Adams Rants

At 16 pages and measuring the same as a normal tabloid I’d hardly call it the biggest free paper. Unless they are talking about circulation which at 332,000 copies per month is actually quite impressive. What newspaper could I possibly be talking about? Well I can tell you that it offers “news, features and comment from a Catholic perspective.” and was formed at the request of Pope John Paul II who wanted “an evangelisation that is new in its fervour, new in its methods and new in its expression”. I am, of course, talking about Alive!

Ever since the beginning of Transition Year, without fail, this newspaper has been handed out to an eager Religion class once a month for us to browse through and read it’s intellectual and thought provoking articles which just happen to be riddled with ridiculous amounts of Catholic propaganda which appears to make no attempt to attract new people to Catholism but rather act as a tool to retain existing followers during these troublesome times!

Last month’s edition contained, among other things, a large article on how we should all boycott the box office hit Brokeback Mountain on account of it promoting homosexuality. Calling for a widespread boycott like this doesn’t really promote independent thinking now does it? In this month’s edition, in the ‘Media Watch’ section of the newspaper, they talk about a headline that appeared in the Sunday Times. In the original article the journalist clearly gave their opinion on it, however, in this article Alive tell us what the journalist iactuallyi meant to say and what they actually mean by it. Once again, the Catholic Church are telling us how we should interpret everything. Some may call it guidance, but I’d be inclined to call it dictation. It’s a pity that the devoted followers don’t know the difference between the two.

This month they are also talking about the Da Vinci Code, the New York Time Bestseller by Dan Brown. In their report they claim that Dan Brown is painting an inaccurate picture of what actually happened and in a multiple part feature will tell us how we are to interpret the novel. The keyword there being ‘novel’. I find it slightly entertaining that they even feel the need to tell us what Dan Brown means in what’s only a work of fiction! It’s like saying that in the Nursery Rhyme where Jack and Jill go up to fetch some water, Jack and Jill actually find Jesus on their way up and are eternally happy for ever and ever!

Alive doesn’t make for insightful reading, instead, it relies on the shock-factor much like other brands of smut do, such as the Sun, Star, Mirror and so on. It’s content merely serves the purpose of instilling fear into the minds of it’s readers, who after years and years of having to put up with this drivel, know of nothing else. They have been moulded into the shape of a brain-washed drone who will actually believe what being written in this monstrosity of a newspaper! Those of us whom who are strong enough to not get caught up in their sensation gay-bashing stories can only look on in amazement at how some people can be so desperate to retain followers that they would resort to writing such stories. The same level of astonishment can be directed at those who are desperate enough to read and actually believe what this newspaper says!