In this week’s podcast Issues Etc. host Todd Wilkin and I discussed two recent GetReligion stories: the withdrawal of First Presbyterian Church of Colorado Springs from the PC(USA) and the latest developments in the Irish abuse scandals.

As Nathaniel Campbell noted in his comment on the Colorado Springs article, the press frequently conflates the disputes within the mainline denominations into a single issue — homosexuality.

Campbell writes:

there are deeper but acknowledged issues here over hermeneutics and the evangelical insistence on privileging (often exclusionarily) a literal reading of Scripture.

In my estimation, at least, that is the major “ghost” behind a lot of mainstream/evangelical friction. While on the surface level it manifests as doctrinal disputes, I think it is at root a problem over how to read and understand Scripture.

Wilkin and I discuss the issue of press blindness, noting the divisions within the mainline churches do not stop at homosexuality as the breakaway groups are divided over another Scripture-driven issue: women clergy.

We also look at the coverage in the Irish Times over the fallout from the 1 May 2012 documentary “The Shame of the Catholic Church”, where the BBC claimed that as a young priest in the early 1970’s Cardinal Sean Brady failed to take sufficient action in the case of pedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

I argued that the advocacy journalism approach taken by the Irish Times in its reporting on the Catholic Church was self-defeating. By adopting a relentlessly hostile approach to coverage of the Catholic Church,the Irish Times was preaching to the choir. Those ill-disposed to the church would find confirmation of their views, while those supportive of the church would see their reporting as biased.

The comments to the story demonstrated this. As one commentator noted:

The Irish establishment, including their media, has long been anti Catholic, because the church stood in the way of Ireland becoming “modern” (read divorce, birth control and abortion). The “abuse” saga is a godsend to them to destroy the influence of the church, which was standing in the way of a modern forward looking culture. Perhaps this is why the story is made to sound as if the church is again being it’s old stubborn old fashioned self.

In its simplest sense, the problem with advocacy journalism is that it is based on the supposition that there is no one truth. Truth is subjective, or relative — I have my truth, you have yours. Why then should the journalist strive for balance or fairness, when at heart there is no single point of reference in which to frame a story?

We’re a big fan of polls and reporters who understand how to use polls to show a particular trend. In a recent story, though, one reporter found a strange way to twist data for a set narrative that didn’t seem to hold up.

In our most recent podcast, we discussed a rather confusing piece from The Economist that simultaneously suggested the evangelical landscape is changing due to younger and Latino evangelicals, but it also suggested that more evangelicals are self-identifying with the Republican Party.

As Chris put it in the comments, “They’re growing more diverse AND they’re more Republican? I’m confused.” The article makes the point that evangelicals have struggled to vote for Mitt Romney in the Republican primary, but at the same time, many of the younger ones voted for President Obama in 2008.

Those who didn’t vote for Romney in the primary probably voted instead for Rick Santorum. Romney’s struggle in the Republican primary probably won’t carry the same parallels in the general election.

We’re also noticing a possible disappearance of the philanthropy beat where a reporter focuses specifically in that area. Sari wrote the following comment:

The Austin American Statesman has Andrea Ball, who covers charities and mental illness in the paper, as well as the paper’s charity chat. Arts organizations, which are also philanthropies (e.g., the opera, museums), are usually covered by the guy who handles social events. I can’t remember either of them ever taking. A religion angle.

While philanthropy doesn’t necessarily have religion angles, we see some possible overlap. One thing is becoming clearer: newspapers seem less eager to assign reporters to such specific beats.

Finally, we also talked about a course Google is offering that appears to have possible Buddhist underpinnings. Unfortunately, the reporter didn’t exactly spell out whether there were religious ideas and only mentioned the course founder’s Buddhism like you might mention the color of his eyes.

Enjoy the podcast.

As we discussed the other day, many media reports about the Vatican document cracking down on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious went with the angle that the report “stunned” or otherwise surprised the sisters. I suggested that reports should do a better job of explaining that surprise.

