Yesterday Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput addressed a gathering of top religion journalists at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in Washington, D.C. His speech was billed as a discussion on the political obligations of Catholics but he also spent a great deal of time discussing the strengths and weaknesses of media coverage. I had the privilege of attending, while also getting to put the names of reporters we discuss here with their faces.
The Associated Press and U.S. News & World Report had brief mentions of Chaput’s remarks but Catholic News Agency had a lengthy article, “Media risks making politics a religion by marginalizing the Church, Archbishop Chaput says” that is sure to be of interest to readers of this blog. Chaput had quite a bit of praise for his personal dealings with reporters and the story mentioned that. But there’s another side, too, he said:
However, he said some reporters and editors have been “uniquely frustrating” because “too often they really don’t know their subject; or they dislike the influence of religion; or they have unresolved authority issues; or they resent Catholic teachings on sex; or they’d rather be covering the White House, but this is the only beat they could get.”
“I don’t expect journalists who track the Church to agree with everything she teaches. But I do think reporters should have a working knowledge of her traditions and teachings,” he commented, advocating that editors have a “basic Catholic vocabulary” to understand Catholic topics and motivations.
As an example of journalistic neglect, he said that in twenty years as a bishop, no reporter had asked him why he so often refers to the Church as “she” and “her” instead of “it.”
“I find that extremely odd, because those pronouns go straight to the heart of Catholic theology, life and identity.”
Chaput had good words for the role of the media in public life and said journalism is a vocation tantamount to law or medicine in dignity and in the importance to society. And check out whose work he highlighted in particular:
Archbishop Chaput singled out by name several journalists, praising the work of Vatican expert John Allen and Associated Press writer Eric Gorski for their “outstanding work.” He also mentioned Terry Mattingly and his colleagues at GetReligion.org before praising Vatican expert Sandro Magister and Alejandro Bermudez for offering “excellent and well informed international reporting on religious affairs.”
Chaput criticized the practice of hiring religion reporters who have no expertise in the subject matter. He referenced the media coverage of his 2008 book Render Unto Ceasar:
In his interactions with reporters about his book, the archbishop found that many hadn’t “really read it,” many lacked “even a basic understanding of Catholic identity” necessary for a “useful disagreement” and many weren’t interested in “learning what they didn’t know.”
“At the same time, some did unfortunately know what they planned to write before they walked into my office for the interview,” he commented, explaining that a bishop’s approach to politics differs from the media’s.
One of the more interesting aspects of the meeting occurred when the Washington Post’s Sally Quinn defended her reception of the eucharist at the funeral of her good friend Tim Russert. She said she’d taken communion once prior, at a non-Catholic church. She’d done that because she wanted to see what it felt like and she believed that reporters should know and experience a lot about religion. She said Cardinal McCarrick had invited the entire congregation to take communion at Russert’s funeral and that she wanted to do it for Russert. It was an emotional time for her. She thought of how much Russert had tried to convert her to Catholicism. She said the experience was helpful but that she had gotten quite a bit of hate mail over the matter. She pointed out that it wasn’t written anywhere in the funeral bulletin that she shouldn’t take communion.
All of that was prelude to her question of Chaput. Quinn said that Chaput had set very harsh guidelines for who can and can’t commune. She said it would seem that no one is acceptable for admittance to communion since everyone is a sinner, has scandal and has done something wrong in their life. She wondered why Catholic friends of hers whose consciences are not clear are allowed to take communion.
Chaput began his response by apologizing to Quinn for any Catholic who treated her poorly or accused her of doing things she hadn’t meant to do. He pointed out that the guidelines he’d given in his earlier discussion weren’t his guidelines but, rather, the guidelines of the church. He explained that the church doesn’t teach you have to be perfect or even good to receive the Eucharist. You do have to be sorry for your sins and believe what the church believes. He said that Catholic teaching doesn’t really permit personal interpretations of what the Eucharist means.
