College of Cardinals

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Top five Catholic storylines mainstream journalists need to watch heading into 2024

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Top five Catholic storylines mainstream journalists need to watch heading into 2024

This was a very busy year on the Catholic beat. A decade after Pope Francis replaced the then-retiring Benedict XVI, the consistently progressive pontiff has very much been the focal point of plenty of news coverage in 2023.

Pope Francis was named the top religion newsmaker of the year by members of the Religion News Association. That was before his decree that priests should offer blessings to same-sex couples. The mainstream news coverage of that decision was precisely what press critics would have predicted.

Thus, Catholic media will — once again — be required reading for everyone who wants to better understand what’s going on. Mainstream media sources, while always the center of our attention, aren't the best place to get news and information out of this Vatican. GetReligion readers will not be surprised by that statement.

Plenty of what went on this past year will spill over into the next. I again expect 2024 to be another very busy year. Can you say “synodality”?

Here are my five storylines to watch for in the new year:

(5) Pope Francis’s health

I had this on my list last year. A year later and it remains a major storyline after the pope turned 87 earlier this month.

The pontiff has had so many health scares that Catholic News Agency published a timeline of his hospital-level issues in 2022 and updated the story file this fall. In November, the pope suffered a bout of pneumonia that forced him to miss the United Nations climate conference held in Dubai.

A key thing to look for regarding Francis’ death is what will transpire afterwards regarding the College of Cardinals, the men actually tasked with electing a new pontiff.

Over the last decade, Francis has elevated many bishops. Pew Research found that Francis had elevated fewer Europeans throughout his pontificate, but he has favored bishops whose views are sympathetic to his own.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , ,

Thinking about the legacy of 'Team Ted,' as Vatican insiders talk about the next pope

, , , , , , , , , ,
Thinking about the legacy of 'Team Ted,' as Vatican insiders talk about the next pope

If I have learned anything about mainstream journalism it is this: Editors love partisan political horse races.

This framework is, alas, also used when journalists ponder vacancy signs on the Throne of St. Peter in Rome.

In this kind of contest, scribes almost always (they don’t have to do this, of course) decide that there is a good horse and a bad horse. Most of the time, the “good” candidate is defined as the one who is in favor of “reform.”

What does “reform” mean, for most mainstream journalists? As I noted long ago in this post — “Who gets to ‘reform’ what?” — it helps to look up that loaded word in an online dictionary or two:

REFORM …

* make changes for improvement in order to remove abuse and injustices; "reform a political system"

* bring, lead, or force to abandon a wrong or evil course of life, conduct, and adopt a right one; "The Church reformed me"; "reform your conduct" ...

* a change for the better as a result of correcting abuses; "justice was for sale before the reform of the law courts" ...

* improve by alteration or correction of errors or defects and put into a better condition; "reform the health system in this country"

* a campaign aimed to correct abuses or malpractices.

Now, who gets to define what is and what is not an “abuse,” an “evil course of life,” an “injustice” or a “malpractice”?

That would be the players behind the horse race who are trusted by newsroom leaders and owners.

Thus, before we get to this weekend’s “think piece,” let’s pause and look back to a 2013 speech at Villanova University (YouTube at the top of this post) by the former, now disgraced, cardinal Theodore McCarrick. At the 18-minute mark or so, this media-maven Vatican player discusses his behind-the-scenes networking activity ahead of the conclave that gave the world Pope Francis.

So often the kingmaker in American Catholic life, McCarrick describes a meeting with an “influential Italian gentleman” at the North American College in Rome.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , ,

Vatican game that never ends: Knowns and unknowns with covering next papal election

, , , , , ,
Vatican game that never ends: Knowns and unknowns with covering next papal election

It might seem ghoulish to outsiders, but the media have a duty to closely monitor news personalities’ retirement plans, health woes, aging processes and impending deaths, whether that of a British queen, U.S. president, Supreme Court justices, tycoons or even Hollywood superstars.

Or a pontiff.

Currently, there’s a season of speculation about Pope Francis’s future and whether his newly chosen cardinals to be installed August 27 are his final bid to shape the conclave that will elect the next pope.

Careful. If you figure he’s making sure it will be a fellow liberal, don’t forget that the conservative Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI named the cardinals who elected Francis.

Speaking of successors, AP Correspondent Nicole Winfield follows the Rome bureau’s legendary Victor Simpson, who covered four popes across 41 years. On Sunday, she knowledgeably sifted some Francis scenarios.

Francis has just announced that when the cardinals gather in August he’ll visit the Italian hometown of Celestine V, the pope who famously resigned in A.D. 1294.

Surprisingly, Benedict did the same in 2013. So, is this trip a signal, or only a trip? Francis has remarked that Benedict was “opening the door” for resignation by future popes, hinting he might consider the idea. But Vaticanologists figure Francis will not resign so long as another ex-pope is alive.