The first comment to that piece referenced an interview with a woman who has written on the matter and her view was that the surprise was not due to the content so much as that the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith actually had the backbone to issue it — particularly given how much “dialogue” had been going on in recent years between Rome and the more liberal female orders.

Another reader pointed out some reasons why the sisters should not have been surprised. Commonweal responded to the post and some readers felt that the author’s snark overshadowed the substance. I just think he was confused about what I was calling for — more substantiation in the stories.

Finally, we found another great discussion — we mentioned the one on PBS earlier — that featured John Allen, senior correspondent, National Catholic Reporter; Sister Simone Campbell, executive director, NETWORK; and Donna Bethell, chairman of the board of directors, Christendom College:

The Vatican reprimanded America’s largest organization of Catholic nuns, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. The Holy See charged the LCWR with promoting programs with “radical feminist themes” that are incompatible with doctrine on issues ranging from homosexuality to women’s ordination.

We discussed some of this, about the emphasis on the stunned sisters, in this week’s Crossroads podcast. Host Todd Wilken and I also chatted, ever-so-briefly, about coverage of Charles Colson’s death. We didn’t get enough time to discuss that in-depth, unfortunately.

Enjoy the podcast.

And while you are at it, do let us know if you’ve seen other good coverage about either of this week’s topics.

On this week’s Crossroads, host Todd Wilken and I talk about one of my favorite subjects: journalism.

Oh, we mix in a little religion, too.

More specifically, we review the five W’s and H.

That discussion relates to my recent GetReligion post on a Seattle story:

In the Pacific Northwest, some Roman Catholic churches in the Seattle area have declined to circulate a petition calling for a referendum on Washington state’s new same-sex marriage law.

From Reuters to ABC News, the churches’ decision to steer clear of the political battle has drawn national media attention.

The key news peg: Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, citing the “critically important”nature of the issue, encouraged — but did not demand — the gathering of signatures in parishes.

In general, the Seattle coverage missed perhaps the most important “W,” as in “Why?” Why did the parishes go against Archbishop J. Peter Sartain’s desire to see signatures collected?

Sticking with the journalism theme, Wilken and I also discuss the religion ghost that I identified in a post on a Texas lottery story. Despite a prominent mention of Baptists in newspaper headlines, coverage focused on the political and economic reasons with no mention of moral objections.

Finally, what podcast would be complete without a question or two related to the media coverage of a pastor who used a lion and a lamb (live, breathing ones!) in his Easter sermons?

Wilken asks excellent questions, and I do my best to provide compelling answers. Enjoy the podcast. The Oklahoma twang is free.

So, what do Tim Tebow, Jeremy Lin and Bubba Watson have in common?

Now — in terms of journalism — what do those guys have in common with Mitt Romney?

Believe it or not, that’s the rather strange question that, rather to my surprise, surfaced near the end of this week’s “Crossroads” GetReligion podcast.

Well, all four of these men are religious believers and they are all in the news — for sure.

The first three are superstar athletes whose faith have put them front and center in the mainstream press. In each case, they have climbed to levels of success that made them all but impossible for mainstream journalists to ignore.

Thus, journalists have hit them with some heavy words, in today’s tense public square. You know the ones — “devout” and “evangelical” (if not the f-word itself, “fundamentalist”).

Now, it helps that none of these sports guys are hiding their beliefs, from reporters or anyone else. In fact, as I noted the other day, that deep-fried Masters champ Bubba is sticking his evangelistic efforts in front of the world on Twitter. Thus, in a discussion of ESPN coverage of the champ, I wrote:

Perhaps the quickest, most concise way to describe this man is the ready-made soundbite he posted as his bio on his Twitter page. That would be this:

“@bubbawatson: Christian. Husband. Daddy. Pro Golfer. Owner of General Lee 1.”

… Once again we see a basic issue in mainstream news coverage of religious believers in public life: When describing what makes these people tick, isn’t a good thing for journalists to include their own voices as part of the coverage?

In other words, I thought it was strange for journalists to try to write about Bubba Watson THE MAN without including some of his own words on the topic that he himself says is the defining thread that runs through this life — linking his family, his charity work and his golf career.

