Anti-catholic bias in the press is not new. But I do wonder if fifteen years of abuse scandals has shifted the framework for reporting on the Roman Catholic Church.The default position in the press is that the Catholic Church is guilty as charged — no matter the charge.
I see this in the reporting on the controversy in Australia over the dismissal of a progressive bishop. In May Bishop Bill Morris of Toowoomba left office five years ahead of schedule. He had been subject to an extended investigation by the Vatican and had been criticized for his progressive views — including allowing women to be ordained to the priesthood. The assumptions and inferences that lie behind the reporting appear to be driven by forces outside the story.
Newspaper writing is a craft. Good journalists bring to their work specialized knowledge of a subject and a command of prose styling. Writers improve with time and a few become masters in the art, while most achieve a workmanlike competence. Some should pack it in and explore new career options where leaden prose is a virtue. Politics? Insurance?
Religion reporting in the Melbourne newspaper, The Age, is just about the best there is in Australia and its chief religion reporter is among the masters of the craft. I’ve been reading the work of Barney Zwartz for many years and like what I see. He has a combines a lightness of touch with a wide knowledge of the subject.
However, there are times when narrative skill and professional knowledge are not enough to produce a good story. I want to look at a recent article entitled “Pope ‘wrong’ in sacking Queensland bishop” on the controversy surrounding Bishop Morris — and ask if you see the problem I see.
The story has a great opening:
The Pope acted against natural justice and the Catholic Church’s own canon law when he sacked Bill Morris as Bishop of Toowoomba last May, two expert independent reports have found.
Queensland Supreme Court judge W.J. Carter found that Bishop Morris was denied procedural fairness and natural justice, and that his treatment was ”offensive” to the requirements of both civil and canon (church) law. He wrote about one unsigned Vatican letter to the bishop that ”one could not imagine a more striking case of a denial of natural justice”.
His conclusion was endorsed by a leading Australian canon lawyer, Melbourne’s Father Ian Waters, whose report was made public last week.
He found that Pope Benedict breached canon law and exceeded his authority in removing Bishop Morris without finding him guilty of apostasy, heresy or schism and without following the judicial procedures canon law requires.
This is good stuff. Crisply written — it grabs the reader’s attention and pulls him into the story. The article summarizes the findings of these experts and recounts the dismissal by the pope of Bishop Morris last May. The story closes with the information that the diocese backed its bishop and was distressed by the Vatican’s actions.
So what’s the problem with the article? Balance.
Let me say up front that I am not saying the article should have given equal time or space to the Catholic church to defend its decision to remove Bishop Morris. The article is not about his removal, but about an independent report that criticizes his removal. Given the limitations of space in most broadsheets there is often little room for an extended treatment of the issues or background. And, if my experience is a guide, churches are slow to respond to questions.
However, I would have liked to have seen some response from the institutional church — either a spokesman or an expert voice — about the claims of unfair treatment made in the report. Barring that perhaps a line or two from a canon lawyer who could speak to the general issue of due process in ecclesiastical proceedings. A response to the firing from the church was not necessary in this story, a response to the report was.
As an aside, in the specialist press that rule does not always hold true because they will devote several articles to a story. Story A is the event. Story B the reaction. Story C the response … and so forth.
The arc of the story, its tone and trajectory, suggests an anti-Vatican bias in this story. While we are told in the first paragraph the report was prepared by two independent investigators, it is not until paragraph 5, out of 8, that we learn these independent investigators were commissioned by the dismissed bishop’s friends.
An independent investigator could have been commissioned by the church to review its procedures. We have seen this in some of the abuse cases in the U.S. for example. However, an independent investigator commissioned by the former bishop’s supporters casts a different light on the story. It does not nullify or lessen the importance of their findings — but it does call for the reader to place these findings in perspective.
By waiting until after the beating the church is given by the experts is over, the statement “Both reports were commissioned by Bishop Morris’ supporters in Toowoomba” comes too late in the narrative. It is unfair.
In sum, my concerns are not over the story under consideration — whether Bishop Morris was unfairly sacked is beside point. My concern is with how this was packaged by The Age. The clever language coupled with the manipulation of the plot line fails the reader who is seeking the truth.
