If you know anything about the history of high-society journalism inside the Beltway, then you understand that the Washington Post had to publish some kind of Sally Quinn piece about that wedding over on the other side of the Atlantic. I do not know if the resulting piece is journalism or not, but it does offer some insights and information in her first-person, my-feelings-are-the-story style that has helped define much of the foggy content in the “On Faith” project.

The big idea here is this news flash: Episcopalians really do classy weddings.

Message received. However, note the interesting voice in the opening of the essay. It appears that Quinn is now officially out of her spiritual seeker-agnostic phase.

Prince William and Kate Middleton were married at Westminster Abbey in a traditional Anglican ceremony. … And though England is a largely secular country, their wedding was, as we say, “high church.” The Book of Common Prayer dictates what is in the service, though much is optional. The couple chose the simplest form, a ceremony of warmth and intimacy rather than grandeur and pomp.

Every wedding has magic. It is the magic of hope, a belief that there is something higher that we can all attain, if just for a short time, by connecting to someone we truly love.

What makes the Anglican or Episcopal service so magical is the adherence, though it may seem rigid to some, to time-honored ritual. The music, the hymns, the readings, the prayers, the vows.

The intriguing word is the “we” in “as we say, ‘high church.’ ”

Who is this “we”? Is this a reference to her family? Is Quinn speaking in a papal plural? Is “we” her Episcopal/Anglican family, as in her chosen church? Or is “we” the Post editorial board?

It is also interesting to note her belief — simply stated — that these perhaps rigid vows do have some magic in them, “if just for a short time.” I rather think that the Archbishop of Canterbury would insist that the vows remain, ideally, eternal.

After some personal, family history — an essential Quinn element these days — the story gets back to the meaning of marriage, Anglican-style.

However, it was the passage at the end that caught my Eastern Orthodox eye. Pay close attention:

The short homily by the Right Reverend and Right Honorable Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, reflected a passage from the Book of Common Prayer. “In a sense, “ he said, “every wedding is a royal wedding with the bride and groom as king and queen of creation, making a new life together so that life can flow through them unto the future.”

The actual passage is this: “Let their love for each other be a seal upon their hearts, a mantle about their shoulders, and a crown upon their foreheads.” This notion comes from the Greek Orthodox tradition: on the day of the wedding, every bride and groom is a king and a queen of the world.

Certainly William and Kate were today.

Well now, let me briefly discuss that Orthodox “notion,” which is actually not linked to the Greeks alone, but to the ancient faith of the Eastern Churches.

The liturgical high point of the Orthodox wedding rite is, in fact, the “crowning” of the couple as the king and queen of their new home as a new sacramental reality in their faith and in the context of the church. In the Orthodox rite, everything takes place in the context of that larger sacramental reality. Click here for some additional information about that image and doctrine.

But what do these crowns truly symbolize? Note carefully the words of the hymn that is sung while the husband and wife circle the Gospel Book three times:

O Isaiah dance your joy, for the Virgin is with child; and shall bear a Son, Emmanuel both God and man! And Orient is His name, whom magnifying we call the Virgin blessed.

Holy Martyrs, who have fought the good fight and have received your crowns: entreat the Lord that He have mercy on our souls.

Glory to You, O Christ God, the Apostles’ boast, and the martyrs’ joy, whose preaching was the consubstantial Trinity.

So they are given crowns — the crowns of martyrs. They will surrender their life again and again for the other as part of the sacrament that is marriage. That is the reality captured in the powerful symbol of the crowns.

I am not sure that Quinn has that part clear.

Religion News Service has an interesting trend piece, via The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., on growing acceptance of autistic children in church.

Having reported myself on the topic — and having witnessed the tears of parents whose special-needs children were rejected at church — I was pleased to see the story.

On the positive side, the report is filled with compelling anecdotes and the kind of shoe-leather details that characterize the best newspaper writing.

The top of the story:

CALDWELL, N.J. (RNS) Halfway through a Mass in Caldwell College’s campus chapel, Chase Keith rose to his feet for one of the most challenging parts of a challenging day.

It required the boy from Basking Ridge, N.J., to offer his hand to strangers in the traditional sign of peace. With his mother whispering in his ear and guiding his arm, the 7-year-old stuck out his small hand toward a fellow parishioner.

“How you? Peace,” Chase said.