But there has to be more to this kind of story than one person’s unchallenged voice. Journalists are not audio recording devices that store words and then serve them — public-relations style — to the public. The voices of the people in the news are an essential ingredient in the coverage and it’s bizarre when they are missing.

So, what else links these guys?

That’s where you have another crucial piece of the journalism-coverage puzzle. All too often, we journalists seem to forget — especially when covering athletes (hello Michael Vick) — that, while it may be hard to get inside someone’s head and probe the full content of their beliefs, it is actually rather easy to seek out some of the key facts linked to how believers live their lives.

It would interesting, for example, to know where that Tebow fellow plans to go to church in or around New York City. I would predict that he has already given it some thought. Yes, and he probably is being forced to make privacy and security a part of that equation. I predict that he picks one and that he is an active member. I would imagine that the pastor hopes Tebow is a tither.

My point is that religious lives have public components that can be reported. People rarely sit in pews alone. Pastors and other church leaders may be willing to discuss some aspects of a believer’s life on the record. It is possible to discreetly visit forums in which people share their thoughts and convictions — right out in the open. Once upon a time, reporters learned a lot from listening to a Baptist named Jimmy Carter teach his Sunday School classes (Note to Barack Obama: Even while Carter was living in Washington).

Which brings us to Mitt Romney. Now there’s a man who is unlikely to be tweeting verses of scripture anytime soon. I would imagine that he is not anxious to talk about his own theological convictions, these days.

However, it is valid to ask factual questions about his religious pilgrimage. There may be speeches and Q&A interviews from the past. Mormons, as a rule, tend to have highly detailed (and amazing) track records in terms of philanthropy and public service. Check out this Pew Forum link on that subject.

In other words, it is possible to seek out Romney’s voice and then to probe what one might call the “faith facts” linked to his beliefs. Follow the money. Back up a few decades and follow, so to speak, the event planners of his previous work. Seek journalistic facts, not labels. You are seeking, in the words of the old hymn, not the classic Bruce Springsteen song, the ties that bind (as in “Blessed Be The Tie That Binds”).

By the way, the same approach would work with Obama — past and present. Seek the voice. Seek the public facts about his religious walk. Report the results.

Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to journalism as it is to the dramatic art; for the object of journalism is to make events go as far as possible. Thus it is that all journalists are, in the very nature of their calling, alarmists; and this is their way of giving interest to what they write. Herein they are like little dogs; if anything stirs, they immediately set up a shrill bark.

Arthur Schopenhauer, On Some Forms of Literature (1851)

A long time ago (for me) and in a far away place (actually Harare) I had my first experience of the foreign correspondent’s life. Amongst the many lessons I learned on that trip, the most important — aside from learning how to ingratiate oneself with a policemen armed with a machine pistol — was the central place of the “mahogany ridge” in reporting.

While events played themselves out in different parts of the city, the real action, the real news in Zimbabwe was to be found at the bar of Meikles Hotel for many of the reporters present. These memories of that exotic species — the Fleet Street hack — came to the surface for me in recent weeks as I read a number of stories in the New York Times about events in Holland and Moscow.

I took the Times to task for its reporting of the alleged castration by the Dutch Catholic Church of young men (how that one got by the editors I do not know) and on Pussy Riot and Russian Orthodox Church. I argued these stories did not live up to the standards of good journalism and asserted they displayed a lack of balance, context, sensibility and history.

I was rather hard on the Times. Did these stories rise to the level of journalism decried by Arthur Schopenhauer? Is their flavor akin to Evelyn Waugh’s anecdote about the fictitious American  reporter Wenlock Jakes in the novel Scoop?

Why, once Jakes went out to cover a revolution in one of the Balkan capitals. He overslept in his carriage, woke up at the wrong station, didn’t know any different, got out, went straight to an hotel, and cabled off a thousand-word story about barricades in the streets, flaming churches, machine-guns answering the rattle of his typewriter as he wrote, a dead child, like a broken doll, spreadeagled in the deserted roadway below his window — you know.