Is this deliberate Catholic bashing? Could the sub-editor have cut out a few paragraphs giving the church’s side of the story so as to fit the article into the page? Might the church not have returned phone calls or ignored the reporter—making it culpable in the way the story was reported? Are we hearing echoes of the Catholic Church’s handling of its abuse cases in the shaping of this narrative about unfair dismissal? What’s going on here?
What say you GetReligion readers?
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Comments (30) |
February 7, 2012, at 6:03 pm
The article uses the term “natural justice” twice, but fails to define what it means. Most of us are not legal scholars, so unless we look it up, we have no way of knowing it is a term in the English legal system. As this is an ecclesiastical question, it does not really apply, the only important question is Canon law.
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February 7, 2012, at 6:23 pm
Bishop Morris suggested more than ordaining women and married men. From the NCR(eporter):
There is a bit more on the disciplinary process in that article. I looked for, but didn’t find an article describing the process from the other side.
Regarding the alleged clergy shortage: that diocese has a priest for each 1688 Catholics. In my diocese, it’s 3719 Catholics per priest. Dallas has nearly 5000 Catholics per priest.
Also, the 8 priests who have signed in support of Bp. Morris represent about 18% of the 45 priests active in the diocese. Are there another 8 who are glad to be rid of their bishop?
If I may digress for a moment: I think it’s problematic to speak of “The Catholic Church” doing something, when it’s clear that what’s meant is “this bishop” or “that bishop” or “the pope” did the thing in question. It’s shorthand of course, and we all do it. But I wonder how much that construction owes to modern individualism and anti-authoritarianism, and how much it reflects a sound ecclesiology? Put it into the immediate context: when my bishop does something, I don’t (accurately) say “the diocese” did the thing.
I’m not going to address the issue of the sex abuse scandals, or the coverage thereof. It’s not a factor here.
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February 7, 2012, at 6:23 pm
Despite saying that the report concluded that the Church violated its own canon law, it didn’t give any indication of what that meant — no references (canon law is something that can be looked up pretty easily these days), no description, even brief, of what “the judicial procedures canon law requires”. Even if you don’t end up giving one side a say, you can still do something for balance by giving readers the information needed to look things up for themselves, or by being very specific.
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February 7, 2012, at 6:44 pm
Father Theodore, I agree they should have defined “natural justice” for the readers, but I disagree that it had nothing to do with the case, or at least the claims that the bishop’s defenders are making. They are accusing the Pope and those who prosecuted the bishop with not allowing him to read the accusations or to know who his accusers are, which are essentials to the conduct of any act of justice, hence “natural justice”.
George, this is a very complicated issue and I disagree that this required “perhaps a line or two from a canon lawyer who could speak to the general issue of due process in ecclesiastical proceedings”. It needed much more than a line or two. Making the claim that the Pope violated natural justice is huge. HUGE. They are saying that the Pope — the chief legislator and judge of the Church — had it in for Morris and ignored the rules of the Church to get his way. I have a serious problem with that claim because anyone who knows anything about Pope Benedict knows that he is a stickler for justice. He is one who bends over backwards to make sure that the accused are given their rights, both natural and canonical.
We know this from when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and had initiated investigations of theologians who were not upholding the teachings of the Church (think Sister Jeannine Gramick and Father Robert Nugent of New Ways Ministry infamy). Many times those subject to the investigations made claims similar to Morris’ supporters. But in every single case, it was always shown by someone else who worked on the case that the claims were false, that the prefect really did go out of his way to understand the writings, did give them plenty of time to respond, did follow the rules of natural justice and the rules of the process. What it came down to was that these were people who wanted their own way and because they didn’t get it, they complained that they weren’t treated fairly.
I seriously doubt that we’ll hear from someone inside the case on this one. But if this reporter had any sense for a story, he would have worked contacts in Rome to talk with people who had worked with Ratzinger at the CDF to find out what happened on the inside of that congregation.
As I said, this is a huge claim and a huge story. The Age should have given this one a whole lot more room and, if the reporter had played his cards right and done the work, he would have uncovered a lot more information that would have been far more enlightening than the unexamined claims of some happy-clappy bishop’s friends.
(By the way, if the reporter reads this and wants to know who to talk to, Ed Peters is the best lay canon lawyer in the U.S. and probably Australia.)
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February 7, 2012, at 6:55 pm
Isn’t the Pope considered to be the ultimate authority on doctrinal matters? What recourse does a Catholic have once the Pope has ruled?