Afterward, his mother slipped him a Goldfish cracker as a reward for his correct behavior. Chase had gone through months of intensive training with a specialist to get to this point — where he could sit through a Catholic Mass with his family.

My major concern with the story, however, relates to the nut graf. Honk if this approach sounds familiar:

Chase, who has autism, is among a growing number of children with developmental disabilities who are being welcomed at religious services.

Autism is particularly acute in New Jersey, which has the nation’s highest rate of autism, affecting about one in every 94 children, compared to the national rate of about one in every 150 children.

That’s a great summary of the story — a terrific news peg — if it’s true. If.

Where is the attribution for the claim that a growing number of children with developmental disabilities are being welcomed at religious services? Is the source a survey? An expert? The reporter’s own observations? The story never says. And the story also never provides any concrete data to back up the claim.

No reason is given, either, for New Jersey’s high rate of autism. Why exactly does that state have so many more cases of autism than other places?

The other thing that struck me about the story is that it reports entirely on Masses at Roman Catholic churches, yet makes broad statements about churches in general. The story moves from reporting exclusively on Catholic churches to this graf:

Other religions have also made efforts to be more inclusive of children with developmental disabilities, though the programs are usually local and not well-known, advocates say. Some synagogues have programs to help children with autism make their bar or bat mitzvah.

Who are those advocates? The story doesn’t say.

This piece is a nice read but suffers from a lack of concrete information to back up its thesis.

Image: Children involved with a ministry for special needs at a North Carolina church.

Covering religion in Washington DC takes an extra measure of precision, and Washington Post reporter Michelle Boorstein regularly takes that level of care when covering the intersection of religion and politics. With all the scuffles over the economy, foreign policy and other current debates of the day (birth certificate anyone?), religion can easily get lost, but Boorstein keeps finding interesting angles that illuminate current political affairs.

Of course, Boorstein covers more than church-state affairs. She has covered everything from Pope Benedict XVI’s visit, to Muslim-American affairs to Anglican property disputes (and more). You can track her work through a nifty little RSS feed and over at On Faith’s Under God blog.

Boorstein, who has been covering religion for The Post since January 2006, grew up in a conservative Jewish home outside Boston and attended religious school until college. She lived in Jerusalem before she received her master’s in Near Eastern Studies. See what she has to say about GetReligion’s five questions:

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

I’m not the type who has a totally comprehensive, scientifically-conceived, superduper RSS feed. I try to scan a range of sources: Christianity Today and its blogs, Religion News Service updates, World magazine, Deepak Chopra and Oprah, The Forward for Jewish stuff, altmuslimah for Islam and gender/women’s issues. Love to read anything by Michael Gerson and Paul Vitello.

(2) What is the most important religion story the MSM doesn’t get?

I’m torn about this premise that the mainstream media doesn’t, as a group, “get” religion. In a climate where people can easily disappear into an information hole of the like-minded, I actually think the MSM is emerging as the most reliable, un-invested voice — no dog in the fight. (Now you can hear the sound of someone climbing off their soap box. Another sound of a chip being removed from a shoulder)

That said, two stories we should do much better on:

There isn’t nearly enough reporting on how governments from statehouses to the White House are using religion. Who are the most important lobbying forces? How are issues of faith driving campaigns in 2011? Does the Obama White House give real resources to their faith offices or is it more small-potatoes stuff?

The contemporary American family is becoming increasingly a spiritual mish-mosh. When you take a bunch of seekers and mutts and mix them repeatedly, how does that play out in marriages? In parents’ ability to pass on a cohesive spiritual belief system to children? Religion and family.

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

The debates about Islam and government across the Middle East and North Africa by the next generation of Muslims. I am hopeful in this era of cutbacks that I, and other Post reporters, will be able to direct resources into this in a smart way. The subject is often described in a silly, black and white way when it is nuanced in dozens of directions. I’m also dying to see how this subject will play out in the 2012 elections in the United States.

(4) Why is it important for journalists to understand the role of religion in our world today?
I’m going to skip this question because I think anyone reading this blog knows the answer. Preaching to the choir here.

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

A web site whose purpose is to organize factors that might help predict the end of the world (floods, Israeli peace, etc) had an ad for a 30-year mortgage. This came up with some reporting about the California-based ministry that believes the world will end May 21.