On this week’s Issues, Ect. host Todd Wilken and I talked about the Times’ coverage of these two stories — and demonstrated my lack of polish as a radio commentator. This is my first foray into internet radio podcasting for GetReligion. We’ll see if they ask me back.

As the Supreme Court hears arguments on the health care law this week, religious groups will be among those watching closely. Leading some of the response to the Health and Human Services ruling employers providing contraception, Timothy Dolan is likely to be among those particularly interested in the outcome. Last week, we looked at Newsweek’s profile of the archbishop of New York, one that I thought did a nice job . After some less than ideal coverage of Dolan, it’s nice to see someone take a more thorough look from more sides, including historical and political. Read it again.

We also talked some about a story that turned out to be a hoax a year after the business was reported in several mainstream outlets. Remember Harold Camping, who suggested certain people would be raptured last year? A man supposedly set up a business to take care of pets for those who were raptured. He told reporters he had more than 200 clients and was especially saddened when Camping said he would no longer make such predictions.

How do journalists prevent these kinds of hoax stories in the future? As Ray Ingles asked in our earlier thread:

Journalism question - How much should reporters check on reported numbers, or do background checks? And under what circumstances?

From a GetReligion standpoint, for example, if doing a story about a new pastor or priest in the area, how much background check on their previous postings would be appropriate?

Reporters can do some digging, Mike Hickerson suggests:

Ray - regarding fact checking on the numbers, the RNS story about the hoax points to an easy-to-check resource for a lot of industries: public records and registrations. Most states and cities regulate a lot of industries and require permits for various types of businesses, especially “trust-based” businesses like insurance. It wouldn’t have taken too long to call up the NH Dept of Insurance and find out if the guy was registered.

It was thrilling to see some follow up stories on the business, but apparently it was too good to be true. I did wonder whether news outlets would either correct or update their stories in case someone found the stories later without seeing the updated RNS story.

Mike commented, “Someone at NPR must have been reading your post, because they have updated the original story with a comment at the top, though they don’t have a link to any of the new stories about the hoax.”

It’s a start, at least. Enjoy the podcast.

In recent weeks, there have been a number of major news stories that have — to one degree or another — pivoted on the sharp doctrinal divisions among American Catholics. Think religious liberty vs. the Health and Human Services rules. Think about the case of Father Marcel Guarnizo and the Buddhist-Catholic-artist-gay-activist Barbara Johnson.

In the midst of all that, the top brass at The New York Times decided to accept an extremely blunt advertisement from the Freedom From Religion Foundation that, well, urged liberal and nominal Catholics to walk out of the pews that they were rarely if ever visiting anyway.

The overarching image? Liberal Catholics, argued this advertisement, are like wives caught in abusive relationships who are afraid to try to escape. The text contains virtually every image that you would ever see in classic anti-Catholic literature. Here’s a key clip from a longer version of the basic text:

You’re better than your church. So why? Why continue to attend Mass? Tithe? Why dutifully sacrifice to send your children to parochial schools so they can be brainwashed into the next generation of myrmidons (and, potentially, become the next Church victims)? For that matter, why have you put up with an institution that won’t put up with women priests, that excludes half of humanity?

No self-respecting feminist, civil libertarian or progressive should cling to the Catholic faith. As a Cafeteria Catholic, you chuck out the stale doctrine and moldy decrees of your religion, but keep patronizing the establishment that menaces public health by serving rotten offerings. Your continuing Catholic membership, as a “liberal,” casts a veneer of respectability upon an irrational sect determined to blow out the Enlightenment and threaten liberty for women worldwide.

You are an enabler. And it’s got to stop.

If you imagine you can change the church from within — get it to lighten up on birth control, gay rights, marriage equality, embryonic stem-cell research — you are deluding yourself. If you remain a “good Catholic,” you are doing “bad” to women’s rights. You’re kidding yourself if you think the Church is ever going to add a Doctrine of Immaculate ContraCeption.

