Please grant me a moment to help readers flash back to a few recent GetReligion posts focusing on mainstream news media coverage of the Womenpriests movement. It focused on an event in Baltimore, a public rite in which four women were hailed as Roman Catholic priests.
A key passage in the Baltimore Sun’s celebratory coverage noted:
Andrea Johnson, presiding as bishop, ordained two women from Maryland, Ann Penick and Marellen Mayers, one from Pennsylvania and one from New York in the sanctuary of St. John’s United Church of Christ. The church was filled with family members — including husbands of three of the ordinands — and friends, including some who are employed by the Archdiocese of Baltimore but who support the ordination of women. Photography was limited to protect the privacy of those attending the ceremony.
The key fact there was that the newspaper’s editors appear to have agreed to help shield some local Catholic leaders from the scrutiny of their superiors. In other words, the Sun team agreed to ignore a national or even global news story that took place in its own backyard.
At the time, I wrote:
… (It) sounds like the Sun agreed not to photograph the congregation in order to protect the privacy of Catholics — Catholic educational leaders or diocesan staff, perhaps — who could not afford to make public their support of the Womenpriests movement. I don’t know about you, but that seems strange — unless editors had decided to protect those individuals as sources for the story. If that’s the case, perhaps that should be stated?
Why do I bring this up?
Here’s why. The New York Times recently published a fascinating (it, as is the newroom’s new Catholic norm, highly unbalanced) story indicating that a small number of Roman Catholic priests are beginning to go public with their support for the ordination of women to the priesthood, or, at least, are daring to show public support for priests who are willing to protest Vatican teachings on that issue.
Here’s the top of this global-level story:
More than 150 Roman Catholic priests in the United States have signed a statement in support of a fellow cleric who faces dismissal for participating in a ceremony that purported to ordain a woman as a priest, in defiance of church teaching.
The American priests’ action follows closely on the heels of a “Call to Disobedience” issued in Austria last month by more than 300 priests and deacons. They stunned their bishops with a seven-point pledge that includes actively promoting priesthood for women and married men, and reciting a public prayer for “church reform” in every Mass.
And in Australia, the National Council of Priests recently released a ringing defense of the bishop of Toowoomba, who had issued a pastoral letter saying that, facing a severe priest shortage, he would ordain women and married men “if Rome would allow it.” After an investigation, the Vatican forced him to resign.
What is the link to the Baltimore story? I believe the journalistic link is pretty clear.
I’ll make my point with a series of questions: Were there Catholic priests in the audience that day for the Womenpriests ordination rite in Baltimore? Were any dressed in clerical garb? To raise the stakes, were any dressed in vestments? Did one or more of these priests make symbolic gestures, such as blessing these women or greeting them as priests?
This may sound like wild speculation. However, the Times reports otherwise, focusing on actions taken in another case in another place and time:
Church experts said it was surprising that 157 priests would sign a statement in support of the American priest, the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, because he did much more than speak out: he gave the homily and blessed a woman in an illicit ordination ceremony conducted by the group, Roman Catholic Womenpriests. That group claims to have ordained 120 female priests and five bishops worldwide. The Vatican does not recognize the ordinations and has declared the women automatically excommunicated.
Once again, we face the key question in the earlier posts: To what degree did editors and other members of the Sun team intentionally participate in the hiding of a national or even global news story by agreeing to shield Catholic staffers and, perhaps, clergy who participated in the Womenpriests rite in Baltimore?
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July 26, 2011, at 12:06 pm
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July 26, 2011, at 12:32 pm
So, you ignore a global story because you are on the Womenpriests side of the battle as opposed to doing a story about the event that happened and accurately quoting the point of view of both sides?
You are at a GOP strategy meeting and five key Democrats show up TO TAKE PART and help undercut their party, members of the DMC staff even, and you agree to hide their presence because you are on the GOP side? You ignore that story?
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July 26, 2011, at 1:28 pm
While not directly related to the point of tmatt’s post, I think it’s worth commending the New York Times story for clearly including the official Catholic Church position—both as to the inefficacy of the purported ordinations and the automatic nature of excommunication—being a vast improvement on the originally linked stories from the Baltimore Sun, and the criticism of them.
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July 26, 2011, at 1:35 pm
Are we sure the Sun story would have been able to get out the information it did without operating under ground rules? In general, I’m against these deals, though I think embedded war reporting for instance has added to the pool of knowledge while accepting limitations that are generally noxious to journalism.
On another note, care to spell out your problems with NYT piece? I thought she hit all the caveats GR has argued need to be such pieces. “Unbalanced” — well, you would naturally give more time to the side that’s making the news rather than the side that’s stayed constant. Ultimately I thought the piece was fair.
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July 26, 2011, at 2:07 pm
Another problem with the article is that Roy Bourgeois in fact was excommunicated (Latae Sententiae) for his participation in a previous event with this group.
Even though Maryknoll has not expelled him from membership in their order yet that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been excommunicated.
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July 26, 2011, at 2:54 pm
Terry, your point is a good one, but let’s think for a moment. Can you think of a time when the Sun hid/did not cover a major news story because it would embarass one of its favored constituencies?
I can think of several offhand involving Democrats, high-visibility business leaders, and a few lobbyists. I can think of a dozen times when favorite people were under the public gun so to speak, and the Sun reporters did not press questions that would be awkward for the subject.
