Last week, the UN Human Rights Council approved a resolution that calls on nation states to limit criticism of religions in general and Islam in particular. Proposed by Pakistan on behalf of other Islamic countries, the resolution passed with the votes of 23 countries on the 47-member council. According to Freedom House, many of the sponsors and supporters of the measure have some of the poorest records of respecting freedom of speech and religion in the world.

Critics of the resolution, mostly from Western countries or liberal activists in Muslim countries, say that the resolution is dangerous because it calls for laws that declare topics off limit for discussion, leading to intolerance of any view that some Muslims may find offensive. Some UN members pointed out that the idea that a given religion has rights against defamation is an idea at odds with freedom. They say that all beliefs must be open to debate, discussion and criticism and that rights against defamation belong solely to individuals.

It is probably no surprise to readers of this blog that the lead up to the passage of this resolution garnered only modest mainstream media notice. But the foreign press and attendant pundits have been all over it. While the Associated Press and Agence France Presse didn’t really do the story justice, I thought Reuters had some good coverage.

Reporter Robert Evans had some helpful reportage and analysis with his story about groups opposed to the resolution:

Some 200 secular, religious and media groups from around the world on Wednesday urged the United Nations Human Rights Council to reject a call from Islamic countries for a global fight against “defamation of religion.”

The groups, including some Muslim bodies, issued their appeal in a statement on the eve of a vote in the Council in Geneva on a resolution proposed by the 56-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

Such a resolution, the statement said, “may be used in certain countries to silence and intimidate human rights activists, religious dissenters and other independent voices,” and to restrict freedom of religion and of speech.

He explains the history of the anti-defamation movement and more about the concerns of groups opposed to the resolution.

After the resolution passed, Reuters ran another story with context about the Human Rights Council:

The 47-member Human Rights Council has drawn criticism for reflecting mainly the interests of Islamic and African countries, which when voting together can control its agenda… .

India and Canada also took to the floor of the Geneva-based Council to raise objections to the OIC text. Both said the text looked too narrowly at the discrimination issue.

“It is individuals who have rights, not religions,” Ottawa’s representative told the body. “Canada believes that to extend (the notion of) defamation beyond its proper scope would jeopardise the fundamental right to freedom of expression, which includes freedom of expression on religious subjects.”

I wish that we’d hear much more from the Muslim countries that backed the resolution. I also wish there would be more discussion — both from friendly and critical sources — about what’s driving these resolutions and what the Muslim countries hope to accomplish with them. You can get that from blogs and pundits, but it would be nice to see more mainstream discussion.

Image of novelist Salman Rushdie, whose death the Supreme Leader of Iran called for, via Wikipedia Commons.

We’ve been tough on Sally Quinn here at GetReligion, and there’s no need to revisit those disputes today. Instead, I want to enjoy a tribute to Quinn by her only son as he describes what it’s like to live with Velo-Cardio-Facial Syndrome.

In the March 30 edition of Newsweek, Quinn Bradlee writes of his love for both his parents, but also of his desire to be less dependent on them. He even uses, well, religious imagery to describe his mother’s fierce commitment to him:

… pretty soon after I was born, my doctor detected a heart murmur, and when I was about three months old, I had to have open-heart surgery. I think this was a pretty crappy time for my parents. They thought I might die, and I could have died. My mom says the night before my heart operation was one of the worst nights of her life. She wasn’t allowed to nurse me. She could barely even hold me. When they took me into the operating room the next day, she basically fainted.

… She’s a very powerful woman. She’s like a bulldog, or a lioness. You don’t want to mess with her. She has controlled a lot of my life. Sometimes I’m angry about that, because I feel I’m in the passenger seat of the car and I have to ride wherever the driver wants me to go. Sometimes I feel as if I have no freedom.

But there is a flip side to everything. And there is truth in everything that we say. I couldn’t have lived without my mom. She’s saved my ass a million times. She has been like an archangel to me. She had the wings that I didn’t. And she’s basically carried me everywhere I’ve been.

Ms. Quinn does not need to hear this from me, but I am glad to write it anyway: Well done.

Not to bury the lede or anything, by when it comes to religion writing, Prof. Ari L. Goldman of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism has been there and done that. During his two decades at the New York Times, he was one of the nation’s most trusted bylines on the religion beat and I have heard that judgment voiced by a stunningly broad range of clergy and Godbeat critics.

