“How Will Anglicans React if New Hampshire Episcopalians Elect Another Gay Bishop?” Time Magazine asks in a 17 May 2012 article printed on its website.

To which this Anglican responds, “Why don’t you ask them?”

Question headlines are often a flag of trouble ahead for an article — a signal that the article will be weak. The question is usually a rhetorical one — the answer is given by the editorial voice of the article. Or it is some sort of “come on” — an exaggerated statement to attract the reader’s attention.

No, this is not the worst Anglican article ever printed. There have been silly Anglican articles, wrong Anglican articles, dumb Anglican articles, partisan/hack job Anglican articles, and egregiously cruel and ignorant Anglican news articles printed over the past few decades, so it is false and unkind of me to say this is the worst Anglican article ever. Nor can the author be blamed for the silly headline, as reporters seldom write their own headlines.

But this article on the forthcoming episcopal election in the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire is a wreck. While the editorial voice of this ill-informed story supports the progressive agenda in the Episcopal Church, it does so by treating the actors in this drama as one dimensional creatures — cartoons who represent issues rather than people whose lives are not exclusively driven by issues in human sexuality.

The lede of this story begins:

In the summer of 1992, an Episcopalian priest in Baltimore officiated at the wedding of two female congregants. Though he had been “careful to obtain all the necessary permissions,” it wasn’t long before the Rev. William Rich found himself on the front page of the Baltimore Sun and at the center of a religious controversy. Rich was criticized by many in the community and church for performing a gay wedding ceremony, but he’s never regretted the move. …

First problem — the claim that Fr. Rich performed a wedding for two women is false. The 1992 Baltimore Sun article reported that a blessing ceremony took place — but also stated this ceremony was not a marriage and should not be construed as being a marriage.

Father Rich, who is a chaplain at Goucher College, says the ceremony he devised at the request of the women involved was not a wedding but “the blessing of two people committed to each other.”

The Bishop of Maryland told the Sun:

Bishop Eastman said he was assured by the priest “that the liturgy in question was not in any sense intended to be a marriage as Christians understand that sacrament.”

“It was meant to be a private event addressing personal, pastoral needs,” the bishop added. “Neither the two women involved nor Father Rich desired to advance a cause or make a public statement of any kind.”

There is a difference between marriage in a church and the blessing of two people in a same-gender relationship. It is a gross error to conflate the two.

The article then transitions into the story that Fr. Rich is one of three candidates standing for election as Bishop of New Hampshire. It reports that he is an “openly gay man” and and notes that delegates to the diocesan electoral convention:

… will cast their vote by secret ballot to choose a replacement for the current bishop, the retiring Gene Robinson, who is also gay. If a second gay man is elected to the post, the selection will likely reverberate through the staunchly conservative arms of the Anglican Communion, a global network of churches to which the Episcopalians belong. It could also widen a fissure in the network that’s been forming for quite some time.

Second problem — the analysis offered here is just plain dumb. Gay and lesbian clergy have stood for election in several dioceses of the Episcopal Church since Gene Robinson was elected in 2003, and one was elected suffragan or assistant bishop in the Diocese of Los Angeles in 2009. The news that a gay clergyman is standing for election as bishop of New Hampshire is hardly shocking to anyone who has any knowledge of the Episcopal Church or the wider Anglican Communion.

The assertion that the election of Fr. Rich would widen a “fissure in the network” is an equally silly statement. The Anglican Communion is not a network of churches but a communion of churches — this is a theological term. The Lutheran World Federation is a network of churches. The Roman Catholic Church is a single church — it would say it is the church. Anglicans like the Orthodox are in between. They see themselves as part of a single catholic church whose members reside in autonomous national churches — one of the battles being waged within the Anglican world is on the nature of this autonomy. Is it absolute or conditional?

To call Anglicans a network of churches implies Time has decided that it backs one side in the dispute — or is an indication of ignorance.

I suspect it is ignorance on Times’ part, as the impending fissure has already happened. Approximately 22 of the 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion are in some form of impaired communion with the Episcopal Church. This rupture has taken many forms, but the break has already occurred.

(Last October the Episcopal Church’s national office released talking points disputing the figure of 22 of 38 cited by GetReligion’s Mollie Ziegler Hemingway in an article she wrote for the Wall Street Journal. However, a little checking showed the Episcopal Church’s claim to be false.)

The current state of play is of a broken communion. One where some bishops will not attend meetings if other bishops, whom they regard as apostate, are present. A communion where its leaders can no longer worship together as they cannot all receive the Eucharist, Holy Communion, in the same service has already split. As the former primate, (the archbishop or presiding bishop of a province) of the Province of the Southern Cone (the southern half of South America) told me in 2009, the traditionalists do not believe the leaders of the Episcopal Church are “Christians as we understand it.”

The article attempts to place what it thinks might be the impending split in historical context, stating the:

… crack in the Anglican community began to appear about nine years ago when Robinson became the first openly gay (and not celibate) man to be ordained as bishop.

Problem three — The crack has been around for almost 40 years and has been steadily widening. The consecration of Gene Robinson was a significant event, but hardly the first event in the splintering of the Anglican Communion. GetReligion’s tmatt has written extensively on this point and I need not restate the accurate Anglican timeline here.

The language used by this article is biased and ill-informed and full of questionable assumptions and conclusions. The story of Gene Robinson wearing a bullet-proof vest to his consecration is shared. And yes, it is true he wore such a vest. Yet the article does not go further in developing this point and the claims repeated over the years of physical danger. The only clergyman whose murder so far can be laid at the feet of the Anglican wars is Canon Rodney Hunter of Malawi. Popping in the death threat business without context speaks to the lack of knowledge of the subject under review.

Ignorance continues to drive this story to its end. It notes:

It doesn’t look like the issue is dying down, either. Last month, an ultra-conservative Anglican offshoot group, the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, held a conference in London to address the gay bishop question.