I DO NOT think it’s ok, but I can’t say I’m shocked nor should you be.
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July 26, 2011, at 7:59 pm
tmatt—I wonder about your calling the traditional Catholic—Orthodox teaching on ordination as “Vatican teachings on that issue” when it comes to the ordination of women to the priesthood. Isn’t it more accurate to put it a number of other ways such as “the constant teaching of the undivided Christian Church,” or the “original ordination teaching defended by the Vatican,” or someting similar.
The phrase “Vatican teachings on that issue,” seems to be a phrase the MSM frequently uses to undercut thousands of years of Tradition on a number of issues (like abortion, also) to make it look like the things the media doesn’t like have no roots to apostolic times and were probably recently dreamed up by some clerical bureaucrat in the bowels of the Vatican.
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July 26, 2011, at 9:38 pm
The implication in the story is that the bishop of Toowoomba was investigated by the Vatican and forced to resign because he wrote in a pastoral letter that he would ordain women and married men “if Rome would allow it.”
Sounds like he’s going along with Rome. You suppose there might be more to the story?
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July 26, 2011, at 10:17 pm
What I want to know is: Who are those 157 American priests? What did the petition say? Why did the NYT know about the petition, but decline to say who signed it? Or did Call to Action refuse to tell them - and if so, why did the publish anything about it? Without names, we can’t know if the statement is even real.
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July 27, 2011, at 9:36 am
I am not really sure what this story is about. Anybody can wander around claiming to be a priest; it doesn’t mean that they are. The Catholic Church’s understanding isn’t that it won’t ordain women, but that it can’t. They hold that any attempt to ordain a woman would be invalid, not illicit (as in ‘unsanctioned’ by the Church), but it wouldn’t work.
So - not really much of a story. Another group of people are part of another church - not exactly a hugh story. As for those who ‘may have been in the congregation’, dear Lord - that is the stuff of conspiracy theory dreams.
As for Fr Bourgeois, he knew what he was doing and it seems daft to express surprise that he is in trouble because of it.
I have to say, the sermon was pretty uninspiring.
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July 27, 2011, at 12:43 pm
The Roman Catholic Church is going to remain orthodox. The media would like to see a schism. All the TRUTH that is fit to print ought to have included the fact that women priests cannot give a dying person the Sacraments of the Catholic Church and Holy Viaticum and the papers would let persons die without the Sacraments of their Church. Fine bunch. Remember that when comes time for renewal.
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July 27, 2011, at 1:05 pm
Good point. This is the religion news version of the oft-recited Internet refrain “Pics, or it didn’t happen.”
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July 27, 2011, at 2:49 pm
Something is wrong with the “contact” set-up. It keeps saying I need to enter an e-mail address when I did do that.
So - here’s what I was trying to say. It’s a link to La Stampa, a mainstream newspaper in Italy, which is now offering a bundle of their reports on Catholicism on-line in several languages, so I guess this is a good place to call it to your attention.
- - - - - - -
It looks like the Italians as well as the Norwegians think that Christian fundamentalists are violent. Maybe this use of “fundamentalism” does not derive from our use of it in the US? Perhaps it means something else to Europeans?
Or if the term is borrowed from US idioms do they think US back-to-basics Christians are all violent? Much as they think we are all cowboy gunslingers over here?
http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/news/detail/articolo/6268/
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July 27, 2011, at 3:05 pm
The ever-useful John Allen has just written on the situation in Germany and Austria referenced in the NYT article.
His July 27th piece may have been motivated by the July 22nd NYT article.
http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/latest-ferment-shows-german-instinct-rebel
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July 27, 2011, at 3:52 pm
Re: the outsted Australian bishop
This is not about a recent letter; the article reveals that the major sticking point was his refusal to quit holding large-group public confession events instead of individual confession.
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July 27, 2011, at 3:54 pm
Woops. Here’s the link to the Australian piece. I think it’s a secular newspaper.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/sacked-toowoomba-bishop-discovers-romes-word-still-law/story-e6frg6zo-1226059618972
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July 27, 2011, at 4:56 pm
Still — what about those supposed American priests who signed the statement? WHO ARE THEY?
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July 27, 2011, at 8:00 pm
I might be beating a dead horse here but….
Women ‘priests’ and married men being ordained priests are not the same according to Catholic dogma. While the Roman-rite does not allow for married men, many riters in strict union with Rome have a married men priesthood. Women cannot be Catholic priests
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July 28, 2011, at 5:27 pm
As far as the original story goes, tmatt is right. Why protect the identities of the people at the “ordination”? The women involved were all named, so who are the people whose “privacy” needs to be “protected”? Does the Sun agree not to show people who attend weddings, funerals, protests, and other events that might possibly get attendees into trouble? That is a good question.
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July 29, 2011, at 8:30 am
tmatt - I’ve emailed Call-to-Action, the Maryknolls and Fr Fred Daley (who was quoted in the Call-to-Action press release as representing the priests), requesting that they release the list of 157 priests. So far, only the Maryknolls have responded, stating that “is not for Maryknoll to make public the letter or the names of the priests who signed it.” CTA and Fr Daley haven’t responded as of yet. I will let you know of any further developments.
If I get the list (and that’s a BIG if), I’m publishing it at my blog. If I don’t, I’m going to kick off an on-line petition. The Church - the People of God - have a right to know.
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