In other words, any decent survey of religion writing in the late 20th century would have to include Ari’s work. I sure hope GetReligion.org readers start paying more attention to this weblog’s attempts to deal with religion reporting in a global context, because as soon as we can get the software tweaked that will be the main focus of Goldman’s blogging as the newest member of your GetReligionistas.

But you need to know some more about Ari, first.

In his current academic incarnation, he serves as the director of the Scripps Howard Program in Religion, Journalism and the Spiritual Life, a duty which regularly takes him and a circle of students to religion news hot spots around the world. Before entering journalism, Goldman went to all of the predictable schools, as in Yeshiva University, Columbia University and, of course, Harvard.

Of course, he is also known as the author of the bestseller, “The Search for God at Harvard,” as well as “Being Jewish: The Spiritual and Cultural Practice of Judaism Today” and a recent memoir, “Living a Year of Kaddish.”

You can find out more (he plays cello in the New York Late-Starters String Orchestra) by reading his online bio and Ari will write his own note of introduction in a few days. However, since he is a pro with years of experience on the beat, I thought I would also ask for his take on our usual 5Q+1 questions, since it has been way too long since we offered one of those. So here goes:

(1) Where do you get your news about religion?

I mostly get my news from old media and first-hand reporting. By old media, I mean The New York Times and the New York Daily News, which I read on paper every day. I also have subscriptions — yes, on paper — to a host of denominational papers from Jewish, Catholic, Hindu and Muslim sources. Perhaps most important, I get my religion news from synagogues, churches, temples and mosques, which I visit frequently, both in New York where I live and on my travels. I listen to sermons and I talk to people.

So I am decidedly old-fashioned, but not totally dependent on paper and first-hand observation. I read the religion writing of my former students on the Internet. I have been teaching a course at Columbia in religion writing since 1993. My students have gone on to write religion for mainstream papers in such cities as Baltimore, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, Raleigh, N.C. and La Crosse, Wisc. Many of them, like Manya Brachear of the Chicago Tribune, even blog. I read her blog, The Seeker, and several academic blogs, including The Revealer out of NYU, Religion Dispatches out of Emory and Diane Winston’s out of USC. And, of course, I read getreligion.org. While I have a special place in my heart for print, I realize that these internet sources are the future of religion journalism.

(2) What is the most important religion story right now that you think the mainstream media just do not get?

I want to begin by saying that there is much that the mainstream media gets right. It is easy to bash the work of religion journalists and pick apart their work. But as a former religion writer, I know what a battle it is to report religion intelligently for editors who simply do not “get” religion. And I was at one of the best papers in the country, The New York Times; I can only imagine how hard it is at smaller papers. I am also aware that even if the reporter gets it right, the editors can cut the story and change its focus and meaning.

But that wasn’t your question. What does the mainstream press miss? The role of faith in global conflicts. I just returned from a trip to Northern Ireland and was struck by the efforts of Catholic and Protestant leaders to damp down any return to violence in the aftermath of the recent killing of two British soldiers by a radical IRA group. In what is often portrayed as a religious conflict, religion has actually emerged as the solution and not the problem. Another global hot spot where religion plays a role is the Arab-Israel conflict. Facile comparisons to Northern Ireland are being made in part because of the appointment of former Senator George Mitchell as the United States’ special envoy to the Middle East. In Ireland, he is often hailed as a magician because of his work on the Good Friday Accords. But whether he can work his magic in the Holy Land, where the stew of religion and politics is quite different, requires some smart mainstream media analysis.

(3) What is the story that you will be watching carefully in the next year or two?

Number one is the economy. It is the big story that has already begun to shape our society, from banks to housing to law enforcement to schools. Religion will not be immune. The Catholic Church is already closing schools and parishes. Other religious organizations are laying off workers, cutting back services and shuttering their doors. But most important is how the economy will affect the people in the pews. With unemployment rising and less disposable income at hand, will people turn toward faith or away from it? A lot of that has to do with how the churches, temples and mosques respond to this crisis.

Another story I will be watching is the integration of Muslims in Europe. In addition to Ireland, I recently traveled to Germany. One of the raging controversies there is the building of mosques in certain neighborhoods. The fears of the mosque are rooted in a mix of bigotry, xenophobia and real estate values. The integration of Muslims in Germany, France, England and other European countries is an important bellwether for the West.