Problem four — The FCA conference was not held to address the gay bishop question. The FCA seeks to reform and renew the Anglican Communion from within and by doing so, win souls for Christ. It is also laughable to call the FCA an “ultra-conservative Anglican offshoot group” as it leaders represents the majority of members of the Anglican Communion. One might was well say the Diocese of New Hampshire is an “ultra-liberal Anglican offshoot group”.

The article continues with silly statements and assertions about the structure of the Anglican Communion, why Archbishop Rowan Williams announced his retirement, but returns to New Hampshire for its close.

When asked about the potential for controversy if the diocese were to elect another gay bishop, Reverend Adrian Robbins-Cole, the president of the Standing Committee, insisted that the committee only felt excitement about Rich, as well as the other two candidates, Rev. Penelope Maud Bridges, and Rev. A. Robert Hirschfeld. “What we really focus on is trying to be guided by God to elect the bishop who we need in New Hampshire and whom we think is going to thrive and grow,” Robbins-Cole says. “That’s our real focus.”

An Associated Press style point here. It should be “the Rev.”, never  “Rev.”

I do feel sorry for Fr. Rich. Time is touting his candidacy in such a vulgar way that it might well trigger a backlash among New Hampshire voters. It also does a disservice to Fr. Rich’s candidacy as it turns him into a one dimensional figure whose only merit is that he is gay. Being classified as a novelty candidate, or a one issue priest, treats him as a token and implies the Diocese of New Hampshire sees only that aspect of his  life and work.

What then can one say about this wreck? It is factually incorrect, ill-informed about the issue, dismissive and disparaging of one side, and condescending towards the other. It asks a question of Anglican conservatives, but goes for answer to a white Australian conservative — when the majority of voices arrayed against the liberal wing of the church are African, Asian and Indian.

This may  not be the worst Anglican article ever written, but it comes close.

It’s time for a Catholic culture wars flashback.

Let’s set the way-back machine for last summer, when the Womenpriests movement held one of its ordination rites in Baltimore. As one would expect, this event was glowingly covered — sort of — by The Baltimore Sun. I focused, in posts at the time, on this particular passage:

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.

I noted, with two clicks in Google, that one of the ordinands was a former faculty member/campus minister at one of most powerful Catholic schools in our region — Archbishop Spalding High School. This fact was not included in the news story. And what about the fact that the Sun agreed to abide by the instructions not to photograph the audience. In mean, who would be present who needed the safety of anonymity? I wrote at that time:

… (I)t 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?

I bring this up because of some of the reactions I have heard — in or comments pages and through private emails — to my post that ran with the headline, “New York Times scoop! Catholic same-sex unions!” The post focused on a story that included lots of clearly attributed quotes and information from religious leaders in quite a few churches that are being rocked or even divided by conflicts over homosexuality and the definition of marriage.

That’s good. Journalists like clearly attributed information.

But then there was this passage in the Times report:

The dividing lines are often unpredictable. There are black churches that welcome openly gay couples, and white churches that do not. Some Presbyterian churches hire openly gay clergy members, while others will not. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that homosexual behavior is a sin, but there are Catholic priests who secretly bless gay unions.

The story offers no attribution for the final claim, which is an A1 story in the making if I have ever seen one. The story also, and this is the key, does not offer any context for this claim or information about its source, including why the source of needs to remain anonymous — or in this case, not even mentioned. The information simply shows up.

Does this matter? Well, I noted that this would appear to violate a New York Times editorial policy document that states, in part:

Readers of The New York Times demand to know as much as possible about where we obtain our information and why it merits their trust. For that reason, we have long observed the principle of identifying our sources by name and title or, when that is not possible, explaining why we consider them authoritative, why they are speaking to us and why they have demanded confidentiality. Guidance on limiting the use of unidentified sources, and on informative description of those we do use, has appeared in several editions of our stylebook, including the current one, and in our Integrity Statement, dating from 1999.

As you would imagine, conservative Catholics were not amused by this episode.

Over at the CatholicCulture.org website, Phil Lawler made the following observations:

It is, regrettably, easy to believe that some Catholic priests are giving their blessing to homosexual unions. But if that is the case, these priests are clearly acting in defiance of the Church: the institution they claim to serve. That defiance would constitute a major news story, not merely an observation to be made in passing. … The Times appears to be protecting dissenting priests from ecclesiastical discipline.

Any Times reporter who actually witnessed a Catholic priest blessing a homosexual union, or heard a credible first-hand report of such an event, should have written a news story about it, and that story should have appeared on the front page. That didn’t happen. Why not? I can think of only three possible explanations:

The Times reported something as fact when it had no solid evidence. Terry Mattingly and I agree that’s unlikely.

The Times had solid evidence of priests blessing gay unions, but withheld that evidence because the priests demanded anonymity. That’s possible. But as Mattingly points out, the Times ordinarily informs readers when a report is based on information from someone who requests anonymity.

The Times knows of priests who have blessed same-sex unions, and those priests have not requested anonymity, but the Times has decided not to identify them anyway. This seems to me the most likely explanation.

My assumption is that the second option is closest to the mark, in a scenario that resembles the Sun Womenpriests story mentioned earlier. In other words, the newspaper is actively participating in the story and shaping information in a way that protects one side of the debate from retaliation by the other.

Yes, I know that this happens in political stories all the time. My office is on Capitol Hill. However, this is precisely the scenario that the Times ethics policy addresses — which is why, in order to build and retain trust — the policy requires reporters and editors to give readers as much information about confidential sources as possible (short of a clear, named attribution). Yet that did not happen in this case.

GetReligion readers have, in comments or privately, offered another interesting explanation.

The Times report clearly implies that the Catholic priests performing these same-sex union blessings are, in fact, Catholic priests in good standing. However, perhaps this is not accurate, and the priests in question are either ex-Catholic priests or members of movements (think Womenpriests) that claim to be Catholic, yet the final doctrinal authorities on this issue (as in Catholic bishops) disagree. Yet, why wouldn’t the newspaper simply state that this is the case. Why not give credit to, so to speak, this Rebel Alliance?