Some were shocked, shocked to see the Times leadership publish this ad and wondered if the nation’s most prestigious newspaper would accept a similar item that, well, urged progressive or moderate Muslims to flee their ancient and dangerous faith. Sure enough, one of the usual suspects quickly produced an advertisement that, in terms of images and rhetoric, was a line-by-line tribute and/or satire of the anti-Catholic screed. Click here to see it.

To no one’s shock, this anti-Muslim screed was rejected by Times executives.

(Cue: audible yawn) All of this was highly predictable, of course.

However, I thought there was an interesting subject lurking just below the surface of these boiling waters. Here’s the key question: Why DO so many doctrinally liberal people remain members of the Catholic Church? Why don’t they do the logical thing and join, oh, a visually Catholic Episcopal parish down the block? I once put that question to Andrew Sullivan in an online exchange and there was immediate silence on the other side of that exchange in cyberspace.

At the same time, statistics produced by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life have made it clear that millions of people are leaving Catholicism — roughly four people headed out the Catholic doors for every one who comes in through conversion. The bottom line: One in 10 American adults is an ex-Catholic, of one form or another. Many simply join the masses of unchurched Americans. Many head to conservative churches and a few head into liberal Protestantism. Click here to see the specifics.

While surfing through some reactions to the anti-Catholic ad in the Times, I bumped into some America commentary by theologian Tom Beaudoin, who teaches at the Jesuit-run Fordham University in New York City. He is currently doing research into “deconversions” among what many call the “secular Catholics” on the doctrinal left.

Pay close attention:

Whatever one thinks of this ad, it seems to mark a particular moment in the unfolding history of the Catholic Church in the United States. That a full-page ad in one of the most influential newspapers in the country would ask members of a major religious group to walk away from that group is an extraordinary occurrence.

I hope that before people take sides pro or con on the ad, before the tendency to separate into “evil vs. good” or “good vs. evil” here, we might be able to take this opportunity for some serious thinking, and ask: What is happening with religion in general and Catholicism in particular today that would make such a moment possible?

The ad trades on the newly widespread awareness that Catholicism is shedding adherents: that most Catholics live on the “lower” end between moderate and marginal affiliation, instead of high affiliation, and that a great many are actively disaffiliating. It trades on the widely understood distance between most Catholics’ beliefs and practices and official teaching on certain matters. Most important, as far as I can tell, is its remarkably confident appeal to a kind of personal agency that would make Catholics, who so often see religion as something akin to an ethnicity, walk away from it.

Whatever you think of the Freedom From Religion Foundation advertisement, and whatever you think of Fordham, the Jesuits and what not, the numbers indicate that there is a huge story looming over these debates (and I’m not talking about the wisdom of ad policies at the Times).

Once again, we are dealing with the myth that there is one body of Catholics in America with one set of beliefs. Truly, the spirits that drive the various camps within American Catholicism are legion.

Beaudoin responded to my emails and discussed what he sees happening on the Catholic left. That conversation became the hook for my Scripps Howard News Service column this week and then the weekly GetReligion “Crossroads” podcast. Here’s a bite or two of what the Fordham theologian had to say:

“Secular Catholics are people who were baptized as Catholics, but they find it impossible to make Catholicism the center of (their) lives, by which I mean Catholicism as defined by the official teachings of the church,” said Beaudoin. For these believers, there are “things that they learned about faith from Catholicism. Then there are things they learned from their jobs, from school experiences, from their music and from their favorite movies.

“They are hybrid believers and their faith comes from all over the place.”

And what about those Pew Forum numbers?

In the end, it’s impossible to ignore this mass of “secular Catholics” because it’s such a large chunk of today’s church, he said. In some parts of America, various kinds of “secular Catholics” now constitute a clear majority, while those who affirm traditional dogmas and doctrines are a minority.

Some of these “secular Catholics” eventually leave the church. Others choose to remain on membership rolls, on their own terms, because they find it hard to walk away, said Beaudoin. After all, there are parts of Catholicism that they affirm and they know they can ignore the parts that they reject. They have changed the church for themselves.