(4) Why is it important for journalists to understand the role of religion in our world today?

Most things go in and out of fashion — politics, economic theories, sports teams, clothes, celebrities — but religion, like it or hate it, remains. And that it because religion is about ultimate questions. How individuals and nations answer those questions motivates them in powerful and practical ways. I mentioned global conflicts earlier, but religion also motivates people’s spending, their values, their associations and the ways they educate their children. If you miss the religion story, you miss a good part of our world.

(5) What is the funniest, most ironic twist that you have seen in a religion news story lately?

It’s far from funny, but I guess it is ironic. I’ve seen reference after reference in the mainstream press, including the Wall Street Journal, of Bernie Madoff as an “Orthodox Jew.” That hurt. There is nothing Orthodox about Madoff. He did not keep kosher or observe the Sabbath or do other things that Orthodox Jews do. What he did was ingratiate himself with the Orthodox who trusted him and gave him money by the millions. Those who trusted him included my alma mater, Yeshiva University, and the high school my wife and oldest children attended, the Ramaz Upper School.

In other words, Madoff stole from the Orthodox but he was not one of them. And even when he wasn’t identified as “Orthodox,” the fact that he was Jewish was often cited. As Rabbi Allen Schwartz of Manhattan recently told his congregation, the Madoff scandal broke just as the scandal Blagojevich scandal was breaking in Illinois.”Did you ever see a reference to Blagojevich’s religion?” the rabbi asked. “Yet we kept seeing Madoff described as Jewish.”

BONUS: Do you have anything else you want to tell us about religion coverage in the mainstream news media?

The mainstream media is already beaten down. It is in a very different place than where it was when getreligion.org started five years ago. There is far less religion coverage and the religion writers who remain are heroic, but not perfect. As a blogger, I hope to point out the good and the bad.

Houston Chronicle readers were introduced last week to the fact that a first generation Pakistani Muslim woman has values and preferences for a life mate that look an awful lot like a lot of Christian American women. She also faces a lot of the challenges all Americans face in general in finding a suitable life partner.

But one wouldn’t necessarily know that from reading the article because it attempts to introduce the reader to Pakistani-Islamic traditions while at the same time showing us that the article’s subject is different from that tradition. But the mate selection process used by the article’s subject is still different from what we’re supposed to believe is practiced in the American tradition. Is it really though?

I am also not so thrilled by the article’s headline:

Muslim woman tries to avoid the life of a spinster

The headline’s use of the term spinster is clearly a pejorative term that connotes an attempt to avoid degradation and disapproval by society by maintaining single-status beyond the time that society believes is appropriate. And with the woman portrayed in the article at the age of 30, the article attempts to show that her societal view — based on Islamic and Pakistani traditions — is so obviously different from the larger American society in which she now lives:

You see, Ali is 30 years old. And for a first-generation American with family and faith roots in Pakistan and Islam, 30 is not the new 20 when it comes to matters of marriage.

“In our culture women are expected to be married by their mid-20s,” said Mona Baig, Ali’s childhood friend — her married childhood friend.

“In American culture, being single at 30 is no big deal, so by those standards she’s on the right track,” Baig added.

Ali’s tracks to marriage have gotten a bit crossed. Like many young first-generation South Asian-Americans, Ali is committed to marrying within the traditions of Islam. But it’s a tradition twisted for the life of a bright, witty, supersocial Sugar Land resident with her own business.

The challenge this article presents is its attempt to define American culture as opposed to Ali’s efforts to remain within her culture. Instead of attempting to portray Ali’s attempt to straddle American and South Asian cultural traditions as somehow different or unique, a better approach would have been portray Ali’s efforts to find a life mate as exactly what many human beings do regardless of the specifics of their religious background or the culture in which they live:

For example, Ali doesn’t date. She doesn’t get gussied up for sexy evenings of dinner and dancing to meet potential mates.

But Ali’s parents also won’t choose her husband. She expects to find him herself, with the knowledge and blessings of the two families, of course.

The setup is more an “assisted” than an “arranged” marriage, Ali said.

Until the right level of assistance meets Mr. Right, Ali must be courted.

She knows what she wants and is not afraid to be upfront about it.

Hanging out is fine; getting physical is not. She is clear from the get-go that the goal is marriage.