I want to propose another scenario, one based on my own experiences in newsrooms and past conversations with liberal Catholics, including journalists. What if the source or sources for this information are, in reality, liberal Catholics and ex-Catholics IN THE TIMES NEWSROOM? They know about these rites or have participated in them, yet they do not want to betray their own liberal priests? Thus, the reference is simply stated as fact, because the people in the know are actually involved in the news process.

Surely the Times staff includes more than its share of ex-Catholics and liberal Catholics. What was the label that former editor Bill Keller pinned on himself in his infamous post-Sept. 11 column (the one that compared the Vatican with Al Qaeda) that ran under the headline, “Is the Pope Catholic?” He said, “I am what a friend calls a ‘collapsed Catholic’ — well beyond lapsed.” I would be shocked if Keller was alone in his own newsroom.

How would a reporter include that information in a story, in an attempt to honor the Times policy?

In light of the media’s fascination with interplay between sex, the Catholic Church and politics, I am always surprised at its lack of curiosity when these worlds collide overseas.

The 6 May 2012 French presidential election is a case in point. Socialist Party (PS) candidate François Hollande captured 18 million votes to incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 16.8 million: 51.64 per cent to 48.36 per cent. The role religion played in the election has received little play in the U.S. save for conservative bloggers, who reported that 93 per cent of France’s 2 million Muslim voters went for Hollande.

Some liberal blogs are warning of the resurgence of a Catholic far right. Writing in the Huffington Post, Eric Margolis argued the National Front was one of the winners in the election, as a Socialist government would invigorate the conservative fringe parties at the expense of Sarkozy’s center-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) party.

But the National Front — xenophobic, racist, violently anti-Muslim and anti-Europe — is poison to moderate French and many members of the UMP. To no surprise, UMP may split, or disintegrate, over the issue of joining forces with the National Front, seen by many French as a reborn fascist movement. In fact, it’s not really fascist, but an avatar of the old 1940 far-right, ultra-conservative, ultra-Catholic movement.

It may very well transpire that a Socialist victory will empower the parties of the far right, but I believe Margolis is off the mark in lumping the far-right with the ultra-Catholic movement (and what exactly is the ultra-Catholic movement anyway?). As I noted in a pre-election post, the French Catholic Church did not endorse any one candidate for the election, but it made it clear that the policies of the National Front were not supported by the Church.

The first article I have seen that looked into how Catholics voted came in the Catholic weekly, La Vie — and its results were a surprise as they closely matched observations made by the editor of GetReligion Terry Mattingly about the American Catholic vote.

Roman Catholics who “go to mass as least once a month” voted 4 to 1 in favor of Sarkozy: 79 per cent to 21 per cent, according to a poll commissioned by Le Vie and conducted by the Harris Institute. Catholics who went to Mass less than once a month, voted 62 per cent to 38 per cent for Sarkozy. Those who self-identified as Catholics but who did not attend mass  showed the same voting patters as the French population at large. Those who identified themselves as atheists voted 70 per cent to 30 per cent in favor of Hollande.

In an odd twist to the conventional media wisdom, Sarkozy increased his margins among mass-going Catholics in this election form 70 per cent in 2005 to 79 per cent this month. What was odd about this increase was that Hollande campaigned on a theme of personal probity — fostering a dour frugal image in contrast to the flamboyant  Sarkozy.

Gay marriage was one of the reasons for the Catholic rejection of Hollande, the survey found.  In an interview with the French gay-oriented glossy magazine TÊTU Hollande stated he would honor the PS’s campaign promise to legalize gay marriage and gay adoption — measures rejected by the UMP-dominated French parliament in 2011. The Harris survey found that mass-going Catholics were not keen on France’s new Socialist President because he was “in favor of same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples.”

Last month the LA Times reported that:

A recent poll for the Journal du Dimanche newspaper found that 64% of French disapproved of Sarkozy. That’s higher even than the rating for the unpopular Valery Giscard d’Estaing during his tenure. Giscard was the last president to lose his reelection bid, in 1981.

The truth is that Sarkozy, 57, has never succeeded in shaking off the negative impression he made at the beginning of his five-year term, that the conservative leader was the “president of the rich.” That image plays badly, especially given that a few months after he took office, the global recession hit, leading to belt-tightening measures.

Before the 2007 election, he had hinted that he would go into retreat in the days before the transfer of power to consider how to lead France. Instead, he threw a party at Fouquet’s, one of the most ostentatious restaurants in France. Then he spent a few days vacationing in the Mediterranean on the yacht of a billionaire businessman friend.

Sarkozy, the French were told, had no hang-ups about celebrity or money; instead of reassuring them, however, the flashy watches and aviator sunglasses simply cemented his reputation as the “bling-bling” president.

Distaste among French voters concerned with social values — the segment where most mass-going Catholic voters can be found — for Sarkozy’s lifestyle appears not to have translated into more votes for Hollande.

La Vie explained the “massive” move to the right by practicing Catholics by stating:

Among the many factors to consider - sociological, economic and cultural - should undoubtedly include anthropological and ethical convictions of these strong Christians.

And for French Catholics gay marriage appeared to be key amongst these convictions. The American Catholic voter matrix created by Tmatt — with the Catholic vote divided amongst Ex-Catholics, Cultural Catholics, Sunday-morning American Catholics and “Sweats the details” Roman Catholic — appears to hold true for France also. 

It may be that the sort of article that looks at the big picture of values voters is beyond a newspaper and lies in the realm of a monthly. However, I would welcome an acknowledgement in the American press that the issues that animate our political debates are not unique to these shores.

What say you GetReligion readers? Is this merely interesting ephemera, or a news angle that should be developed further?

