Posted on 08/01/2009 12:05:00 PM PDT by Clive
A New Brunswick newspaper that ran a front-page apology Tuesday for a story that claimed Prime Minister Stephen Harper had pocketed a communion wafer has also announced that its publisher and editor-in-chief are no longer with the paper.
Saint John Telegraph-Journal publisher Jamie Irving and editor Shawna Richer were no longer at their posts, effective immediately, said Annie Smith, a spokeswoman for the New Brunswick News Inc., the company that owns the daily paper.
"She is no longer editor, and (he) is no longer the publisher," she said. "I don't have any information other than that."
Ms. Smith would not comment on whether Irving or Richer had been fired or had resigned, nor whether either would take another position with the newspaper. No decision has been made on who will take over their roles, she said.
Mr. Irving is the son of James K. Irving, the eldest of three sons of billionaire industrialist K.C. Irving. The Irving family owns the newspaper.
The paper published the apology for a July 8 story, saying it "was inaccurate and should not have been published."
The story created a national controversy that lasted for several days, while Mr. Harper was attending a G8 gathering in Italy and preparing to meet the Pope.
"There was no credible support for these statements of fact at the time this article was published, nor is the Telegraph-Journal aware of any credible support for these statements now," said the apology, written under a double-bolded headline in capital letters. "The Telegraph-Journal sincerely apologizes to the prime minister for the harm that this inaccurate story has caused."
A spokesman for Harper, Andrew MacDougall, said Tuesday the prime minister has accepted the newspaper's apology. Mr. MacDougall declined to comment further.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
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No surprise that The Telegraph would do this. They hate Conservatives and they hate competition. They go to extremes to drive rival publications out of business. I saw it last year as they bankrupted the local competitor in Carleton County by blackmailing advertisers who placed ads in both papers.
Do you think a new editor and publisher will be any different?
I was very happy to hear the owners had done the right thing.
Now maybe they can go clean up a few more of their papers.
No. They're just covering their butts. It's the Irving Family that's behind this. They're the New Brunswick mafia. They control the media, the oil business and have 80% of the retail gasoline business in the province.
'It's a scandal'(Catholics demand explanation for PM pocketing communion wafer at LeBlanc funeral)
Video shows Canadian PM Putting Communion Wafer In His Pocket
Outrageous if true, but not true so not outrageous.
The PM did in fact take the Host from the priest - obviously had no idea how to receive or what he was supposed to do. The priest then passes in front of him so that it's not possible to see exactly what he did with the Host - he may have looked to see what others were doing (like you look to see which fork to use at a dinner party) and then put it in his mouth (seems most likely to me).
Harper is C&MA, a relatively small Evangelical church, so it's quite likely he had no idea what to do or what the meaning of it all was.
But shame on his advance staff for not briefing him on protocol.
However, what's been lost in the story is that as a Protestant, Harper should never have attempted to recieve communion to beginwith. Further, if the priest was aware that Harper was a Protestant, he should not have given him communion.
I wonder if any FReepers are going to apologize for the stupid comments they made in the earlier threads?
He should not have received. His advance staff should have warned him. The priest should not have given him the Host when it was immediately obvious that he didn't know what he was doing (sticking out his hand as if to shake the priest's hand). Priests need to be very vigilant because satanists and troublemakers like that professor who threw the Body of Christ in the garbage DO exist.
It still isn't clear what happened to the Host, the video doesn't show. Harper says he didn't pocket the Host, no particular reason to think he was lying. Either he consumed it, knowing no better, left it in the pew, ditto, or he sensibly asked a nearby Catholic, who reverently took the Host and delivered it back to the priest after the Mass.
The newspaper was wrong to put out a false story when the video shows no such thing.
You can also read that as...”K.C.Irving Empire apologizes to PM for communion story”. Since they own all the English-language daily newspapers in the entire province. Old K.C. would spin in his grave like a lathe if he witnessed this while he was alive.
You’re right. We Protestants can only take Protestant Communion.
There were more than a few people here at FR who assumed the paper was telling the truth and attacked the PM for his “bad behavior”.
I was at boy scout camp, and my son decided he wanted to see what the Catholic service was like, so we went, and I told him we would not take communion.
But I was surprised that the Priest said nothing about communion being only for Catholics, and I watched several non-Catholics (and there were probably more that I didn’t know were non-Catholics) go up and take communion.
The Priest was doing both putting the host on the tongue, AND putting it in hands, and one person did start walking away with the host and the Priest had to stop, go after them, and instruct them to partake immediately.
But it doesn’t appear that this Priest had any interest in keeping non-Catholics from partaking of Communion.
MSM makes things up and ignores things that exist. Oh, to live in Happy Land.
It’s really not the job of the apostates to know what the rules of the one true church are. That some of us DO know and help the Catholics protect their own mass out of our own good will doesn’t negate the fact that it is the Catholic Church’s job to keep the unwashed from partaking. There’s no point blaming non-Catholics for not adhering to Catholic protocols.
Interestingly, after the Catholic service at Boy Scout camp, I was explaining the Catholic communion to my son, walking with another boy from our troop who was Catholic. When I stopped and asked the boy if he could add or correct anything I said since he was part of the church, he said that he frankly didn’t know half of what I was saying, and couldn’t explain what the Priest was doing.
So maybe there is a training that the Catholic Church needs to pick up on for both their Priests and their congregations, to help protect the sacred sacrements better. Because I can tell you that there aren’t many protestants like me who take the time to learn about other beliefs and try to respect them.
OK, what is “Protestant Communion”.
A communion performed by a Protestant church.
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