“It’s kind of old-fashioned, where suitors used to come to people’s homes and take the women for a walk in the garden,” she said.

Ali’s approach is not that far off from many women in the United States of Christian or Mormon faith. And regardless of faith, I’m sure there are non-religious individuals out there that prefer a similar no-nonsense process for finding a life mate.

A few paragraphs later the article states that “Ali doesn’t bear the battle scars of dating American-style” such as the lack of “drunken first dates or bad breakups and certainly no walk of shame” but why is that the definitive style of American dating? That’s certainly a popular portrayal of it, particularly in Hollywood and the stereotypical impression many have of secular American college campuses. But that doesn’t mean it’s the rule for “American-style” dating. This also implies that the only way for attractive, intelligent, successful women in America to find spouses is to go on drunken first dates, experience bad breakups and experience the “walk of shame.” Really?

In general, the article treats religion and Ali’s religious faith as a cultural backdrop that suggests many of the stereotypes that inform American impressions of Muslim-Americans. Ali’s approach to life and dating is portrayed in some nuisance, but only in the sense that it is different from those stereotypes:

Ali’s tale of heartbreak concerns a love who caved when his parents demanded he call it off so he could marry a woman from their hometown in Pakistan.

Her dream guy is worldly and educated, he appreciates different cultures, and he possesses wit and humor to rival hers.

“I’m looking for a best friend, someone I can click with, I can hang out with all the time,” Ali said.

I would have liked to know more about what it means for Ali to marry “within the traditions of Islam” beyond the fact that the man would have to be of the Islamic faith.

Another aspect the article fails to address is divorce and Americans’ relatively high rate of the practice. Some interesting comparisons would be whether divorce rates — or the functional equivalent — have any statistical comparison between the United States and Pakistan.

The furor over the nine-year-old who had twins aborted after allegations that her stepfather raped her has focused media attention what appears to be a tragedy of broader scope—the numbers of children sexually abused in Brazil.

Over the weekend, the New York Times ran an article by Alexei Barrionuevo that highlighted the larger problem.

The writer begins his story in a clinic that treats young victims of sexual abuse. It’s fair to expect that perhaps Barrioneuvo will take a look at the strategies used to treat victims, and perhaps even punish perpetrators. But that’s not where he takes the story.

After describing the girl and her circumstances, and the reaction of the local and international Catholic officials, Barrioneuvo looks at the larger connection between sexual abuse of girls and abortion in Brazil.

The case has brought to light other instances of young girls being raped and impregnated by family members, especially in the poorer northeastern region.

The number of legal abortions of girls ages 10 to 14 more than doubled last year to 49, up from 22 in 2007, the Ministry of Health reported. That was out of 3,050 legal abortions performed last year in a country of more than 190 million. But the vast majority of Brazil’s abortions are not legal. The Ministry of Health estimates about one million unsafe or clandestine abortions every year.

Brazil’s abortion laws are among the strictest in Latin America.

What’s going on here is very interesting. You have two hot-button social issues: sexual abuse of girls and abortion (the article doesn’t address whether boys are also being abused). By connecting them early in his article the writer appears to choose not to look at an even broader question: what are religious instutions, the government and social service agencies doing or not doing to address the problems that underly sexual abuse?

Here’s a quote that illustrates the way the author seems to situate the problem :

Twenty years ago, Brazil had just one center to perform abortions. Today, beyond the 55 clinics that can perform them, another 400 or so treat patients that have been sexually abused.

“It’s still not enough,” said Beatriz Galli, a policy associate and human rights lawyer with Ipas, an organization pushing to expand women’s reproductive rights. Most state-financed clinics are in capitals that can be as far as an 11-hour boat ride away, and they are concentrated in the wealthier southeast region.

Readers hear about anti-abortion legislators fighting to tighten abortion restrictions and doctors who argue that often abortions are neccessary to save the life of the young girl. We get a few quotes that even deal with the way some Brazilians are alleged to view women in general: as “property.” But what’s missing is the larger perspective. Are social attitudes towards women changing? Are stricter reporting laws to protect children being enacted? Where do social service dollars go? What are Roman Catholic clergy saying about the status of women in Brazil? Where does the church find itself in the dialogue about how to help abuse victims?

Barrioneuvo quotes church officials on the abortion issue, but he doesn’t quote anyone religious discussing the social implications of sexual abuse of girls and the general status of women-and what the church may or may not being doing to address the root causes.