One of the media templates we see frequently in discussion about whether to redefine marriage to include same-sex unions or other groupings is a supposedly rhetorical question about how such a change in law would ever affect anyone other than gay couples. I’ve always thought it showed a surprising lack of imagination for reporters to not be able to realize that changing marriage law, whether you support it or oppose it, is radical. It was radical when marriage law was changed to allow married couples to dissolve their unions with ease, for instance. It had massive changes for American society and men and women and children. And it would be radical, of course, to change the law to say that gender or number are unimportant characteristics or limitations on marriage.

I sometimes re-read Vaughn Walker’s ruling on Proposition 8 and his comments on gender, for instance, are quite fascinating (e.g. “Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage.”). And his decision was based in part on his belief that certain religious beliefs, including those I subscribe to as a traditional Christian, harm homosexuals. He calls out dozens of religious leaders and says their statements regarding Scripture are wrong. I can’t help but think a reporter might pick up on how a Supreme Court ruling in favor of Walker’s decision might have some ramifications for those who confess traditional Christian teachings on sex, particularly as it relates to homosexuality.

Redefining marriage to include same-sex unions would not just be an issue of the law but also of social norms. When the law changes or when the cultural and political elites promulgate a cause, it has an effect on these norms. (“Duh,” you say.) And a big issue that is being advanced by the mainstream media is the normalization of homosexual behavior and relationships. This is not just done by, for instance, downplaying stories about how the monogamy norm isn’t as much of a norm in homosexual relationships or explaining why that norm is different for people who may procreate. It’s not about showing a lack of interest in how changing marriage law might change the educational environment in schools, particularly as it relates to those who uphold traditional Christian teachings. It’s also about presenting those opposed to redefining marriage to include same-sex couples in a negative light or failing to simply tell their story with the same care we see with those who propose changing laws and norms.

About the only good thing I can say about the media coverage in this light is that more and more journalists are being honest about their inability or unwillingness to cover this issue fairly. (More on that in days to come, I hope.)

A small example that seems related to this is a story about boxer Manny Pacquiao. Basically what happened is that a blogger interviewed the boxer and Philippine legislator. They talked about same-sex marriage, which Pacquiao opposes.

The blogger — note, the blogger — added some passages from Leviticus. Then the USA Today aggregator reporter Tom Weir took the blog post and redrafted it for his own use. In the process, he got confused about the portions that Pacquiao had said and the portions that the blogger had written. And he made a bit of a mess of it. But here’s what he wrote up — and keep in mind this is not actually an accurate portrayal of the source material:

The boxing champion, who has been outspoken about his religious convictions in recent months, has challenged the president on the issue of same-sex marriage.

In an interview with the National Conservative Examiner, Pacquiao stated his position on the issue:

“God only expects man and woman to be together and to be legally married, only if they are in love with each other.

“It should not be of the same sex so as to adulterate the altar of matrimony, like in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah of Old.”

Pacquiao also invoked Old Testament, and recited Leviticus 20:13, saying: “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”

OK, then.

I think there were actually better Pacquiao quotes to have highlighted but it’s kind of obvious what’s going on here — an attempt to make things as salacious as possible.

It turns out that Pacquiao didn’t recite Leviticus or invoke it — he hasn’t even read it (and if not for my Bible as Literature course in college or the interminable Bible Study we did on it last year at church — Hi, Pastor! — I may not have either). So the USA Today blogger — who still hasn’t corrected his piece despite Pacquiao himself calling him out on it — was wrong. There’s not much more to say about it except that it fits the template that the media seem to follow of having no interest in learning anything substantive about why people oppose same-sex marriage, whether on religious grounds or otherwise.

As bad as the lazy USA Today piece was, it was much better than the LA Weekly story which misinformed under the headline “Manny Pacquiao Says Gay Men Should Be ‘Put to Death’”:

Manny Pacquiao, who lives and trains in Los Angeles, is probably in deep shit in this liberal city of brotherly love.

That’s because the boxing champion said that gay men “must be put to death.”

Really.

Or not really. Whatever. The man quoted as saying that, in fact, didn’t say that.

What’s really important is that these issues be handled as clumsily as possible. Their attempts to CYA while correcting can be seen here.

Cut to the fall-out over the story, though, and I thought that this Los Angeles Times story did a great job of handling it. It clarified the issue — although it was somewhat confusing if you didn’t know the actual story. (A KTLA news clip here is actually just inaccurate on what actually went down.) The story itself is about the rather shocking news that Pacquiao has been banned from a shopping mall in Los Angeles because the owner of the mall opposes Pacquiao’s religious beliefs. The Los Angeles Times story included this passage which would be hilarious if not so sad:

On Monday night, the Grove, owned by shopping mall magnate Rick Caruso, posted a statement on Twitter saying Pacquiao is not allowed on the premises.

The tweet reads: “Boxer Manny Pacquiao is not welcome at @TheGroveLA. @TheGroveLA is a gathering place for all Angelenos, not a place for intolerance.”

Pacquiao was scheduled to be interviewed Wednesday at the Grove for the TV show “Extra.”

Pacquiao, a devout Catholic, is a congressman in his homeland of the Philippines, where he has a record of voting along conservative lines.

Sounds like intolerance is doing just fine at the Grove LA, eh? Anyway, the Los Angeles Times just played it straight and kept to the facts and ended up having a much more worthwhile and accurate blog post than anyone else in this story.

I know it’s all politics all the time these days in American media, but surely we can shoehorn in a few stories exploring whether tolerance in our society will extend to those who agree with what Jesus said about marriage being a one-flesh union between male and female, right? And I don’t mean to shortchange all the other religious groups who believe the same. Or the people who oppose changing marriage law on non-religious grounds. But I’d like to see some stories about what it means for people outside American newsrooms if tolerance doesn’t extend that far.

Maybe it doesn’t deserve the non-stop coverage we’re seeing over President Obama announcing he supports redefining marriage to include same-sex unions. Maybe it deserves much more. But certainly things seem a tad out of whack right now. And that’s not good for society at large or for the future of American media.

