One of the most powerful jobs in the country is that of the person who writes the headlines for major media outlets. In a nation drowning in information, the fact is, most people don’t read the articles, they scan the headlines. If they are intrigued, some proceed to the first few paragraphs. Few make it all the way to the end of the article. In a few short words, the headline writer can shape someone’s thoughts. When the headline states, “Two more Americans killed in Iraq today,” the anti-war crowd feels vindicated and the pro-victory crowd as often as not is too demoralized to read the article because we know how twisted it is. On the other hand, the headline, “Troop deaths drop for 5th straight month” which may be equally true as the first headline, says something completely different.
This headline was extremely frustrating: Death Comes for an Iraqi Archbishop – TIME
Let’s be clear about this. Death didn’t come to this Archbishop. He wasn’t sitting back in the rectory composing a sermon and suddenly overtaken by a stroke or heart attack. He wasn’t in the church administering a sacrament. He wasn’t enjoying some time off playing poker with his buddies. He didn’t die in his sleep. No. He was kidnapped and delivered to the death planned for him by some Islamists whose faith is so feeble that it cannot tolerate any opposing belief systems. He was martyred.
Several Catholic priests and seminarians have been killed in previous attacks and kidnappings over the past three years in Iraq, but Rahho is the first bishop to perish after being caught up in that country’s cycle of violence. The body of the bearded 65-year-old, who was known to be in poor health, was found after his abductors called Rahho’s church to say that he’d died and been buried. His corpse was found in a shallow grave just outside Mosul. The cause of death was not immediately clear.
If Time were really interested in conveying the truth, the headline would have read, “Archbiship Murdered by Islamic Terrorists.”
Only good I can see coming of this is that Iraq may now have a patron saint.