-week routine of papal appearances, speeches (I mean "sermons"), and so on. Unless it has to do with a scandal, coverage of "religious issues" will be merely reporting on what the "president/prime minister/monarch" of the Church is going to do. (And I mean no disrespect to Roman Catholics by using those terms to refer to the next Pope -- merely that the media will look at Church matters through the eyes of secular politics.)
In my more cynical moods, I can't help thinking that the only way for the Protestant/Anglican wings of Christianity (i.e., the more liberal mainstream non-Roman denominations) to make an impact would be for them to join together in a "United Reformation Church" and recreate their structure to allow for a single elected individual to be in charge of the whole structure, with near-absolute powers to change things as he or she sees fit. (Maybe even the power to make infallible pronouncements?) Sure, this would go against everything those denominations have stood for for the last half-millenium or so...but the only way the Corporate Media Cartel is going to cover a denomination or group of denominations is if they tailor themselves to the CMC's laziness about religion, and given them a single absolute leader who they can check up on whenever they want to report on "what's going on in Christianity." Even better, that would mean that, anytime that leader died, they too could have an "election" that the media would be eager to cover.
:eyes:
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