It may only be seven sentences long, but I was happy to see this Associated Press report briefly explaining that U.S. Roman Catholic bishops have formally rejected the Obama administration’s proposed modifications to the Health and Human Services rule requiring employers to provide health insurance that covers free contraception, abortion drugs and sterilization:

The bishops said in a statement Tuesday to Health and Human Services that the prospective new rules don’t do enough to protect religious liberty.

The mandate requires employers to provide health insurance that includes birth control for workers. The plan sparked protests from faith leaders because it included most religious nonprofits such as hospitals and colleges.

President Barack Obama offered a compromise. He said insurers would bear the cost of the birth control instead of religious employers. However, the bishops argue that the compromise still makes their insurance plans a conduit for contraceptives.

The Associated Press links to the bishops’ comments, helpfully. I read them, although sleep deprived, I didn’t see anything suggesting the modification goes in the right direction but not far enough. It seemed to me that the bishops were saying that they do nothing at all to allay the moral concerns they have with the mandate. It does seem like an important distinction to me.

It’s also interesting to see how different news outlets covered the same formal objection. Kaiser Health News ran the headline and lede to four stories, including the Associated Press. The difference is really interesting. The AP headline, for what it’s worth, was “Bishops Reject Softened Birth Control Rule.” Here are the others:

National Journal: Bishops Make Birth Control Opposition Official (Again)
U.S. Catholic bishops made official their opposition to a health reform law rule requiring birth control coverage on Tuesday. The is “unjust and unlawful,” the bishops said in comments on the proposed regulation to Health and Human Services. The Obama administration’s “accommodation” for religious employers, requiring insurance companies to pay for the birth control coverage, doesn’t help, the bishops said (McCarthy, 5/15).

The Hill: Catholic Bishops Threaten Lawsuit Over Administration’s Birth Control Mandate
The Catholic Church’s U.S. hierarchy warned Tuesday that without quick action by Congress, it will sue the Obama administration for mandating that insurance plans provide birth control to women without a co-pay. “[F]orcing individual and institutional stakeholders to sponsor and subsidize an otherwise widely available product over their religious and moral objections serves no legitimate, let alone compelling, government interest,” lawyers for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote in a letter to federal regulators (Viebeck, 5/15).

Politico Pro: Bishops File Complaints On Contraception Rule
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Tuesday officially urged the Obama administration to change its policy of requiring many employers to provide insurance coverage of contraceptives. The bishops, in formal comments filed with HHS, reiterated many of their issues with the policy, saying it still requires employers, whether religious or not, to cover contraceptives. The bishops also say they’re uncomfortable with the government for the first time defining what is or is not a “religious employer” (Haberkorn, 5/15).

It will be interesting to see how much coverage this formal objection receives as well as how it’s played. And what do you think is the top line you would have gone with? Seems to me that “bishops threaten lawsuit” is both more accurate and newsier than “bishops say accommodation doesn’t do enough.”

Lawsuit image via Shutterstock.

We have lamented the Dallas Morning News’s near departure from religion coverage, but almost simultaneously, we’ve noticed the growth of another religion hub down the Texas road at the Houston Chronicle. Nearly every day, the editor of Houston Belief posts a religion news story on Believe It or Not, as she directs the rest of her team of bloggers in other religion-related coverage.

The lady behind the site is Kate Shellnutt, a religion reporter, blogger and web producer for the Chronicle whose work has earned honors from the Society for Features Journalism and Religion Newswriters Association. Before her time at the Chronicle, she studied religion and journalism at Washington and Lee University and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Shellnutt says her academic background, focusing on religious communities and the Internet, plays into some of her philosophies about Houston Belief as well as her approach to engaging with religious groups on social media. Her thesis was on the digitization of the Bible, and she conducted a sociological study on religious rituals on the web, particularly online confession.

Naturally, you can also find Shellnutt on Twitter (personal & professional) and Facebook, or RSS feed. We asked her to weigh in on how she handles the mix of responsibilities, especially in a climate where the traditional religion reporter’s role could be changing.

You’re editing a mix of opinion and news for the religion site Houston Chronicle and writing news posts. How does religion coverage compare online to what goes in print? Is online a better outlet for the mix of coverage you do?

HoustonBelief.com offers more stories and represents a broader range of faiths on a day-to-day basis than our weekly print section, Belief. The site is newsier and has a social component, with about 20 blogs from community members and active commenters.

Much of what we do on the web feeds into the print section, which typically includes one of my best blog entries from the week, one of our readers’ best entries, a couple wire news stories and a local religion feature story.

Since you probably know exactly how many hits a story sees, how do you see analytics impacting the future of religion news? Do you see numbers that show religion news does well on the Chronicle’s site? Is there a temptation to cover stories just for hits?

I do pay attention to site traffic, and luckily, Houston readers care about religion. Big names like our own Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes always draw in clicks, as do stories about celebrities and faith, news-of-the-weird, the culture wars and certain religious groups, like atheists, Muslims and Mormons. Rather than cover a shallow story solely to draw up site traffic, I try to present thoughtful reporting or timely aggregations in ways that are particularly enticing for online readers—striking headlines, buzzy framing, strong images, etc.

As you assign and edit a mix of opinion, blogging and reporting, do you find yourself managing writers who could turn into sources? Do you think religion reporters at mainstream outlets will fill more of an editor/aggregator role?

The volunteer bloggers for Houston Belief come up with their own story ideas and write their own posts, and they do a great job. I’m here to provide general direction to the group about topics they might want to address or to help with the technical side of the site, but I don’t have editorial control. I try to avoid quoting Houston Belief contributors in my coverage, but I often ask them to recommend friends, leaders, organizations or events for stories. They’ve been very helpful connecting me with their religious communities.

Like many others covering religion for a newspaper, I split my time between this beat and several other tasks. Bringing in community bloggers and aggregating news stories when possible make my job more manageable. For religion reporters who work on the web (or are responsible for a web component), I think these strategies allow them to keep readers interested and updated in a time-efficient way.