Maybe it’s because I wasn’t into the royal wedding as much as my colleague Sarah here, but I ended up being absolutely delighted by it. I happened to be up for work and had the wedding on in the background. At first I wasn’t paying attention to anything but the dress, which was gorgeous. But I was also delighted by it because I can’t stand that way that brides are barely dressed on their wedding day. I have no idea how that trend got going, and I’m all for ladies looking their best, but the strapless, cleavage-baring look has had a lengthy run and I’m tired of it.

Slate noticed, too, in a piece that featured this bit of analysis:

Might the lovely Kate, with her modest allure, her natural bosom and her quiet mystery, have the power to stem the flood of boob-jiggling hooker style which has engulfed not just fashion, but our entire culture?

But then my thoughts turned to higher things. Namely, the higher things being emphasized in the service. It was a surprisingly rich and deep Christian service. I’ll be curious to see how much of the media coverage focuses on the homily, which you can read in its entirety over at religion reporter Cathleen Falsani’s blog.

Someone at the Dallas News picked up on some of the Christian themes in this blog posting.

And the folks at the Telegraph are blogging up a storm (this must be like 40 Superbowls rolled into one for those who care), and a couple of posts caught my attention. Religion journalist Christine Odone wrote an enthusiastic post headlined “The royal wedding proves this is still a Christian country. Hallelujah!”:

In a glorious abbey setting, today’s royal wedding spoke of spirituality rather than celebrity. As Bishop Richard Chartres said so eloquently in his sermon, the young couple had taken the “solemn” decision to marry in the eyes of God – not just the world’s media.

At a time when Christianity seems to shrink from public space, here is proof that at heart, Britain is still very much a Christian country. Hymns, prayers, bishops, priests and a heavenly choir: this was the Anglican Church in all its majestic beauty.

There was pomp and circumstance, but its spiritual context was never forgotten. Prince William and Kate Middleton, now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, had written a prayer, which the Bishop of London read out. It was heartfelt, and moving. The young couple asked God to grant them joy in their marriage, energy with which to discharge their royal duties – and keep their eyes fixed on what was real. These two wise young heads understand the empty promise of fame and glitz, and reject it. Instead, they want a happy union blessed by their Lord and recognised by his Church.

It goes on to discuss the hymns they chose and why they have meaning to society. It also quotes the line from the homily about St. Catherine of Siena, whose feast day is today.

It does seem that this newly married couple takes a more serious approach to their religion than many of their peers or, for that matter, predecessors do. Not that any of us know them or anything, but just based on their public persona and relationship with their priest.

The uber-Catholic religion journalist Damian Thompson praised the wedding in his post “This is what the Church of England is for”:

It pains me to say it, but when it comes to religious pageantry, Catholics cannot hold a candle to the Church of England. The Anglican choral tradition is the finest in the world; its anthems perfectly capture the sentimental grandeur of great state occasions. Listen to the way the fanfare from Parry’s I Was Glad melted into Edwardian gracefulness as Kate Middleton walked down the nave.

Of course, Thompson also linked to the video embedded here of a verger doing cartwheels in Westminster Abbey. I love it.

Perhaps the American media is less comfortable discussing the religious aspect of this religious service than the British media. But do let us know whether you see any particularly good coverage — whatever its origin — in the media.

Top image via the awesome Kate Middleton FTW blog on Tumblr.

One of my pet peeves is when a story gets reported and then dropped. I always find myself coming across some story and wondering how it all turned out — only to find out that no one ever followed up.

But Eric Marrapodi and the CNN Belief Blog followed up on a story I had been wondering about:

J. Wilson has survived his 46-day beer-only fast and found some unexpected spiritual insights.

Wilson, who lives outside Des Moines, Iowa, was emulating a Lenten tradition carried out by German monks hundreds of years ago. In keeping with tradition he ate his last solid food on Ash Wednesday and broke his fast on Easter Sunday.

“I made a bacon smoothie and that’s what I broke the fast with,” Wilson said.

The story includes lots of details, about the medical advice — and spiritual advice — he received prior to undertaking the fast. He’d done enough research to know that smoothies were the best way to ease back into food. We also learn that his wife’s Easter dinner meant he ended up with a more traditional meal, too. The spiritual significance of fasting is explained and background about Wilson, too. He’s a newspaper editor! Of course he is, who else would be crazy enough to undertake a beer fast?

