Thoughts On TIME's Fallible Headline

In a recent issue of TIME magazine, the editors of that periodical chose this headline for its cover story: "Why Being Pope Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry." In the wake of that apparently bland article, one writer asked why the editors would have used such a headline; he was perplexed by the whole of that headline, and you can read his thoughts here.

Here's the comment I left in response to his query:

I have not read all the comments here; I have not read the TIME magazine article in question. But please permit me to express what I felt when I first saw the headline when I spotted this particular issue of TIME on the newsstand.

It’s simple. The editors of TIME are exploiting a wild misunderstanding about papal infallibility. The common belief is that the Church teaches the Pope is intrinsically infallible in all matters. In other words, the Church teaches that the Pope — as Pope — is never, ever wrong and thus cannot apologize. The headline is really a fundamental dig at a parody of Catholic teaching; the headline is perhaps even meant as ironic. If so, it is ironic in an extremely mean and petty way. Ultimately — if the editors are NOT ignorant of Catholic teaching — the headline employs a straw-man fallacy, one that essentially courses through those salons willfully ignorant of Catholic doctrine and dogma.

This is cheap journalism at its most obvious. It’s vulgar; it’s the sort of stuff offered by snickering scoffers one might meet in junior high school. The whole thing brings to mind a revised temptation of Christ: “If you’re really infallible, you can’t be wrong about anything, can you?” TIME wants to exploit this fundamental prejudice about Church teaching, hoping that, if the headline is all people read — and it will be — the prejudice will still be effectively reinforced in the populace.

Truly discouraging.

Peace.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.