Wherever readers may stand on the spectrum of opinions about abortion there are many other factors to the sexual abuse of girls that aren’t addressed here, leaving a disturbing implication that providing more abortion clinics will alleviate the problem. I have no sense for what the writer intended, but there isn’t a whole lot of other information here to go on.

The picture of the Catedralse in Sao Paulo, Brazil is from Wikimedia Commons

As the old saying goes in hurricane territory, “I think we’re in for a bit of a blow.”

It will be interesting to see how the mainstream press handles the facts in the upcoming culture warfare over President Barack Obama’s scheduled commencement address at the University of Notre Dame.

There is a real story here, of course. Rest assured that Catholics are going to split on how to handle this, because American Catholics — including some bishops, based on the evidence — are divided on how to handle public conflicts about basic issues of sexual morality. In the pews, this conflict tends to follow the typology of our four basic kinds of Catholic voters.

Briefly stated, here they are again:

* Ex-Catholics. Solid for the Democrats.

* Cultural Catholics who may go to church a few times a year. This may be an undecided voter, but this vote leans to Democrats.

* Sunday-morning American Catholics. This voter is a regular in the pew and may even play some leadership role in the parish. This is the true Catholic swing vote.

* The “sweats the details” Roman Catholic who goes to confession, is active in the full sacramental life of the parish and almost always backs the Vatican on doctrinal matters. This group is a small slice of the American Catholic pie.

So this brings us back to the work of Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Time, who is a columnist, but one that is so intensely interested in issues of religion and journalism that we often are provoked to discuss him here at GetReligion. In a recent column on the Obama and Notre Dame firestorm, Rutten perfectly sums up what is, far too often, the mainstream media’s approach to Catholicism.

In a nutshell, Rutten believes the pope is a Catholic, but just another Catholic — one of many authoritative voices. The question is whether that statement is factually accurate. One does not have to agree with the pope on a particular issue to know that, in the context of the Catholic faith, his role is unique. There is only one man sitting on the throne of Peter.

For Rutten, it seems, the pope may have the same doctrinal standing as the vice president of the United States, when it comes to vital issues of doctrine and practice. Here’s the crucial chunk of the column:

… (A) small group of protesters is outraged that a Catholic university would extend such an invitation to a politician who is both pro-choice and willing to countenance embryonic stem cell research — even if he is, as we used to say, the leader of the free world.

A brief pause: I believe that the newspaper’s style is “pro-abortion rights,” not “pro-choice.” Back to the column.

There are a couple of things about this culture-warfare-as-usual controversy that are fresh and consequential enough to be of interest. The first is the protesters and their connections. Many are part of a vocal, Internet-savvy lobby that has been agitating to coerce the church’s prelates into denying Communion to Catholic officeholders who deviate from a rigidly “pro-life” line. Made up of a number of smaller groups, this lobby has campaigned to keep other pro-choice officeholders (of any religion) from speaking at Catholic schools. Its supporters also have been vociferously active in the movement to use abortion as a wedge to lever Catholics into the religious right.

The effort turns on convincing Catholics — for decades now, the principal swing voters in presidential elections — that they’re obliged to vote on the basis of moral issues important to the right wing of the church, such as abortion, stem cell research and, more recently, marriage equality. The movement has attracted a handful of marginal figures among the country’s Catholic bishops. Two of them — the bishops of Phoenix and South Bend — have weighed in condemning Obama’s appearance at Notre Dame. The South Bend bishop, who usually attends the graduation, has said he’ll boycott this year’s ceremony.

As a columnist, Rutten has ever right to his opinion and ever right to publish it. I would argue that it is interesting to note the contents of his opinion, in this case. I suspect that many journalists share his views.

The key phrases? Well, for starters, those who back the Vatican’s stand on this issue are advocating a “rigidly ‘pro-life’ line.” This, I assume, means that there is a non-rigid line that others hold in the Catholic hierarchy, which would mean backing Obama’s flawless record opposing any and all restrictions on abortion rights. Thus, the pope is a KIND OF Catholic, not the voice of the Catholic church’s magisterium.

Second, the circle of U.S. bishops who support the belief that there is a link between a Catholic’s beliefs and actions and their ability — after the Sacrament of Confession — to receive Holy Communion is said to consist of “a handful of marginal figures.” However, note that this circle includes the local bishop who — under the crucial Ex Corde Ecclesia document — is the shepherd of the diocese in which Notre Dame is located. To Rome, this means something. But, again, Rutten argues that this is simply a faction within the American church.