CNA noted some of his other comments on the Eucharist, many of them dealing with what the media don’t get about Catholic teaching. Where the media see a Catholic politician, he said, Catholic bishops see a soul. Here’s how the piece ends:
Warning against the imposition of the language of “civil rights” upon Catholic practice, he said that no one has a “right” to the Eucharist and “the vanity or hurt feelings of an individual Catholic governor or senator or even a vice president do not take priority over the faith of the believing community.”
Noting that the media have no obligation to believe Catholic teaching, he said they are “certainly” obliged to “understand, respect and accurately recount” how the Church understands herself and how and why she teaches.
“Most of you came here today because you already do try to take the Catholic Church and religious issues seriously, and you do try to write with depth, integrity and a sense of context,” he stated. “I thank you for that.”
“Now please tell your friends in the newsroom to do the same,” he concluded, warning that the marginalization of religion leads politics to take its place “with the same vestments, but less conscience.”
Read the whole thing. And I’ll let you know when the transcript for the event is up at Pew.
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Comments (25) |
March 18, 2009, at 7:53 pm
Mollie: Nice job. It was quite interesting comparing the CNA coverage mentioned here, with the CNS coverage of the same event.
March 18, 2009, at 7:59 pm
Francis,
Thanks for alerting me. Here’s the link for CNS coverage and it is an interesting comparison!
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20090318.htm#head1
March 18, 2009, at 8:52 pm
March 18, 2009, at 10:48 pm
I am just finishing Archbishop’s Chaput’s excellent book. Among his final words about fighting for the sanctity of the human person are these directed to Catholics: “We need to keep fighting. Otherwise we become what the Word of God has such disgust for: salt that has lost its savor.”
March 19, 2009, at 12:06 am
This is timely. I have been struck, not to mention irritated, by two things in the past week.
First after the big fuss kicked up over the lifting the excommunications on SSPX and Williamson, there was virtually no coverage whatsoever in the MSM of Benedict’s remarkable letter explaining and justifying the decision, and no mention that I could find of what was apparently a remarkable meeting between Bendedict and Jewish leaders after the letter was published. It may eventually prove that the lifting of the excommunications has just the opposite effect of the one that was assumed and righteously denounced when they were lifted, by requiring some traditionalist fringe groups to purge themselves of anti-semitism as a condition of full-communion. But one wonders if we’d ever know it.
Second, the coverage of the Pope’s remark about condoms, which amounts to one sentence in the context of a much more substantive, ‘humanistic’ point about sexuality, has been absolutely shrill, especially from the NY and London Times. You would think from some of the coverage I’ve read (and granted, some of it is punditry) that the Pope had announced before a frenzied rally of jackbooted suporters that he was sending shock troops to crack down on condom distribution instead of offering a thoughtful response to a reporters question during an interview on board an airplane. That’s how little context has been supplied for his remarks. This will no doubt be spun as yet another ‘credibility disaster’ from an ‘out of touch’ Pope who still thinks he’s offering theology lectures in a university, but really, is it his responsibility to dumb things down for a press that isn’t interested in his meaning, or does the press have some responsibility to try to undertand him?
I know I’ve said that journalism as such is inherently incapable of dealing with certain sorts of questions due to its limitations as a thought form, but really, couldn’t we see just a semblance of good will? But these events raise the question of whether the MSM is even interested understanding.
March 19, 2009, at 8:04 am
Quinn is pathetic. Will she ever get over herself? Will she ever make a serious effort at doing the job for which she was hired?
March 19, 2009, at 10:25 am
Chris,
If I recall correctly—though I may not and I’m too lazy to look it up—Quinn did not just discreetly receive Communion at Tim Russert’s funeral, an impulse which I can actually understand especially if the instructions weren’t clear, she really didn’t know what she was doing, and she was indeed invited to do so by Cardinal McCarrick. And I don’t condemn her for it. While it may not be ‘juridically correct’ (though McCarrick’s permission may obviate that) and while ‘juridical correctness’ is no trifling thing (nor ‘merely’ juridical) for all the reasons mentioned by Archbishop Chaput, I’m nevertheless sure that more than one person has been brought to faith in Christ and the door of the Church ‘in spite of themselves’ through an ‘irregular’ reception of Communion. It is the very nature of grace that it be freely dispensed after all. The Spirit bloweth where it listeth.