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February 7, 2012, at 7:01 pm
sari — none. Once he rules, that’s it (canon 333.3).
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February 7, 2012, at 7:11 pm
Well said Thomas.
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February 7, 2012, at 7:18 pm
So for all practical purposes, the Pope is the Church.
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February 7, 2012, at 7:23 pm
”The Church” is the whole body of all the baptized, lay, religious, deacons, priests, and bishops.
The pope is not ”the Church”. He is the bishop of Rome. His precise authority is subject to Canon law, which is why, as noted in #4, this is an important story.
Books are written on ecclesiology, and I won’t hit all the nuances in a blog comment. It’s silly, though, to expect clear thinking when the language is muddy. Not sure, but that may be a journalism comment
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February 7, 2012, at 8:11 pm
sari, the Pope is no more “The Church” than I am “The Szyszkiewicz Family.” Yes, he does have final authority, just I have final authority in my home (well, at least I like to think I do — just ask my wife). But neither one of us is the sum total of those entities in which we are the final authority. Hope that helps.
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February 7, 2012, at 8:39 pm
Thank you for the explanation, Thomas. It’s still not clear, at least to me, how one can ensure that any given Pope adheres to Canon Law if no body exists to evaluate questionable rulings.
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February 7, 2012, at 11:13 pm
sari - That’s where trust in the Holy Spirit comes in. Honestly. This is something “the press…just doesn’t get” — we really do trust that the Holy Spirit is at work. This is not simply a big political machine. Even if there is an unjust ruling from a pope (and yes, there have been some), we trust that God will work it all out. Bad explanation, that; but this is a journalism, not theology, blog.
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February 7, 2012, at 11:47 pm
I understand completely. We have a similar concept that underlies the Oral Law, that G-d guides the rabbis’ decisions. Thanks for the explanation.
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February 8, 2012, at 12:37 am
On a purely practical level, people scream bloody murder at about anything the pope does, so a sort of functional review ends up happening. It’s like a family… A very large, loud contentious family. Browse the Catholic blogs for a sample of what I mean. Of course, like any family, people end up falling out and not talking for years, sometimes forever.
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February 8, 2012, at 4:22 am
I think I basically agree, but if you agree that the first four paragraphs were the ‘opening’, then, even though this story only had eight paragraphs, the fifth paragraph is the first paragraph in the body of the story and in that first paragraph after the opening it mentions the pertinent fact.
I agree about the effect of leaving it until then, but I wonder if that’s a function of a story only getting eight paragraphs (and some of those merely a sentence). The only other option would be to lead with that fact -
I think that is clearly better reporting, but some consideration has to be given to some kind of hook for the story and not having too many subordinate clauses in an opening sentence. I’d be strongly tempted to leave that bit out for the start of the main body of the story in paragraph five as well.
More pertinent, I think, is the lack of any other perspective. It looks like the reporter has only talked with one side and has given their one side. It looks almost like a well thought out press release that’s been written up.
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February 8, 2012, at 6:51 am
Fundamental error in para. 1 of the report - Bishop Morris was not “sacked” as bishop of Toowoomba; even on his own version of the facts, he (albeit reluctantly) accepted “early retirement”. He refused to “resign” (the preferred course from the point of view of the Curia, as per Code of Canon Law can. 401 §2) and himself proposed that he should retire. Download his undated letter to his flock.
For a bishop recently “removed” from his See in unusual and largely unexplained circumstances (Bishop Loemba, formerly of Pointe-Noire, Republic of the Congo) see Ed Peters’ judicious comments.
Likely error in para. 1 – “Queensland Supreme Court judge W.J. Carter” is not an “expert” in Canon Law and had no business introjecting his expertise in Australian civil law into the area of Canon Law.
Dubious proposition in para. 1 – in what sense is the expression of opinion by a civil jurist tantamount to a “finding”? Put “judge” and “finding” together in the same sentence/ paragraph/ report, and the average reader will suspect (down to para. 5, that is) that this is in some sense the fruit of a legal process.
Dubious reporting throughout the piece –
para. 1 speaks of “independent reports” (a report commisioned by a party to a dispute is not “independent” in any meaningful sense);
para. 2 has an Australian judge making a “finding”;
para. 3 glosses this “finding” as a “conclusion”;
para. 5 informs us that the “report” was commissioned by supporters of Morris;
para. 6 asserts that judge Carter “listed 14 points where Bishop Morris was deprived of natural justice and due process” and quotes him as “writing”, inter alia, of “(decisions) by high-ranking church officials more likely based on gossip and hearsay”. Just because that is his personal opinion on so much of the facts as fell under his notice (as fed to him by Bishop Morris’ supporters, presumably), doesn’t make it a legal opinion.
