Congo

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Salute from Will Norton at Ole Miss: Religion plays a crucial role in news -- around the world

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Salute from Will Norton at Ole Miss: Religion plays a crucial role in news -- around the world

During World War II, when I was a young boy in the Belgian Congo, Dad would turn on the large radio console and listen to BBC News.

Years later, he explained to me that Charles DeGaulle, a French general, was in exile in Brazzaville, the capital of French Congo, across the river from what was then Leopoldville, now Kinshasa. We were upriver, in the Ubangi Territory, the extreme northwest corner of Belgium’s largest African colony.

My father said that many ex-patriates and Congolese were worried that Adolph Hitler was going to send troops to Central Africa to capture General DeGaulle and occupy the region. North Africa already had been occupied by the Axis powers.

So, the BBC provided our family with important news for our daily lives. When we moved to the United States, Dad and I would listen to World News Roundup with Winston Burdett as we ate breakfast.

Because of this, I realized how important accurate news is, and that shaped everything that I did while working at newspapers and magazines and eventually teaching journalism at three universities.

The goal was to pass on to students the significance of accurate and complete reporting, and many have distinguished themselves in community and regional journalism as well as elite media.

To help students prepare for media careers, we often brought outstanding journalists and scholars (especially those who also wrote for mass media) to campus. One of these events helped inspire the creation of GetReligion.

After the tragedy of September 11, 2001, our journalism team at the University of Nebraska invited the legendary Martin Marty, Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Modern Christianity at the University of Chicago. In many polls, Marty had been named as one of America’s most trusted religious leaders. He was a legend among religion-beat professionals — leading to the old saying that the formula for a front-page feature was a national study or poll, several local anecdotes and “a quote from Martin Marty.”

Marty, a native of Nebraska, came to lecture about religion in the mainstream press. We asked Terry Mattingly, a journalism professor and syndicated religion columnist, to respond to Marty’s presentation.


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Thinking about persecution in Nigeria: It isn't news (#SIGH), but why is the Vatican so quiet?

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Thinking about persecution in Nigeria: It isn't news (#SIGH), but why is the Vatican so quiet?

Tragically, I could have written a “think piece” post about the following topic during every week over the past few years and it would have been relevant in terms of debates about politics, human rights, religious freedom and the practice of journalism.

I am talking about religious conflict in Nigeria, which often escalates into ISIS-level outbreaks of violence and persecution. But Nigeria is only one example of a wider problem in international news, at the moment. For more background, see the recent Richard Ostling religion-beat Memo with this title: “Buried story of 2022? The persecution of Christians keeps surging around the world.”

But let’s start with this new Reuters headline: “Catholic priest burned to death, another shot in north Nigeria.”

Actually, there is testimony that Father Isaac Achi was already dead, from gunshot wounds, when his attackers set fire to his home. There is some chance, however, that he was burned alive. Here’s the overture of the Reuters piece, which may be the only mainstream media coverage that has been done of this latest hellish vision of religious life in Nigeria:

Gunmen burned a Catholic priest to death and shot and injured his colleague in northwest Nigeria on Sunday, police said, the latest violence raising concerns about security ahead of an election next month.

Nigerians will vote for a new president on Feb. 25 but kidnappings for ransom and killings by armed gangs in the north have lead to fears that polls may not be held in some areas.

The motive for the latest attack was not immediately clear but gunmen have previously targeted priests in the largely Muslim north.

Once again, we see a phenomenon that I have written about many times here at GetReligion.

This kind of international story, in the context of America’s niche-media realities, is now seen as a merely religious, Catholic or even “conservative” story. Click here to see a Google News file illustrating this, in the case of the murder of this particular priest. There are the major, trend-defining newsrooms in this picture? That is, of course, the question.

But you can find more details (#DUH) in Catholic media.


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Plug-In: Pope Francis in Canada -- five key facts to look for in the news coverage

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Plug-In: Pope Francis in Canada -- five key facts to look for in the news coverage

Pope Francis traveled to Canada this weekend.

The purpose of the Catholic leader’s seven-day trip: to apologize to Indigenous peoples for abuses at church-run residential schools.

In advance of his visit, which started Sunday, here are five key facts:

1. It’s a “one-of-a-kind” papal trip.

Christopher White, the National Catholic Reporter’s Vatican correspondent, reports:

When he touches down in Edmonton, Alberta, Francis will find a dramatically altered scene than that of past airport arrivals. Gone will be the jubilant sights and sounds of marching bands and cheering crowds.

When he arrives on the ground — almost certainly via hydraulic lift, given that his limited physical mobility has added another layer of complication to this difficult trip — the first hands he will shake will be that of Indigenous elders and survivors of residential schools. Indigenous drummers will provide background percussion and there will be no customary meetings with the head of state or speeches to civic authorities on his first day in the country.