At age 95, Benedict is alert but frail. Francis, age 85, appears reasonably healthy but underwent colon surgery last year and recently appeared in public in a wheelchair for the first time due to chronic knee pain.

Then there’s this. The cardinals elected Francis partly in hopes he’d reform the perpetually troubled Roman Curia (as in the sprawling Vatican bureaucracy). Restructure is now set in a Francis edict that took effect on Sunday. But fully implementing the scheme may be thorny and Francis may feel a responsibility to pursue his project.

Surveying the batch of incoming cardinal electors, Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego stands out as the only American and as a mere bishop, not an archbishop (see this tmatt “On Religion” column about this drama). Francis again snubbed nearby Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, the Mexico-born head of the nation’s largest archdiocese and the elected president of the U.S. bishops. Did membership in the Opus Dei organization count against him?


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , ,

Red hat for San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy: Vatican message to U.S. Catholic bishops?

, , , , , , , , , , ,
Red hat for San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy: Vatican message to U.S. Catholic bishops?

Two years before long-standing rumors about Cardinal Theodore McCarrick leapt into headlines worldwide, America's most outspoken activist on clergy sexual abuse met with his local bishop -- San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy.

"It was clear to me during our last meeting in your office, although cordial, that you had no interest in any further personal contact," wrote the late Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine priest who then worked for the Seton Psychiatric Institute in Baltimore. While church officials asked him to report to McElroy, "your office made it clear that you have no time in your schedule either now or 'in the foreseeable future' to have the meeting that they suggested."

Sipe's 2016 letter to the San Diego bishop was later posted online and is frequently cited as an example of a bishop ignoring warnings about the now defrocked McCarrick, who often boasted about his clout as a Vatican kingmaker. Now it will receive more attention because Pope Francis has named McElroy to the Sacred College of Cardinals. This promotes the San Diego bishop over several prominent archbishops -- including Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, who leads America's largest Catholic archdiocese and is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In his hand-delivered report, Sipe told McElroy that his ongoing research indicated that 6% of American priests were guilty of sex with minors. Meanwhile, a "systemic" trend was clear: "At any one time no more than 50% of priests are practicing celibacy."

As for the powerful McCarrick, Sipe noted: "I have interviewed twelve seminarians and priests who attest to propositions, harassment, or sex with McCarrick, who has stated, 'I do not like to sleep alone.' "

Debates about McElroy's elevation have focused on other divisive issues in Catholic life, although decades of sexual-abuse crimes loom in the background. He has, for example, supported the ordination of women to the diaconate, allowing them to preach, perform weddings and serve -- one step from the priesthood -- at Catholic altars.

McElroy has openly clashed with American bishops anxious to address "Eucharistic coherence" as prominent Catholics, especially President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, support -- with words and deeds -- abortion and LGBTQ rights.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Why would CBS News say that Archbishop Wilton Gregory was the first 'Black' cardinal?

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It was the kind of newsroom error that lights up Twitter, while also inspiring more than a few folks in cyberspace to say to themselves, “I need to let GetReligion know about this!”

I am referring to the headline at CBSNews.com that currently proclaims: “First Black American Cardinal said he hopes to begin on ‘positive’ note with Biden after contentious relationship with Trump.”

When that story went online, it said that Washington, D.C., Archbishop Wilton Gregory was the first “Black Cardinal” — period.

See the difference?

Other news organizations made the same error. At Axios, for example, the headline eventually morphed to become: “Wilton Gregory becomes first Black cardinal in U.S.” Note that the URL for that story still contains this: “www.axios.com/washington-archbishop-first-black-cardinal-catholic …”

However, was CBS that left this headline in place for more than a day, until the headline and story were finally corrected.

What was the problem?

For starters, there are currently 14 cardinals from Sub-Saharan Africa alone.

The big question, of course, is why writers and digital producers at a major news organization would, well, forget one of the most important news stories in global Christianity over the past decade or two.

We are talking about the rising tide of believers and leaders from the Global South, and the continent of Africa in particular, and impact of this trend on Catholicism, Anglicanism, Methodism, etc. (Click here for “The Next Christianity,” the 2002 cover story at The Atlantic by historian Philip Jenkins that put this trend on the front burner for journalists who “get” religion.)

Why did this happen at an organization as famous as CBS News?


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , ,

It's not too early to start gathering string on Catholic Cardinals on the rise

, , , , , , , ,
It's not too early to start gathering string on Catholic Cardinals on the rise

The U.S. presidency is a geezer’s game this round.

If Donald Trump wins and completes a full term he'd be 78, while a President Joe Biden would be 82 -- thus the unusually intense buzz about Sen. Kamala Harris as president in waiting. Either man would be history’s oldest president.

On the religion beat, Pope Francis appears spry but he turns 84 in December and, inevitably, writers are already starting to muse about his successor. An election campaign for the leader of 1.3 billion Catholics is the religion writer’s equivalent of the Olympics, compounded by secrecy and subtlety. This should be an unusually hot race because Francis has roiled conservatives on both doctrinal and political matters.