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February 8, 2012, at 7:03 am
As for the Pope breaching canon law, he is the supreme legislator in the Church as well as the supreme interpreter of Canon Law, and from him there is no appeal (canon 333 §3). He has “supreme, full, immediate and universal ordinary power in the Church, which he is always able to exercise freely (canon 331).
Contrary to what Fr. Ian Waters is reported as opining, there are no judicial procedures for removing a bishop from office. A statement by Pope Benedict XVI to that effect is quoted by Bishop Morris in the letter referred to above.
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February 8, 2012, at 8:25 am
I don’t think Passing By really understands the pressure put on clergy servicing dioceses the size of Toowoomba. I find the comments around “alleged priest shortage” insulting and coming from a very naive perspective.
Passing By quotes the number of priests per Catholic. This may make sense in tightly packed dioceses such as Fort Worth but is not a fair comparison.
Passsing By’s diocese of Fort Worth has 121 priests servicing an area of 62,000 square kilometers (about the size of West Virginia). This means there is a priest for every 500 sq km.
Toowoomba on the other hand has 45 priest servicing an area of 487,000 sq km (about the size of West Virginia and California put together). This means there is a priest for every 10,800 sq km.
Could you imagine having 6 priests servicing the whole of Fort Worth?
Bishop Morris had a genuine concern for his diocese. Any bishop with an ounce of pastoral blood would be. His priests were over stretched. Some of the parishes do not have a full time priest and can not celebrate mass each week. Of course he wanted to look at other options.
I hope that our church is a living church and can see ways forward that bring God into our lives. To do this we need priests and lay people to work together - to think through how this is to be resolved.
This is what Bishop Morris was asking for in his letter. I don’t know whether he was right or wrong in what he wrote or whether the Pope was right or wrong - I just hope both were sincere in their actions. But at the end of the day this fighting and bickering is not bringing God to anyone. All this back and forth in the press and the internet seems like a group of Pharisees arguing - this does not solve the problems that need to be addressed.
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February 8, 2012, at 8:41 am
The story also shows that administration of a worldwide organization such as the Catholic Church is not a simple matter. Why is the civil court involved? Is that common in Australia? In other countries? Would that happen in the US? To what extent does the Vatican have to base church clerical decisions on local law?
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February 8, 2012, at 10:32 am
From my reading of the piece, Bill, the civil courts in Australia are not involved in any way, shape or form. Bishop Morris’ supporters asked Judge Carter for his view on the matter, and he gave it. Your bemused response is exactly what the average reader would assume from the careless conjunction of “judge” and “found/ finding” in the same sentence/ paragraph/ piece. It is a serious journalistic error.
Other bloggers have concluded this is a judgment by the Supreme Court of Queensland. See, for example, here.
The Supreme Court of Queensland, however, is not a unitary court, but a court system which includes trial and appellate divisions.
If we are to believe wikipedia, William Carter retired as a trial judge in 1990. If he retired at the statutory retirement age of, let’s say, 70, that would make him … . erm, 92? Don’t you think Zwartz might have told us that Carter was a retired judge, and a superannuated one at that?
Whatever Barney Zwartz has going for him as a journalist, I am not impressed by his original piece or by his re-working of the story as an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald last week - cue some heavy-handed side-swipes at the Pope for “classical Inquisition tactics” and all that.
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February 8, 2012, at 11:53 am
That is just great work Bain. Comments 16, 17, and 20 are all really important ‘fact checks’.
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February 8, 2012, at 12:09 pm
@ Mark Baddeley #21 — Hear, hear!
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February 8, 2012, at 12:28 pm
I have worked and managed social services in very remote areas of Texas, which kind of work involves extensive travel and crisis management, not to mention home contacts. For awhile, I directly served an area of 10,000 square miles (miles, not kilometers).
At any rate, the Toowoomba diocese has 37 parishes, mostly clustered in the eastern end of the diocese. Maybe that justifies changing Catholic sacramental theology, but I don’t see it. Around here, priests serve mostly at the parish, with occasional hospital or nursing home visits. It’s lay folk who do the travelling.