But if memory serves, she received Communion and then went on to flaunt the fact. Instead of writing in humility or gratitude for the Cardinal’s ‘extraordinary’ generosity, or reverence for the profundity of what she had done, she wrote a mushy self-justification for it which showed little interest and perhaps not a little disdain for the Church’s understanding of why the Eucharist is a big deal.
I certainly don’t condone anyone sending her ‘hate mail’ or accusing her of malice where there was only ignorance (though ignorance too can be culpable, especially after the fact when she’s had time to reflect and learn about what she’d done). But if she did in fact receive such mail, it didn’t just drop out of the sky. After all, if she had only privately received in her moment of grief no one would have ever known about it. She had to advertise the fact. So while I take her at her word that she is genuinely befuddled (Who that has read just one of her columns could doubt it?), she is not so innocent as her apparent ‘poor misunderstood me’ routine would suggest.
On a different note, apropos of my comments last night, the Post today has published another hysterical uncomprehending screed calling for the Pope’s ‘impeachment’. It would almost be comical if it weren’t so sad.
March 19, 2009, at 10:37 am
The fact that Sally Quinn gave any thought to the archbishop’s words, let alone spoke up (albeit defensively), shows that Abp Chaput’s words hit a nerve. For she is a textbook case of what the archbishop was talking about: the religion reporter who has no understanding of religion being hired by the same organization that would never consider hiring a business reporter who didn’t have a clue about finance.
March 19, 2009, at 10:52 am
I wrote: “Instead of writing in humility or gratitude for the Cardinal’s ‘extraordinary’ generosity, or reverence for the profundity of what she had done…”
I meant to say something to this effect: “Or better, simply not writing at all and instead gratefully and humbly receiving…”
That would be my preference, not to find Ms. Quinn’s excellent ecclesiastical adventures in print at all.
March 19, 2009, at 10:56 am
What I found interesting about Quinn’s remarks was that she tied her initial reception of communion to being a religion reporter.
March 19, 2009, at 11:17 am
Like being a religion reporter automatically entitles you to access to everything? What, in the name of ‘the public’s right to know’?
Try that one out on St. Peter at the Heavenly Gates and let’s see how it works.
I confess that I am not a devotee of Ms. Quinn’s writings, so I’m sure I’ve missed a few things. But I’m surprised to hear that she thinks herself a ‘religion reporter.’ In the things I’ve read, she ‘reports’ very little but her thoughts and feelings about matters religious.
March 19, 2009, at 11:33 am
Michael,
I was surprised by that as well.
March 19, 2009, at 12:13 pm
To Fran and Mollie:
It’s not really fair to compare the CNA and CNS versions of this story because the link to CNS is only to our news brief. We don’t put the full version of all our stories on our public Web site since we’re supported by our clients. But some of them do post a limited number of our full stories on their Web sites. Here’s our full story, if you want to make a fair comparison:
Archbishop Chaput shares views, commiserates with reporters
Jim Lackey
Catholic News Service
March 19, 2009, at 1:50 pm
Jim,
Thank you for that explanation and clarification. I couldn’t get that link to open to the full story but I will keep trying.
March 19, 2009, at 3:01 pm
I am a bit surprised that so far the Bishop is apparently getting away with passing the buck.
He was addressing a group that included a significant number of non-Catholics. Rather than seek to explain to them the intricies of his faith in a manner that would be understandable to any intelligent non-Catholic, he simply blames them for not doing his job.
One encounters the same sort of arrogance in trying to discuss with some physicians/surgeons the situation and alternatives available for a family member under their care. The arrogant ones talk is filled with technical language that may be intelligible to another M.D., but which makes no real sense to a concerned, well educated, lay person.
That is passing the buck and it is arrogant.
March 19, 2009, at 3:18 pm
Asinus,
I disagree with your assessment, and your analogy between a doctor and family members doesn’t hold. If a doctor does not adequately explain to a patient the nature of a situation, then the doctor is not doing her job. If a journalist misrepresents medical information in a medical story, then the journalist is not doing her job.
But quite apart from the fact that, unlike being a patient or a family member, it appears to be part of journalists’ job description to understand their subject and to keep pursuing it until she does, there is this.