Francis’s dozens of appointees to the College of Cardinals will exercise major voting power in the coming “conclave,” but that doesn’t mean his successor will be a clone. Cardinals chosen by the doctrinaire St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, after all, elected Francis. (As religion specialists will know, only cardinals under age 80 are electors and their total cannot exceed 120, with a two-thirds majority required to win.)

Further on the age factor. Some will say the rule of thumb has moved to older popes, as with the U.S. presidency, since both Francis and predecessor Benedict XVI were in their later 70s when chosen. However, back in 1958 the cardinals elevated a similarly aged Angelo Roncalli, the patriarch of Venice. Some figured he’d be a mere caretaker; in fact, he summoned the epochal Second Vatican Council.

One final age factor. It seems inconceivable that the cardinals would choose a youngster like Pope Pius IX, who was only 54 when elevated and had a turbulent 32-year reign.

By odd coincidence, two conservative Catholic publishers have simultaneously issued relevant pre-conclave books with the identical title, though the subtitles signal different purposes.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , ,

Is it time to discuss this? New book surveys possible candidates for Chair of St. Peter

, , , , , , , ,

he speculation over who will be the next pope is often a preoccupation of the Italian press and the subject never really fades away.

Newspapers up and down the peninsula love to handicap the race among the cardinals who are thought to be the most likely candidates to be elected pope. Indeed, the Italian term “papabile,” coined by Vatican watchers, has become mainstream over the last few decades.

Which man is “pope-able” (that is, able to become pope) is often debated in Rome and anywhere Roman Catholics gather.

Who will follow Pope Francis? The pontiff turns 84 in December, fueling speculation over who will be his replacement once he dies and the College of Cardinals meets to elect a new leader. Of course, there is now the possibility that he could retire — like Pope Benedict XVI.

A new book out, “The Next Pope: The Leading Cardinal Candidates” (Sophia Institute Press) by the National Catholic Register's longtime Rome correspondent Edward Pentin (you can read his wonderful work here), delves into the lives and beliefs of the cardinals most likely to ascend to the Chair of St. Peter. Extremely well-researched (thanks to the help of international scholars), this book is a must-read for all Catholics and anyone who wants to take a peek into what the future and what personal experiences and philosophies these various men bring to the table.

In all, Pentin helped to pinpoint 19 men who could replace Francis once his pontificate is over. Becoming the spiritual leader of more than one billion Catholics worldwide and one of the most influential moral and religious figures in the world isn’t a matter to take lightly. What this book does well is offer up an in-depth look at these cardinals (their ecclesiastical life as priests and later bishops), many of whom remain unknown to most people — journalists included.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , ,

Is Cardinal Pell guilty? Some believe that how a Catholic answers signals virtue or vice

, , , , , , , ,

So, is Cardinal George Pell of Australia guilty or innocent?

If you say “yes,” is that answer a form of virtue signaling during the ongoing hell of the multi-decade Catholic clergy sexual abuse crisis?

If you answer “no,” does that mean that you aren’t taking the crisis seriously and that you want bishops and priests to be able to escape justice?

If you answer “yes,” are you a loving pro-Pope Francis progressive?

If you answer “no,” does that mean that you are a hateful traditionalist who is on the wrong side of history on this issue and many others?

What if you say that you are worried about the quality of the evidence and that you are worried that public officials in Austrailia have listened to an anti-clerical mob and rushed to judgement? If you are hard questions about the evidence — like a good skeptic or journalist would — does that mean you are a hater and don’t care about the victims?

It’s somewhat unusual to run a think piece on Monday, but I really think that readers — especially journalists — will want to read the short Crux essay that ran the other day with this headline: “Ruling cements Pell’s profile as the Dreyfus or Hiss of the Catholic abuse crisis.” The author, of course, is John L. Allen, Jr.

Allen uses a genuinely scary metaphor — if you know your European history — to describe this case. Here is the key, thesis passage, after Pell’s recent appeal was rejected:

Though Pell’s judicial odyssey may not be over, [the] ruling likely does represent the final word on another aspect of the case: George Pell is now officially the Alfred Dreyfus of the Catholic abuse crisis, meaning that opinions about his guilt or innocence are at least as much a reflection of one’s ideological convictions as about the actual evidence in the case.

Dreyfus, of course, was the French artillery officer of Jewish descent charged with treason in 1894 for allegedly passing military secrets to the Germans, spending five years on Devil’s Island. Dreyfus was eventually acquitted and reinstated to his army position, but for more than a decade, opinions about his guilt or innocence functioned as a bellwether for broader political and cultural tensions, pitting Catholic and traditionalist “anti-Dreyfusards” against pro-Republican and anti-clerical liberals.


Please respect our Commenting Policy