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February 8, 2012, at 2:00 pm
I recall reading on an Australian blog last year that in the entire 18 year episcopacy of Bill Morris, the diocese of Toowoomba produced a grand total of one seminarian.
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February 8, 2012, at 2:15 pm
@Mark Baddeley #21 and @Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz #22
aww shucks!
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February 8, 2012, at 6:53 pm
Typical Barney Zwartz if you ask me.
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February 8, 2012, at 7:07 pm
The serpent motif on Bishop Morris’ chasuble offends against the relevant liturgical rule, no. 344:-
Absent any indication that the serpent has been vanquished (it’s not a dead serpent, perhaps?), I should say it was entirely unbecoming. This is all part of a type of arbitrary liturgical creativity which caused the trouble in the first place.
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February 8, 2012, at 11:22 pm
A good collection of links regarding Bp. Morris, including primary documents such as Judge Carter’s report.
http://holyirritant.blogspot.com/2012/01/essential-reading-re-bishop-bill-morris.html
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February 9, 2012, at 5:44 am
Thanks for that link, PB. Sorry to labour the point, but we can get at least as this much farther:-
On or before 21 October 2011 (the date appears in the footer), William Carter composed a “Memorandum” (identified as such rather prominently, at the head of the document), and in signing it he identified himself not as a judge or former judge but as “Hon. W. J. Carter Q.C.”, a form in which he signed – as long ago as 1993 (three years after his retirement from the bench) – a report commissioned from him by the Criminal Justice Commission of Queensland regarding a particular matter. Carter himself gives no indication as to what impelled him to compose the Memorandum, and it contains no allusion to who, if anyone, commissioned it.
It was foolish of Zwartz to gloss the “Memorandum” as anything other than what it purported to be, and even more foolish of him to fail to point out that Carter is not a judge, but a former judge.
Next, Zwartz asserted this (about a document which, perhaps he may never have seen – which might account for his misdescribing its nature and its contents):-
This is incorrect. The Memorandum refers at length to an unsigned document handed to Bishop Morris by the Apostolic Nuncio “on or about 17 September 2007”. This document is said by Carter to contain allegations against Bishop Morris, which Carter extracts, lists and numbers as 13 items (Memo, pp.6f.).
Carter himself summarises (Memo, pp. 13f.) what he calls “(t)he serious deficits in [the canonical process implicit in Canon 401”. These are presented in 12 numbered paragraphs, but they do not disclose 14 or even 12 “points”:- paras. 1 and 2 make one point; para. 3 makes one point; paras 4, 5 and 6 make two points between them; paras 7, 8, 9, and 10 make altogether one point; and paras 11 and 12 are a narrative restating previous points. Thus there were five points where Carter alleged breaches of natural justice.
To pursue this a little further, the whole burden of Carter’s Memorandum is that canon 400 §2 signifies an “implicit canonical process” (Memo, p.14). This is incorrect. Bishop Morris was certainly pressured to resign, but, in the event, retire he did – under pressure, but voluntarily.
Issues of natural justice (which bear on the due process to be followed where someone is involuntarily deprived of liberty, property, office or employment) simply do not arise under canon 400 §2. The notion that a request for someone to resign as bishop is “an administrative decision” (Memo, p. 16), and that it should be conducted according to due process (ibid.), is simply misconceived.
Finally, as for the “demonstrable errors of fact” allegedly identified by Carter, I have found two (Memo, p.8):-
Having regard to contentions regarding doctrine and discipline, liturgical abuses, and lack of Catholic identity in the diocese, these seem somewhat subsidiary complaints against Bishop Morris’ episcopate, but the former assertion (of no ordinations within the last 7 years) is not, in terms, disproved by a counter-assertion that there had been 4 in the last 8 years.
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February 10, 2012, at 11:19 am
**My “400 §2” in the para. beginning “Issues of natural justice” should read “401 §2”**
More happily, on 8 February, Ed Peters (always judicious and always meticulous) first noticed and then (in a later post) gave his assessment of Fr. Waters’ “Canonical Reflection on the Carter Report”.
Dr. Peters does not refer to the Zwartz piece, but I have no doubt he would have given it short shrift. According to Mr. Zwartz:-
That summary bears no relation to Fr. Waters’ conclusions.
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