The Dallas Morning News once had a robust religion section, which turned into a robust religion blog before the paper decided to focus energies elsewhere. Is there something about Texas that makes religion coverage tricky?

This change happened years before I lived in Texas, but I would assume the decision to scale back on religion coverage wasn’t because of the religious landscape in Texas, but the financial situation of the paper. Religion sections can be hard to maintain ad-wise because often the most interested parties—churches, non-profits, schools, etc.—aren’t dropping as much money on advertising as companies may spend in other sections. At the Chronicle, our Belief section in print has gotten a little smaller over the past few years, but HoustonBelief.com is getting more traffic than ever.

Several journalists seemed to resonate with Steve Buttry’s post “Dear Newsroom Curmudgeon…” Do you think religion reporters could become a bit more open to new media? How would you recommend they start harnessing newer technology better?

I think all reporters should be more open to new media. For religion reporters, it’s especially essential because (as I mentioned at the Religion Newswriters Association panel on social media) our sources and our readers are online. America’s most influential pastors, churches and religious leaders—for the most part—are blogging, tweeting, Facebook-ing and Instagram-ing. If we’re unplugged, we miss the chance to follow them, learn more about them and pick up on news stories.

If you’re hesitant or consider yourself technology-impaired, it’s fine to start by “lurking,” that is, tracking online activity without engaging just yet. Start following blogs and social media accounts relevant to your interests or your beat. Take note about what you like about the best ones (what info they shared, how often they posted, tone, etc.) and keep that in mind when you do decide to begin your own.

Where do you get your news about religion? Do you seek out sources for watching news different than religion reporters have in the past (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)?

I absolutely rely on the Internet for religion news and story ideas. I follow local and national religious leaders and organizations on Twitter and Facebook. Because they’re updated so often, I can get more news and context than I would from a press release, bulletin or even a quick conversation with a pastor.

Every day, I read popular personal blogs written by people of faith, blogs by religion reporters and articles in religion journal and publications, in addition to following wire stories. There’s a huge amount of information out there, and I’ve become a filter for sharing, retweeting or contextualizing what’s most relevant and interesting to the HoustonBelief.com audience.

Talk about burying the lede.

The mainstream press has been on a tear ever since President Barack Obama announced that his liberal Christian faith had inspired him to change his beliefs on the definition of marriage. One of the most common stories, produced by news outlet after news outlet, has focused on the ways that this doctrinal issue has divided various groups of believers.

This is a totally valid story to be covering, since believers on both sides of this issue are separated by centuries of doctrine and tradition. Here are the pivotal paragraphs in a typical New York Times report. However, when reading this passage, prepare yourself for the stealth blockbuster:

Mr. Obama’s declaration last week that he supports same-sex marriage prompted ministers around the country to take to their pulpits on Sunday and preach on the issue. But in the clash over homosexuality, the battle lines do not simply pit ministers against secular advocates for gay rights. Religion is on both sides in this conflict. The battle is actually church versus church, minister versus minister, and Scripture versus Scripture.

The dividing lines are often unpredictable. There are black churches that welcome openly gay couples, and white churches that do not. Some Presbyterian churches hire openly gay clergy members, while others will not. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that homosexual behavior is a sin, but there are Catholic priests who secretly bless gay unions.

Did you catch that last reference? If, in fact, the Times has factual material about Catholic priests blessing same-sex relationships and unions then this is clearly the most important news angle in this piece. This is a major news story, buried deep in a related news report.

However, note that this claim (which I do not doubt, by the way) appears with absolutely no context, no attribution, no clue as to the source of this information. The Times does not even claim to be printing this information based on anonymous sources who requested protection from the Vatican. This is most strange.

I don’t know about you, but this passage immediately made me think of the following quotation:

Readers of The New York Times demand to know as much as possible about where we obtain our information and why it merits their trust. For that reason, we have long observed the principle of identifying our sources by name and title or, when that is not possible, explaining why we consider them authoritative, why they are speaking to us and why they have demanded confidentiality. Guidance on limiting the use of unidentified sources, and on informative description of those we do use, has appeared in several editions of our stylebook, including the current one, and in our Integrity Statement, dating from 1999.

This is, of course, the top of a report on The New York Times Company’s policy on the use of confidential sources. The key is that, when editors approve the use of a confidential source, reporters are still supposed to provide readers with as much information as possible in order to explain why they should trust this news story.

But wait, since we are dealing with a story that is about religion, linked to a “social values” issue on which all urbane, intelligent citizens would be in agreement, this may be one of those cases in which — under the Bill Keller revelation — that the Times no longer needs to play by conventional journalism rules about bias and fairness. That’s the ticket.

You remember the Keller doctrine, right? Here’s a reminder, with the recently retired editor discussing (video source here) whether his newspaper now openly plays an advocacy role on behalf of liberal policies and beliefs:

“We are liberal in the sense that we are open-minded, sort of tolerant, urban. Our wedding page includes — and did even before New York had a gay marriage law — included gay unions. So we’re liberal in that sense of the word, I guess. Socially liberal.”

Asked directly if the Times slants its coverage to favor “Democrats and liberals,” he added: “Aside from the liberal values, sort of social values thing that I talked about, no, I don’t think that it does.”

Now, there are other passages in this recent Times story that merit discussion. For example, pro-gay rights scholars compare scriptural references to sexuality with those describing slavery, yet the story offers no material describing traditional Jewish, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Protestant viewpoints on that issue.

You know, the usual stuff. Once again, however, one must ask it — post Keller confession — the leaders of the Times believe they have any responsibility to accurately report the views of those who dissent from the newspaper’s approved religious doctrines.

Still, this story does appear to include a major innovation, one that appears to violate the newspaper’s policies. So let me ask: “What is the source of the information reflected in the following statement? I refer to this sentence: ‘The Roman Catholic Church teaches that homosexual behavior is a sin, but there are Catholic priests who secretly bless gay unions.’ “

Is this statement based on anonymous sources? If so, how can they best be described, so that readers have a chance to evaluate the validity of this claim?