CNN wrote an earlier story about the fast and he checked in with CNN’s Carol Costello on the 31st day of the fast.

Here’s the spiritual takeaway we were promised:

– “I just don’t think we give ourselves enough credit to accomplish difficult tasks. I think our bodies are capable of more than we ask of [them]. And certainly in relation to willpower - willpower related to food or willpower of how you’re going to conduct yourself spiritually - I think we can do more.

– “I noticed early on a difference between needs and wants. The first thing I noticed even in that first week, I got to the spot on day three when I wasn’t hungry any more, physically hungry. The aroma of food would kind of zap me and I would desire the cheeseburger that I smell or somebody’s chicken noodle soup across the office. So I didn’t need it but I wanted it. So there’s a difference between needs and desires.

– “The real challenge is it’s one thing to subscribe to beliefs, religion or otherwise, it’s another thing to apply them to your life every moment of your life. Part of that whole monk in the world philosophy I was exploring is can you live like a monk or believe like a monk and still navigate our crazy world? The ongoing challenge is you’ve got these beliefs, now fine. Live it.”

The story is a delightful read and provides a nice template for other reporters writing about Lent. I sympathize with the difficulties of writing about annual religious holidays or seasons. But for every J. Wilson, there are thousands of others who are also undergoing fasts that are interesting in their own way. We tend to be attracted to stories about dramatic sermon series, the latest sex scandal, or other dramatic events. But the spiritual lives of individual believers can be interesting to a broader audience. It just requires a deft hand in how you handle it.

Let’s be clear about the whole “fundamentalist” thing.

We have already established that an increasing number of mainstream journalists really don’t care what the word “fundamentalist” means and do not care that the Associated Press Stylebook has a fact-based approach to this word, which says (yet again):

fundamentalist: The word gained usage in an early 20th century fundamentalist-modernist controversy within Protestantism. In recent years, however, fundamentalist has to a large extent taken on pejorative connotations except when applied to groups that stress strict, literal interpretations of Scripture and separation from other Christians.

In general, do not use fundamentalist unless a group applies the word to itself.

We have also established that many GetReligion readers agree with these journalists and have taken a kind of “truthiness” option to defining complex and emotional terms such as “fundamentalist.” Hey, words evolve and, in the end, they mean what we say that they mean. We may not know what the new definition of “fundamentalist” is but using it sure as heckfire feels good when we throw it around and that’s what really matters.

The problem, of course, is that news people keep using the term “fundamentalist” as if if has a meaning that can be pinned down. And that leads to journalistic problems.

Consider this Washington Post report about a new Pew poll focusing on the mood in Egypt. The top of the story says:

CAIRO — Egyptians are deeply skeptical about the United States and its role in their country, but they are also divided in their attitudes about Islamic fundamentalists, according a poll released … by the Pew Global Attitudes Project.

Most Egyptians distrust the United States and want to renegotiate their peace treaty with Israel, the poll found. But only 31 percent say they sympathize with fundamentalists, while 30 percent say they sympathize with those who disagree with fundamentalists. An additional 26 percent said they had mixed views.

Please note that the story makes absolutely no attempt to define this loaded term. In other words, the poll is asking Egyptians their opinion of “fundamentalists” when Islam, literally, does not include such a concept in its vocabulary.

So does “fundamentalist” mean those pressing for an Islamic state? Apparently not:

Although 75 percent were positive about the Muslim Brotherhood, which was officially banned under Mubarak and is now the strongest political organization in the country, almost as many — 70 percent — felt positively about the youth-based April 6 movement that was mostly secular and was one of the key organizers of the protests.

So, does “fundamentalist” mean those who take a strict, literalistic approach to the Koran? What about those who want to base public life on the Koran? Let’s see, in the United States, what would we call people with a strict view of the truth of the Bible?

A majority of the country wants Egypt’s laws to strictly follow the Koran — 62 percent — and even among those who disagree with Islamic fundamentalists, the number only drops to 47 percent.

Go ahead, try to make sense of that sentence without a definition of the word “fundamentalist.”

This is a crucial point, since definitions of words such as “evangelical” and “fundamentalist” are often based on just how strictly believers enforce the authority of their scriptures. The Pew talking points for this poll note:

The survey also finds that most Egyptians (62%) believe laws should strictly follow the teachings of the Quran. About a quarter (27%) say laws should follow the values and principles of Islam but should not strictly follow the teachings of the Quran; just 5% say laws should not be influenced by the teachings of the Quran.

