Is there something toxic in the Roman Catholic Womenpriests stories that makes reporters just forget everything they know about journalism?
WUKY, the NPR station in Lexington, posted this introduction to a piece on a Lexington-area woman and her ordination performed by the group without any standing or authority in the Roman Catholic Church:
LEXINGTON, KY (2008-08-08) Although the Roman Catholic Church banned women from becoming priests over two-thousand years ago, a Jessamine County woman will be "ordained" by a church activist group. Bryan Bartlett has the story.
I'm not even going to gripe about the use of the word "although," which doesn't fit in the story. Or phrasing who can hold the office of the priesthood as a ban, which games the story. But the reader who passed this along was more upset by the failure of this story to "get history."
If the Roman Catholic Church banned women from becoming priests over 2000 years ago and we're in the year 2008, that means the church had set up priest policy no later than the year 8 A.D. At that time, Jesus hadn't even begun his public ministry, Peter may not have been born and Paul and others hadn't written about who should lead congregations.
But other than that, no problems with that single sentence introduction.