From his perspective, Beaudoin said it’s important to believe that this trend is “not the result of lethargy, laziness, relativism, heresy or apostasy. … There will be Catholics who insist on saying that these secular Catholics are falling away from traditional Catholic norms. But I think it would be more helpful to talk about them not as having fallen away from the Catholic faith, but as having created new, evolving spiritual lives for themselves.”

That sound you hear is traditional Catholics screaming in protest.

However, think this over. If roughly 3 to 5 percent of American Catholics are going to confession on a regular or even occasional basis, then how many Catholics are left who are actually attempting to live according to the teachings — most of the teachings, let’s say — of their faith?

I remain convinced that it’s impossible to write about Catholic life today without taking this into account in the vast majority of news stories and columns.

Just saying. Enjoy the podcast.

The other day I mentioned that reader Jerry submitted a story about Harold Camping repenting of his false predictions of the rapture and end of the world. We wondered how much coverage of the repentance we’d see relative to last year’s significant coverage. While the repentance won’t make it onto a list of top ten news stories for 2012, it actually has received some coverage.

There was this ABC News story. And here’s a link to the Los Angeles Times treatment.

I find it interesting that the stories I’ve been reading don’t use the word “repent” when talking about Camping. They say he apologized, admitted his error and said he won’t make any more predictions. Repent indicates a turning away from actions, so it’s really a great word choice to describe what happened.

A reader sent in a link to this CNN article, which includes this nugget:

The world, it seems, is not doomed.

“We humbly acknowledge we were wrong,” Camping and his staff members wrote in a letter to supporters posted on the website of Family Radio, Camping’s California-based broadcast ministry.

He goes further, saying he and his network are no longer interested in predicting when the world will end.

The world is not doomed according to CNN? Or are they saying that Camping’s group no longer believes the words of Jesus? As the reader wrote:

I realize the writer is probably attempting to be humorous, but the joke seems to fly in the face of the substance of the actual apology, which stated “But we now realize that those people who were calling our attention to the Bible’s statement that ‘of that day and hour
knoweth no man’ (Matthew 24:36 & Mark 13:32), were right in their understanding of those verses and Family Radio was wrong. Whether God will ever give us any indication of the date of His return is hidden in God’s divine plan.”

Camping said they were wrong to predict a particular time, not to believe that Judgement Day will occur.

I’m not saying it’s inappropriate to make jokes about the group, although maybe it is, but at least the jokes should work on some level! On this week’s Crossroads, host Todd Wilken and I discuss the media’s continued trouble reporting the details on this Camping story, as well as a brief discussion on the continued mess that is coverage of the HHS mandate forcing religious groups to fund things they doctrinally oppose.

To tell you the truth, I have always thought that it is very easy for first-person journalism — especially arts and entertainment criticism — to slip into vague, self-centered mush.

Thus, when offered the chance to write a weekly rock music column for The Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette (while working as on the copy desk) back in the late 1970s, I made a vow that I would only write pieces focusing on news and trends in the local music scene (which was a lively one in those days). I didn’t write a single review in four years.

As you would expect, I was also interested in writing music columns that contained religion hooks. My long-term goal, after all, was to become one of the nation’s relatively few religion-beat professionals.

So, what would you think if you were standing in the Record Service store in the campustown area next to the University of Illinois in the winter of 1982 and you heard the following lyrics blasting out of the speakers located all around that famous and funky co-op?

I try to sing this song
I, I try to stand up, but I can’t find my feet
I, I try to speak up, but only in you I’m complete
Gloria, in te domine
Gloria, exultate

My friends behind the front desk (I was a fanatically loyal customer) knew enough about my interests in rock and religion to think that I might have heard something about this mysterious Irish band that was about to hit town for a concert in the old, wonderful auditorium on the UI quad.

What did I think of these lyrics? And why bring it up now?

This leads me to my Scripps Howard column for this week and this week’s Crossroads podcast.

The chorus for the song “Gloria” was, of course, in Latin. I set out to report a news column about it and the rumors surrounding this young, but rising, band.