So about 32 percent take a so-called “moderate” approach, if you use that horrible, vague label the way most journalists insist on using it. That leaves the 62 percent as the ….

Well, we know they are not “fundamentalists.” I don’t know how we know that, but we do.

About a month ago, I did a post on media coverage of atheists in the military.

I voiced a few concerns about the stories by The Associated Press and the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., but thought the pieces were pretty nicely done overall.

Into the journalistic foxhole, I’d like to welcome The New York Times, which this week decided to lower the bar on coverage. In the Times’ foxhole — er, story — there are no believers in God, only atheists. The atheists’ perspective is, apparently, the only one that matters in this one-sided report.

The top of the Times story:

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — In the military, there are more than 3,000 chaplains who minister to the spiritual and emotional needs of active duty troops, regardless of their faiths. The vast majority are Christians, a few are Jews or Muslims, one is a Buddhist. A Hindu, possibly even a Wiccan may join their ranks soon.

But an atheist?

Strange as it sounds, groups representing atheists and secular humanists are pushing for the appointment of one of their own to the chaplaincy, hoping to give voice to what they say is a large — and largely underground — population of nonbelievers in the military.

Personally, I’d prefer more concrete numbers than atheists describing themselves as a “large” population. But that lede is fine. It’s catchy and certainly makes me want to read more of the story.

The problem is that, as you keep reading, the story makes broad generalizations without any named sources or data to back them up.

For example, there’s this sweeping paragraph:

But winning the appointment of an atheist chaplain will require support from senior chaplains, a tall order. Many chaplains are skeptical: Do atheists belong to a “faith group,” a requirement for a chaplain candidate? Can they provide support to religious troops of all faiths, a fundamental responsibility for chaplains?

Exactly who are these skeptical chaplains? That’s impossible to know because the Times doesn’t quote a single chaplain. In fact, the story provides direct quotes from only three sources — all atheists.

Exactly how did the Times determine that many chaplains are skeptical? Did the reporter actually talk to any chaplains? Did the reporter rely on the atheists for this detail? Again, the story doesn’t say.

Later in the story, there’s this:

Defense Department statistics show that about 9,400 of the nation’s 1.4 million active-duty military personnel identify themselves as atheists or agnostics, making them a larger subpopulation than Jews, Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists in the military.

But atheist leaders say those numbers are an undercount because, they believe, there are many nonbelievers among the 285,000 service members who claim no religious preference on military surveys. Many chaplains dispute that interpretation, and say that most people in that group are religious, just not strongly so.

Fewer Jews in the military than atheists? That statistic surprised me. In some quick Google searching, I found some links that seemed to back up that claim and others that would refute it. I wish the Times had provided some more details and analysis of that claim.

And once again, we have many chaplains cited but exactly zero quoted. But plenty of space is given to the military atheists “who worry about being ostracized for their worldviews.”

Many readers say the Times slants its news coverage to the left. Trust me on that. Surely I don’t need to cite named sources.

I was sad to see on Twitter the other day that Poly Styrene had died. I’d been a big fan of her music. Not much later, I read that Phoebe Snow had died. I’d kept up with news about Poly but realized that I hadn’t heard what was going on with Snow in a few years. I came across the CBS morning news video embedded here on Roger Ebert’s blog at the Sun-Times. It’s several years old but it was full of detail and I was sobbing by the end. If you’re at all a fan, you will be well served to check it out.

Here’s the lede of the Associated Press report on her death, as published by the Kansas City Star:

It wasn’t long after the release of “Poetry Man,” the breezy, jazzy love song that would make Phoebe Snow a star, that the singer experienced another event that would dramatically alter her life.

In 1975, she gave birth to a daughter, Valerie Rose, who was found to be severely brain-damaged. Her husband split from her soon after the baby was born. And, at a time when many disabled children were sent to institutions, Snow decided to keep her daughter at home and care for the child herself.

The decision to be Valerie’s primary caretaker would lead her to abandon music for a while and enter into ill-fated business decisions in the quest to stay solvent enough to take care of Valerie.

Snow, who worked her way back into the music performing world in the 1980s and continued to perform in recent years, died on Tuesday from complications of a brain hemorrhage she suffered in January 2010, said Rick Miramontez, her longtime friend and public relations representative. She was 60.