Journalists bring a particular interpretive framework to their coverage of religion that is built in to the nature of their craft. This framework itself arguably exerts a distorting effect on the coverage of religion. To recognize this and to do something about it, a journalist first has to recognize that she has a framework, and second she has to want to do something about it; ie, she has to be interested in understanding. No doubt Bishops or others can always do a better job of saying what they mean. But no amount of teaching or communication in the world can bring someone to understand who doesn’t want to understand. There is plenty of evidence on display in the past week that this is the real problem.
March 19, 2009, at 9:58 pm
Mollie, congratulations to you and Professor Mattingly, and also Elizabeth E.E., Daniel P., and Douglas LeB., for doing what you do here at GetReligion well enough to win favorable notice from Archbishop Chaput.
March 19, 2009, at 11:36 pm
Mollie,
Since my newspaper subscribes to CNS, I have access to the 920-word article on Archbishop Chaput written by Patricia Zapor. I often regret, when I’m posting here, that I cannot link to the articles available to subscribers — CNS’s work is consistently excellent.
March 19, 2009, at 11:45 pm
I’m just thankful to know more about how CNS works.
I finally got that article linked above to work and it includes one of my favorite little tidbits from Chaput’s discussion. He said his hate mail from critics on the right is meaner but the hate mail from the left is fouler. (He mentioned that he might be meaner when responding to those on the right, too.)
Most of the criticism I receive is so nicely written. And my worst mail has probably been from conservatives (crunchy cons, admittedly) who felt I should be one of them and were very personally mean and threatening to me. But the out-of-bounds stuff I get on the left is almost always sexual in nature. It’s unbelievably foul and frequently homophobic. I don’t get that.
March 20, 2009, at 7:24 am
Jim and Mollie,
Actually the implied criticism of Pat Zapor’s CNS report was fair, and Archbishop Chaput brought the problem (her conflating together a couple of different elements from the discussion, including things he did not say) to her attention.
CNS does good work, but in this case CNA did the more useful story. Pat Zapor, to her credit, did correct and amplify her report when Archbishop Chaput brought the matter to her attention.
March 20, 2009, at 2:01 pm
Michael brings up a interesting point with the meidia’s lack of coverage on the more positive developments of the lifiting of the SSPX excommunications.
I have been looking for and waiting for some sort of statement from Abp. Chaput about these events and I have not seen anything. The SSPX has a big church in Watkins, just east of Denver, so I would have expected that we would have had some sort of reaction to these recent events from our ordinary.
March 20, 2009, at 8:34 pm
Actually Ben the archbishop did speak about the Williamson affair. He was quoted at length in the Intermountain Jewish News.
March 20, 2009, at 9:18 pm
This is the Intermountain Jewish News article mentioned by Mr. Maier. Unfortunately, the reporter seems to think that Bp. Williamson’s excommunication was for “theological reasons”; the immediate cause of the excommunication was the disobedience of being ordained a bishop by Abp. Lefevre. There were theological reasons, but they were secondary.
An odd bit from the article:
I might be wrong, but I doubt Bp. Williamson maintains a residence in Rome. According to Rueters, he resided in Argentina until last month, when the SSPX dismissed him as rector of their seminary there and the Argentinian government kicked him out of the country.
March 22, 2009, at 3:43 am
Mollie, this is off topic, but you mentioned getting hate-mail. This is astounding to me. I mean, aside from you obviously being a nice enough person, you’re only the reporter, not the subject of the reports. I just can’t imagine hating a reporter. (I reserve the right to strongly disagree with analysts and commentators, though.) What kind of stuff do people hate you for?
March 23, 2009, at 2:55 pm
Mr. Maier,
Thank you for directing my attention to that article. Perhaps some portins of it could be reprinted in the Register, which is my primary source of Archdiocesan news. This article seemd to focus primarily on issues related to antisemitism. I wonder if His Excellency has commented on the subject of reproachment between the Holy See and the SSPX, and whether there might be similar gestures at a more local level between the Archdiocese of Denver and the St. Isidore community in Watkins.