A Newman Center priest told me that the first phrase, perhaps a Mass fragment or drawn from chant, meant, “Glory in you, Lord.” The next meant, “Exalt Him.” Then again, it was hard to hear the second Latin phrase.

The priest apologized and said he wasn’t used to parsing rock lyrics.

Yes, the band 30 years ago was U2 and its mysterious second album was called “October.” Both were surrounded by clouds of rumors, which I explored in a News-Gazette column on Feb. 19, 1982. What I needed to do was meet the band before its Feb. 23 concert in Champaign-Urbana.

Luckily, the 20-year-old Bono was willing to discuss “Gloria” and “October.” … That column ran on March 5 and it apparently was the first mainstream news piece in which Bono and company discussed their faith. I immediately pitched the story to Rolling Stone, where editors decided that U2 wasn’t all that important or that it was bizarre for a guy like Bono to talk about God — or both.

All of that changed — quickly.

Thirty years down the road, what is striking about that interview is the fact that the issues that drove Bono then still dominate his life today.

Bono and The Edge were willing to talk about their Christian faith, but they stressed over and over that U2 was not a “Christian band” and never would be. Bono said he thought it was horrible to think that a struggling believer such as himself could be associated with a product bearing a “Christian” label.

Listening to my cassette recording of the main Bono interview from my 1982 encounters with the band for the first time in about 15-plus years, I was also surprised to hear that — during the prep work for “October” — Bono said he had been listening to Gregorian chant and “Greek Orthodox music” to broaden his tastes.

Wow, I missed that Orthodoxy reference 30 years ago, back in my “moderate” Southern Baptist deacon days.

It was also interesting to note that the singer — at age 20 — was already intensely interested in issues of world hunger. During another conversation, either before or after the band’s Bible study after the concert, he also talked about poverty in Africa.

I did not know, at the time, that this interview represented a new door into the band’s life and work. This early tour, of course, came shortly after the band’s decision to stay together — despite pressure for Christian friends who claimed that it was impossible to mix mainstream rock and Christian faith.

For years, I thought that my interview might have been the first in the North American mainstream press to include material in which Bono and The Edge openly discussed their faith. However, it now appears that it might have been the first mainstream news interview on the topic — period.

The massive reference book called “U2: A Diary” contains this entry:

University of Illinois Auditorium …

After tonight’s show, U2 are interviewed by Terry Mattingly for CCM, a Christian music magazine. Although the band have gone out of their way to avoid talking about their faith up to this point, they speak candidly now. “It’s time to talk about it,” Edge says. One of the revelations in the article, which appears in the magazine’s August issue, is Edge, Larry and Bono use Bible study and prayer to help them “wind down” after concerts. Bono says U2 doesn’t want to be stereotyped as a “religious band,” but is confident that most fans understand the messages in many U2 songs.”

When I first saw this item a few years ago, I was really ticked.

You see the problem, of course. I did not interview the band for CCM. I interviewed Bono and The Edge for the local daily newspaper. I was able to get a short clip from my second piece into the arts pages at Esquire, of all places, and I tried to get Rolling Stone to take the story. CCM was the only outlet that was interested in a relatively full version of the piece.

Does anyone know how one goes about getting a correction in A BOOK?

Oh well, there is so much more I could say about those two days back in 1982. For starters, I need to find my photo slides from the concert and get them into digital format somehow.

Enjoy the podcast. Meanwhile, here is the final chunk of the new Scripps Howard column for U2 fans to ponder:

… (Bono) expressed disappointment that so many people — artists in particular — attempt to avoid the ultimate questions that haunt life. The doubts, fears, joys and grace of religious faith are a part of life that “we like to sweep under the carpet,” he concluded.

“Deep down, everyone is aware. You know, when somebody dies, when somebody in their family dies. … Things that happen around us, they shock people into a realization of what is going down,” he told me.

“I mean, when you look at the starvation, when you think that a third of the population of this earth is starving, is crying out in hunger, I don’t think that you can sort of smile and say, ‘Well, I know. We’re the jolly human race, you know. We’re all very nice, REALLY. I mean, we’re not, are we?”

Amen to that.