Since it’s Nuns Day at GetReligion …

Seriously, one of my bookmarks for religion news is the New York Times’ Religion and Belief section. While browsing that section today, I came across a feature on “Sister Dolores,” the principal of an all-girls Catholic high school in Brooklyn, N.Y.

I clicked the link and found myself enjoying the story of this strict but trusted nun:

One of the first lessons a Fontbonne girl learns is that no good can come from crossing Sister Dolores.

Sister Dolores, the principal of Fontbonne Hall Academy, an all-girls Catholic high school in Brooklyn, once jumped out of her 2004 Toyota Corolla, confiscated a girl’s beer, emptied it into the gutter, explained that as a certified alcohol counselor she could have the girl arrested, then waited while the shellshocked child called her parents to report herself.

By the time the girls are seniors, they understand that when Sister Dolores says they are free to choose their own graduation dress, she means if it passes inspection.

Starting in early May, they bring them to the principal’s office and change in the bathroom.

“Let me see you,” Sister Dolores said to Alessandra Fodera, who will be attending Georgetown University in the fall. “Turn around.”

The dresses cannot be strapless. Straps must be at least one and a half inches wide. Hems are to be one and a half inches off the floor. Shoes must be white and can be high heels, but not too high.

Gowns will absolutely not be off-white, diamond white, or eggshell white. Only white-white.

After reading the entire story, though, I had a different perspective.

I found myself frustrated at the giant religion ghost that the writer allowed to haunt the 1,200-word profile.

Two crucial questions about Sister Dolores go unasked (and, of course, unanswered): What does she believe? And why does she do what she does? Here is a story about a Catholic nun and a Catholic high school that mostly ignores the Catholic part (except for a jab or two at the end … more on that later).

As I reviewed the online presentation closer, I noticed an “On Education” designation at the top. That explains a fair amount about the approach. Here we have an education writer presenting the story through that lens. That makes sense, I suppose. At the same time, our mantra at GetReligion is that ghosts linked to the power of religious faith haunt all kinds of stories, from education to business to sports. That certainly appears to be the case here.

This profile skirts right at the edges of Sister Dolores’ faith, without ever delving into the big questions of her life and ministry:

For 39 years she has taught the fourth grade Sunday school class at St. Francis Xavier in Park Slope and runs the annual Christmas pageant there. The night before the play, she irons all the costumes, Joseph’s headpiece, Mary’s veil, the angels’ white robes.

When the final curtain goes down, Sister Dolores goes up and collects the straw scattered around the baby Jesus’ manger, stuffing it into a plastic bag to use again at the next year’s pageant.

On Monday nights, she has a private counseling practice. Any money she takes in — for her therapy sessions or the 60-hour weeks at Fontbonne — she turns over to her religious order, the Sisters of St. Joseph. In return, she receives a few-hundred dollar monthly stipend, which is what is meant by an oath of poverty.

At the end, the writer — whose format appears to be more of a column than a straight news account — reflects on Sister Dolores entering the convent “just as the church was being turned upside down.” Unfortunately, that little bombshell is dropped into the profile/feature/column/whatever without any explanation.

Then there’s a quick, unexplored mention of “the church’s glass ceiling”:

Given the range of possibilities available to women today, and the thickness of the church’s glass ceiling, it is unlikely that there are many more Sister Doloreses on the way.

Which makes it hard to imagine who there will be to iron Mary’s veil, inspect the seniors’ gowns, balance a multimillion-dollar school budget, look deep into boys’ souls and graduate 132 educated girls of good moral character, all for just a few hundred dollars a month.

Hmmmmm …

Top image via Shutterstock

Time to catch up with a recent story that got buried in all of the coverage of President Barack Obama’s evolution on the definition of marriage and Mitt Romney’s adventures in Moral Majority territory.

When I started reading this Associated Press report, I found it rather liberating. It was nice to read a story about Catholic nuns that was unrelated to the whole uproar about the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Vatican’s attempt to pull that organization’s leaders out of the world of beyond-Jesus experimentation. It was good to read another story about how Catholic religious are coping with recruiting issues in the digital age.

BIDDEFORD, Maine (AP) — When Sister Elaine Lachance devoted herself to a religious life straight out of high school in 1959, her religious order had more than a dozen convents in the U.S. with nearly 260 sisters.

Today, the Good Shepherd Sisters of Quebec, based in Canada, has just five convents in Maine and Massachusetts with 56 sisters. The youngest is 64 years old, and it’s been more than 20 years since a new member joined.

Rather than leave the future of the convents to prayer and chance, Lachance has turned to the Internet. She’s using social media and blogging to attract women who feel the calling to serve God and their community.

However, as I kept reading the story I had second thoughts.

Things were fine as long as the focus stayed on this one order and its challenges. The problems, for me, began when the AP team tried to broaden the scope of the story to look at the current crisis facing nuns, in general.

The number of nuns and sisters has plunged through the decades as more career opportunities for women opened, parochial schools closed and sisterhood became less visible. … In the U.S., the count has fallen from about 180,000 in 1965 to 55,000 last year, a drop of nearly 70 percent, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. In 2009, their median age was 73, with 91 percent of them 60 and older.

GetReligion readers who are active Catholics will immediately spot the key issue and, unfortunately, it does have something to do with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

It appears that the team behind this story does not seem to realize that, in addition to that large body on the progressive side of the spectrum, conservative Catholics have formed their own network for religious orders that are dedicated to more traditional, even contemplative, forms of religious life. That group is called the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, which was founded in 1992.

To understand what is happening, the AP really needed to answer some basic questions: Are some orders declining, while others are growing? Are some orders declining at a more rapid rate than others? In particular, I wanted to know if the numbers in that 2009 CARA study can be tweaked to separate the LCWR orders from the CMSWR orders.

