A piece by feminist theologian Mary Hunt that just wandered into my in-box struck me as a little bit of shoot-the-messenger when what she really is trying to do is slap down the message.

Hunt’s piece takes aim at the media for our obsession with the pope’s trip, and she argues that we’re all missing the point.

We learn more from the press about the pope’s red Prada shoes and designer sunglasses than about his criticism of the Iraq war. This time around in Washington, D.C., and New York City we hear about the “Pope-soap-on-a-rope” but not the people who work in Catholic schools for low wages. We see tee shirts for papal teddy bears, but no hint of the impact of the Vatican’s policy banning the use of condoms even for those who are HIV-infected.

She goes on, arguing that the media fawn over the pope and pay no attention to the fact that (her words, not mine) the Vatican City State is “in the opinion of many people … as secretive, punitive and dismissive of human rights as some dictatorships.”

She also complains that the church’s feminist and pro-gay left wing gets no coverage:

Protests and press conferences, women-led liturgies and other educational events take place before the man arrives with the hope that the press, looking for filler until the visit begins, might attend to them. By the time the papal masses and ceremonial meetings begin, the voices of dissent are long since forgotten by those who might offer more substantive coverage.

She finishes up with this overly broad swipe at the media:

If the U.S. press cannot handle its responsibilities with regard to Catholicism – which is so well known to many of them – how can we expect them to be helpful in reporting on Judaism, Islam, the Baha’i faith, Wicca, or any number of other groups that form the pluralistic religious mosaic in the United States today? No reporter or anchor could be expected to be an expert on the ins and outs of such groups. But as a matter of journalistic practice I think it is

reasonable to train reporters to look at more than meets the eye on religion, just as they are taught to investigate plane crashes and court cases.

I think she has a point that the pope and his entourage tend to suck the oxygen out of the room when they sweep into town, but I think she’s way off base when she says the media can’t be trusted to cover religion generally when they do such a shoddy job of covering Catholicism specifically.