This small faction now includes Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Texas and Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who in a few days will take over the Archdiocese of New York, has also spoken out on this issue (kind of). Dolan was asked if Notre Dame made a mistake, in choosing to honor Obama in a way that clashes with that 2004 U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops statement that forbade giving “awards, honors or platforms” to “those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles.”

Dolan didn’t hesistate a bit, responding “They did, and I say that as one who loves and respects Notre Dame. They made a big mistake.”

“There’s a lot of things that President Obama does that we can find ourselves allied with and working with him on, and we have profound respect for him and pray with him and for him,” Dolan said. “But in an issue that is very close to the heart of Catholic world view, namely, the protection of innocent life in the womb, he has unfortunately taken a position very much at odds with the Church.”

Finally, note that Rutten identifies abortion and the definition of marriage — issues the Vatican has addressed in very strong language a number of times — are merely “moral issues important to the right wing of the church.” That, friends, is a libel against liberal Catholic pro-lifers if there ever was one.

Like I said, it will be crucial for mainstream journalists to allow Catholics on the left and right to state their views clearly and even — especially online — to allow them to quote chapter and verse from Catholic teachings and pronouncements from the Vatican.

Not that the Vatican has anything definitive to say on these matters.

Photo: Two famous members of the handful of strongly anti-abortion Catholic leaders who have previously backed centuries of church doctrine on the right to life.

Journalistically speaking, this might not be the best story you read today. It’s a bit choppy and seems to weld two different stories together. But they’re both important stories and one is about how churches are responding to the flooding in Fargo.

Before we take a look at it, you should definitely check out this Boston Globe photo compilation of the Red River flooding going on right now. The pictures are amazing and do a great job of telling the story of communities coming together to battle the elements.

A major part of the communities in North Dakota and Minnesota are local churches, of course. And so here’s the Associated Press story mentioned above and headlined “Fargo divides day between church, city’s salvation.”

Weary residents of this sandbagged city came together in churches Sunday, counting their blessings that the Red River finally stopped rising and praying the levees would hold back its wrath… .

Church services that are a staple of life on Sunday mornings in Fargo took on greater significance as people gathered after a week of round-the clock sandbagging. They sang hymns and held hands, asking together for divine help in avoiding disaster.

“At a time like this, we need to call on God’s providential assistance,” said the Rev. Bob Ona, pastor of Fargo’s First Assembly of God church. “All of you have been heroic in your efforts. All of you have been pushed past the wall of weariness, exhaustion and numerous frustrations in order to do the right thing — help people in the name of the Lord.”

The article then has a ton of the technical details about flood crests and expectations for levee stability. It also mentions a day school affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and a congregation that’s part of the Church of the Lutheran Brethren of America before returning to the church mentioned in the lede:

The pastor at the Assemblies of God church said now was the time to turn to spirituality for hope and not obsess about material possessions. After a week in which the church used its buses to shuttle people to feverish sandbagging efforts, Ona told the congregation that “we have done everything we can do, humanly speaking.”

“We don’t feel we deserve any awards or plaques for what we did,” he added. “We are a church. This is what we do.”

So much of telling a story about a threatened community is understanding what sustains that same community. It’s a pretty safe bet that religion plays a significant role in that story and it’s nice to see it mentioned by the AP.

So, are many newsrooms in the allegedly “American” media poised to plunge back into history and become “European” newspapers again, publications that openly advocate specific political and even theological points of view?

To look at it another way, is the nonNewsweek phenomenon going to come to your local newspaper?

After all, it’s impossible to do real news on the Internet, right? Everything turns into a blog, right?

That’s the question that a loyal GetReligion reader asked after hearing that the Ann Arbor (Mich.) News is closing this July or, more accurately, evolving into the new AnnArbor.com.

What does this have to do with religion news?

It seems that the “content director” — maybe that means “editor” — of the new project has been giving online interviews to a former journalist named Jim Carty. As it turns out, editor Tony Dearing has been very blunt. Let’s jump in for a bit of this longer interview:

CARTY: I think one of the many criticisms of newspaper websites has been that they haven’t had a lot of personality. Salon has a personality. Slate has a personality. The AnnArborChronicle has a personality. Have you thought at all about the personality you want this site to have, or even that you do want it to have one?