In other words, the story assumes that all of these religious orders face the same challenges and the same bleak prospects. That may not be the case.

This does not mean that the hook for this story — the fact that some orders are using the Internet to seek recruits — isn’t invalid. This is a timely subject for a news feature, and the AP report contains some fascinating details:

… (T)here’s been an uptick among women showing an interest in pursuing a religious life, said Patrice Tuohy of the National Religious Vocation Council, a Chicago-based group representing vocation directors for religious organizations. The NRVC launched a website called VocationMatch.com seven years ago that links young people interested in leading religious lives to religious communities. The site gets about 6,000 inquiries a year. The Internet is useful for such questions because it offers instant information and is anonymous, Tuohy said. …

Audra Turnbull, 23, turned to the Internet when she felt the calling in college. Inside the chapel at Quincy University in Quincy, Ill., she pulled out her laptop, Googled “nuns” and found a website called A Nun’s Life. In time, she checked out dozens of other websites, YouTube videos and social media before getting touch with a motherhouse in Monroe, Mich., where she plans to join the ministry.

Those tools are invaluable for “nunnabes” — wannabe nuns — like her, she said.

“It’s hard to find nuns these days to talk to them,” she said. “So a sister being interviewed or giving ministry on YouTube has been huge because you put yourself in that place and visualize what you want to be doing.”

Turnbull expects to become a sister in two to three years. She’s also created a blog of her own called The Awkward Catholic, which takes readers through the process of entering religious life.

Read it all and check out some of the links.

Again, let me stress that this is a valid story on a fascinating topic. The problem is that it omitted one additional fact that readers needed to know in order to understand the current realities — the fact that not all of these orders are in decline. Some are growing. As Sinsinawa Dominican Sister Laurie Brink stated in her now infamous 2007 keynote address (.pdf here) at a national LCWR assembly:

“They are putting on the habit, or continuing to wear the habit with zest. … Some would critique that they are the nostalgic portrait of a time now passed. But they are flourishing. Young adults are finding in these communities a living image of their romantic view of Religious Life. They are entering. And they are staying. …”

In other words, this AP story needed one or two more voices, to capture another point of view on this crisis.

If you take the future of journalism seriously, you might consider reading a new piece on how journalism isn’t just being overlooked, it’s being replaced.

Follow the right people and organizations on Facebook and Twitter, and you’ll find out what’s happening close to you, straight from the source. LocalWiki, Pinwheel, Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare clearly do not replace a good local newspaper, but they offer a combo that is increasingly becoming good enough.

We saw the trend back when Craigslist began killing newspaper’s classified ads, and now we’re seeing increasing competition over content. Honestly, why would I read your book review when I can see my friends’ Goodreads ratings, Facebook recommends and Amazon reviews? Why would I read your story on President Obama and gay marriage, when I can read any old blog, twitter or comment thread about it? What new piece of information are you adding to the table that competes for my valuable time looking at puppies on Pinterest? As Stijn Debrouwere writes, “[T]here’s a limit to our appetite, and every minute spent on Facebook is one not spent on a news site.”

There are organizations and websites everywhere that are taking over newspapers’ role as tastemaker and watchdog and forum. These disruptors don’t replace investigative reporting, but they replace the other 95% of what made professional news organizations important.

What does this have to do with religion journalism? Fred Clark (thank you!) started me on a rant about how the media needs to think more carefully about how they spend their resources. Discussions about the future raise the question of whether outlets are currently spending valuable time and money in places that could be allocated elsewhere. I brought up two case studies connected to President Obama’s announcement on gay marriage.

For another case study, let’s consider Mitt Romney’s commencement speech at Liberty University over the weekend. Yes, it was symbolic, but people who care were probably watching via web stream anyway, following on Twitter and commenting about it to their Facebook friends. I’m not saying reporters shouldn’t cover it. I’m generally pleased to see a religion story make national news.

I’m questioning whether we need a number of national journalists flocking down to Lynchburg to cover a speech that’s widely available to the public. It’s why I spent the beautiful morning at the zoo with my niece instead of glued to my computer, watching the speech later. From what I understand, Romney didn’t convert from Mormonism, so I didn’t see much breaking news. Why don’t news outlets at least post a link to full video and text, instead of just their take on it? You would think after several years of blogs now, outlets would catch up.

I heard some lamenting about how fewer reporters are covering the presidential campaigns and I can’t help but wonder: why are there so many reporters on the campaigns to begin with, when they all seem to cover the same story every day? There are exceptional reporters, of course, but Middle America often sees one narrative coming from the Beltway, trust me. I could see an exception for outlets like wire services and a few national publications, but everyone doesn’t have to pretend to be the New York Times, right? Besides, isn’t it a bit paparazzi-ish?

If anything on the Liberty story, the political reporters might consider stepping aside and letting religion reporters take the ball on this one. For political reporters, all that seems to matter is the vote count. Religion reporters can dig deeper into why theological differences matter, as Terry pointed out. In a recent chat I had with Sarah Posner on Bloggingheads, we talked about how Romney dropped names of well-regarded figures among evangelicals, such as Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis, William Wilberforce and others. Would political reporters pick up on those names enough to know that he was signaling something?

Would a journalist (reporter or editor) with religion sensibilities write, as The New York Times did, Pat Roberts instead or Pat Robertson, or describe Liberty University as “the spiritual heart of the conservative movement.” Are political journalists willing to dig for background on President Obama’s note of the Golden Rule for his support for gay marriage? Those who focus only on votes risk losing an audience that wants a bigger picture.

Remember the piece I mentioned at the beginning of this post? Here’s one of his big tips:

Write to people’s passion, and they will gobble up just about anything.

Hey, you know what people are passionate about? You guessed it: Religion! (ba-dum-ching!)

Leading media gurus might want to put their heads together to figure out what they can produce that is truly unique to the Internet, TV, print, or however else people are consuming information. Otherwise, we might all be working for Wikipedia some day.

Image of sleeping puppies via Wikimedia Commons.