Snow never regretted her decision to put aside music so she could focus on Valerie’s care. She was devastated when her daughter, who was not expected to live beyond her toddler years, died in 2007 at 31.

“She was my universe,” she told the website PopEntertainment.com that year. “She was the nucleus of everything. I used to wonder, am I missing something? No. I had such a sublime, transcendent experience with my child. She had fulfilled every profound love and intimacy and desire I could have ever dreamed of.”

There are key distinctions between this report and the CBS News one embedded above. But it’s clear from both — from everything you can read about her — that Valerie Rose was the focus of Phoebe’s life.

I wondered, while watching the video, how she had such strength to raise a child alone, to turn her back on an unbelievably promising music career. I wondered whether her religion played any role. There’s no religion to speak of in the video report. The AP report tells us only that she was born Phoebe Ann Laub to white Jewish parents.

We have to go back to a 2008 profile in the San Francisco Chronicle to learn the answer:

Yet, when it comes to her own listening, Snow says she always comes back “to the original R&B guys, James Brown, Sam Cooke. I was just listening to the original group Sam Cooke was in. What were they called? The Soul Stirrers? They were so good I almost fainted. A lot of that Baptist stuff is so powerful. Tremaine Hawkins, Aretha … that’s the stuff I really grew up listening to.”

From a religious standpoint, though, Snow embraces neither Judaism nor Christianity. She’s a Buddhist, a practitioner of the Nichiren Shoshu style, whose practitioners chant “Nam-myoho-renge-kyo” as a meditation tool. She says her practice is the main thing keeping her going after the death of her daughter.

“When Valerie died, I thought I would rail against my religious practice,” Snow says. “I questioned it at first for obvious reasons. But then my faith deepened. I became much more devoted. I found, almost … I’m trying to find the right word to describe it … sanctuary.”

Apparently she converted in 2002, according to this old PopEntertainment.com profile:

She says, “If you had told me at any time before the year 2002 that I would be chanting for hours at a time at a Buddhist temple, and that I would travel fourteen hours to Japan and chant day and night, I would have laughed out Phoebe Snowloud in your face. But I have had a very profound and visceral experience, at a very low point in my life. I was a sad sack. A friend called me and said, ‘I’m having a Buddhist meeting in my house.’ She was not an arm twister. She was really laid back about it.

“She said, ‘And we’re going to have a little pot luck afterward,’ and I said, ‘Oh!.’ Food was my nemesis. I wonder if it was the food that got me there, but I got there. I had such a profound experience the first time I chanted. Don’t try to intellectualize it. Don’t try to categorize it. Don’t try to explain it. Because you can’t. It’s beyond comprehension. That’s where faith comes in. If you have faith, you can do anything. Don’t try to understand.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if a reader didn’t have to go searching for information about the religious life of the recently deceased!

As you would expect, quite a few readers have sent emails requesting my opinion of that “60 Minutes” Easter piece the other night about the monks of Mt. Athos. Here’s one from Bob Koch that was delivered with a bit of wit:

Concerning the CBS report on Mt. Athos that aired on Easter Sunday evening: I think they get religion. It almost looked like Bob Simon GOT religion.

Indeed.

It has taken me a few days to get to this piece, in large part because of have been under the weather for several days, to say the least. Insert your favorite kidney-stone joke right here. I am delaying a pain-killer for an hour or so just to clear my eyes and write this. So there.

The problem I have evaluating the piece is that it really isn’t a news story. It’s more of a spiritual travelogue. Period.

In fact, it almost seems that the crew went out of its way to avoid recent controversies involving the Holy Mountain, including a much-reported land swap deal involving troubled Greek officials. I would have appreciated some coverage of tensions between the leaders of the 20 or so monastic communities and the leadership of the European Union, as well.

In one of the online extras, producer Michael Karzis talks about the differences between doing this spirituality piece and a “regular story.” It appears that the goal here was simply to describe the details of the daily lives of the monks and their spiritual goals and traditions. A sample:

Father Iakovos is one of a few Americans on the mountain; he’s been there more than half his life. “You have to understand, the words that we’re saying in today’s liturgy, are the same words that Christ was saying, are the same words that saints from the first century, the second century, the third century, the fourth century,” he told “60 Minutes” correspondent Bob Simon.

And nothing has changed in orthodoxy since then — it’s the only branch of Christianity that can make that claim.