DEARING: It will have a personality. We’re going to ask reporters to be themselves and blog according to who they are. To write according to who they are. To speak with their own voice. I think the future in journalism is you tell people who you are, you tell them what your biases are, you tell them where you come from, this is where I’m coming from and what I’m reporting, and you let other people pile in and bring their own views. Now, I don’t want somebody who is mild-mannered to pretend they’re obnoxious or anything. …

I don’t think John Stewart is all that wrong. If something’s crap, you can kind of say, ‘This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.” People will understand what you’re coming from and what you think. They ask, “How can they say that.”

CARTY: That sounds like a lot more latitude for opinion than within a traditional newspaper. Is that a fair take?

DEARING: Yeah, I would say so. That’s what I envision — more opinion, more attitude, more candor. We all have done stories where what we wrote and what we thought were two completely different things. We will try to write what we really think the story is, and not necessarily the traditional story form.

No, the subject of religion coverage doesn’t come up. But you know that this kind of old-fashioned, “European,” advocacy journalism will affect some of the hottest issues in our culture — think abortion, marriage, education, religious liberty, etc. So the journalists get to express their opinions in content and story selection and then readers get to protest in the comments pages?

Oh my. Is this the brave new world of news?

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2384 Divorce is a grave offense against the natural law. It claims to break the contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other till death. Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation, of which sacramental marriage is the sign. Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery …

2385 Divorce is immoral also because it introduces disorder into the family and into society. This disorder brings grave harm to the deserted spouse, to children traumatized by the separation of their parents and often torn between them, and because of its contagious effect which makes it truly a plague on society.

2386 It can happen that one of the spouses is the innocent victim of a divorce decreed by civil law; this spouse therefore has not contravened the moral law. There is a considerable difference between a spouse who has sincerely tried to be faithful to the sacrament of marriage and is unjustly abandoned, and one who through his own grave fault destroys a canonically valid marriage.

Not to worry! Celebrity covers a multitude of sins over at Walter Scott’s Personality Parade, where Edward Klein answers a question about the marital history of Jane Wyman:

Oscar-winner Wyman, who died at age 90 in 2007, was married five times: Reagan was her third husband. Despite her divorces, she was a devout Catholic and eventually became a lay member of the Dominican Order.

I thought I’d wait to write this post until I saw mainstream media coverage of one particular aspect of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. And then, thousands of stories about the visit to Mexico later, I realized that the press wasn’t going to be covering it.

Which, assuming this story is true, says a lot about the media. Here’s how Catholic News Agency reported the most recent diplomatic gaffe:

During her recent visit to Mexico, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an unexpected stop at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and left a bouquet of white flowers “on behalf of the American people,” after asking who painted the famous image.

You can read more about Guadalupe here, but Roman Catholics believe that the beautiful image was miraculously imprinted on the cloak of a 16th-century peasant. It is Mexico’s most popular and important religious image and the basilica that houses it is the second-most popular Catholic shrine in the world.

Here are the details of the exchange:

Msgr. Monroy took Mrs. Clinton to the famous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which had been previously lowered from its usual altar for the occasion.

After observing it for a while, Mrs. Clinton asked “who painted it?” to which Msgr. Monroy responded “God!”

Now, it’s one thing to not know what the Catholic Church teaches about Guadalupe. But it’s another for the State Department not to have briefed Clinton prior to her visit. Of course, those are political considerations.

Here’s what I’m wondering: Why was this story not deemed newsworthy? I’m sure some people would say that it’s just bias — that if, say, a Bush Administration official had said it, we’d be hearing all about it. I’m not sure. I suspect that it’s more likely we’re seeing the media’s ignorance of Mexico’s religious heritage and her most important religious picture.

The reader who sent this story in thought the faux pas was certainly worthy of at least a line or two in coverage of the visit. I agree.

This being Catholic News Agency, it’s also worth noting how the story ended:

This evening Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to receive the highest award given by Planned Parenthood Federation of America — the Margaret Sanger Award, named for the organization’s founder, a noted eugenicist. The award will be presented at a gala event in Houston, Texas.

You can read more mainstream media coverage of that award here. It doesn’t look like Sanger’s controversial views were deemed worthy of mention.

Image via Wikimedia commons.