That’s fine, although I am sure some non-Orthodox viewers will be frustrated that some of their claims (Nothing has changed in Orthodoxy, ever?) go completely unchallenged.

At the same time, the Orthodox may be frustrated that there are glimpses of huge theological questions that going flying past and then vanish. We are given brief looks at the worship rites, but are never really told what is being said, beyond, “Lord have mercy.” It’s all Greek, so to speak. We are introduced to this “blast furnace of prayer,” but we know little about what they are saying.

We see pilgrims from around the world. What are they doing there? That monk who used to teach at Harvard Divinity School? What’s up with him? How did he get to the mountain?

The total package is beautiful. The history is amazing. But I am sure many viewers were left wanting more.

Oh, and one more thing. The biggest mystery of all, for me? Who, at CBS, thought it was a good fit to have this entire online package sponsored by Viagra?

Back in March, I wrote a post about the ethics of undercover journalism. The hook was the NPR sting but the background was the vigorous debate among prolifers about stings of various Planned Parenthood offices. That debate centered around undercover reporters exposing employees willing to break rules and laws in order to help an underage sex ring. Some defended the morality of the undercover journalism while others said that lying can’t be defended, even if it does expose wrongdoing.

Public Discourse ran a series of arguments and responses. (Here’s Christopher Tollefsen first, then Christopher Kaczor’s response; Tollefsen again, and then Hadley Arkes’s response; Tollefsen for a final time, Carson Holloway, and Bill Doino. The best pro-sting defense was by Peter Kreeft.)

I waited to cover the debate once it received mainstream coverage but gave up. One never knows how long to wait before criticizing folks for not covering something, such as this debate.

All of that to say that I was absolutely delighted to see that Religion News Service gave a thorough treatment to that debate in this new story “Spotlight on abortion activist makes some Catholics nervous.”

What advanced the story was the following news:

The telegenic 22-year-old will address the seventh annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast on Wednesday (April 27) in Washington, along with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell.

Rose, who converted to Catholicism two years ago, is founder and president of Live Action, which she calls “a new media pro-life organization.” The group has released dozens of covertly taped videos in which Rose and other activists pose as pimps or underage girls seeking abortions, birth control or exams from unwitting Planned Parenthood clinics.

Joseph Cella, a conservative political consultant who founded the prayer breakfast, called Rose a poster child for Jesus’ counsel that Christians be “shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”

“Lila is one of the bright young leaders of the pro-life movement,” Cella said. “She is going to be around for a long time.”

Cella acknowledged, though, that Rose’s work has provoked a “family squabble” among conservative Christians.

In fact, the Live Action debate seems less an internecine spat than a university seminar, with philosophers and political scientists consumed by a clear-cut but complex question: Is it ever moral to lie?

I’ve been following these debates and this is an accurate description. From there, the reporter takes us through some of these debates. We hear from Rose about the purpose of her work (to “expose abuses and injustices against those who are defenseless.”). We learn that Planned Parenthood took action in response to the tapes. We learn that some “conservative Christians” rejoiced but that others didn’t. Princeton University’s Robert P. George said the videos are a form of lying which are always and everywhere wrong.

Other Catholic and evangelicals weigh in with their concerns as well. The story even gives some nice historical perspective:

Debating the morality of undercover work is actually an ancient Christian tradition, according to Christopher Tollefsen, a professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina.

St. Augustine tried to settle the argument back in the fourth century: He wanted to stop Christians from spying on rival sects to root out heresy.

Rose said that she has consulted with her spiritual director and other Catholics, who offered assurance that history is also rife with saints who used deception for worthy causes.

Take, for instance, the Hebrew midwives who lied to protect children from a murderous pharaoh, and priests who forged baptismal certificates to save Jews during the Holocaust.

Peter Kreeft, a Catholic philosopher at Boston College, defends Rose and analogizes her work to that of a spy.

The article doesn’t resolve the issue, but it did a good job of summing up and excerpting some of the key arguments in the debate. It also makes me wonder if, after a year with an NPR sting and a prank phone call with a liberal activist impersonating a Koch brother in a call to the Wisconsin governor, any other groups are debating the ethics of such undercover work. And, of course, undercover reporting and its accompanying deception happen regularly in major media. I think it’s time the debate took place outside of the pro-life community, too.