2. Francis will find a nation where Catholicism is in decline.

Jessica Mundie, a fellow for the National Post, explains:

The role of the Catholic Church in society is not what it once was. What used to be a pillar in the social and political life of communities has now, for some, become the building they pass on the way to the grocery store. Its reputation has been tarnished by sex abuse scandals in Canada and around the world, and after last summer, when hundreds of suspected unmarked graves were discovered on the sites of past residential schools, many were reminded of the church’s role in this country’s controversial history.

Canadian Catholics are hoping that a visit from the Pope, which includes stops in Quebec City and Iqaluit, and meetings with First Nations, can begin to address past wrongs.


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NBC News wins gold-medal prize for most over-the-top, biased report (so far) on United Methodists

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Four different GetReligion readers — two of them journalists — sent me notes about an NBC News feature that ran the other day about liberal reactions to that special General Conference that reaffirmed, and even strengthened, the United Methodist Church’s support for old-fashioned, traditional teachings on marriage, sex and the Bible.

One note simply said “wow,” over and over.

Two used the same word — “ridiculous.”

Another added, “Something seems to be missing.”

You get the idea. If you are looking for some kind of gold-standard when it comes to one-sided, biased news coverage of this event — this is the story for you. This is a shake-your-head classic when it comes to assuming that there is only one side in this argument that deserves serious attention and, yes, respect.

Let’s start with the report’s coverage of the conservative side of the story. Ready?

Well, actually, there isn’t anything to quote. Sorry about that.

The story does not include a single sentence of material drawn from African, Asian or American delegates or insiders who support the church’s teachings that sex outside of traditional marriage is sin. That’s a stance that would be affirmed by leaders of the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, the majority of the world’s Anglicans, almost all Baptists and, well, you get the idea.

Journalists do not, of course, have to agree with this approach to doctrine. However, there’s no way around the fact that this point of view is crucial, in this debate, and it would help if readers had a chance to understand why traditional religious believers defend this stance.In this case, it’s crucial to know that the growing regions of the global United Methodist Church back this doctrinal approach, while the liberal corners of the church — in the United States, primarily — are in numerical decline.

Try to find that fact anywhere in the NBC News report. The story opens with the voice of a gay pastor — the Rev. Mark Thompson — and everything else that follows affirms the same perspective. You can catch the tone in this passage:

Thompson is just one individual within an expansive, diverse group of LGBTQ United Methodist Church leaders who have made enormous personal sacrifices for their faith. He, and countless others, had previously hoped that a vote during a special session of the UMC’s general conference last month would change the course of the church’s relationship with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people.

The vote, however, not only strengthened the church’s ban on openly gay clergy and same-sex marriages, but also increased penalties for future violations. Thompson, and multitudes of United Methodists in attendance, were gutted.


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Bloodshed in the headlines: What is the current world situation with religious persecution?

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Bloodshed in the headlines: What is the current world situation with religious persecution?

THE QUESTION:

What is the current world situation with religious persecution?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The slaughter of 50 Muslims and wounding of dozens more at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, provoked horror in that pacific nation, and sorrow and disgust worldwide. Why would anyone violate the religious freedom, indeed the very lives, of innocent people who had simply gathered to worship God?

Unfortunately, murders at religious sanctuaries are not a rare occurrence. In the U.S., recall the murders of six Sikh worshipers at Oak Creek, Wisconsin (2012); nine African Methodists at a prayer meeting in Charleston, S.C. (2015); 26 Southern Baptists in a Sunday morning church rampage at Sutherland Springs, Texas (2017); and 11 Jews observing the Sabbath at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue last October.

The Christchurch atrocity was unusual in that authorities identified a white nationalist as the assailant. Most mosque attacks are not carried out by a demented individual, but by radical Muslim movements that intend to kill fellow Muslims for sectarian political purposes. The most shocking example occurred in 1979. A well-armed force of messianic extremists assaulted the faith’s holiest site, the Grand Mosque in Mecca, during the annual pilgrimage (Hajj). The reported death toll was 117 attackers and 127 pilgrims and security guards, with 451 others wounded.

After Christchurch, The Associated Press culled its archives to list 879 deaths in mass murders at mosques during the past decade. (Data are lacking on sectarian attacks upon individual Muslims, also a serious problem for the faith). Such incidents get scant coverage in U.S. news media.

2010: Extremist Sunnis in the Jundallah sect bomb to death six people and themselves at a mosque in southeastern Iran. Then a second Jundallah suicide bombing at an Iranian Shiite mosque kills 27 and injures 270.


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Pope addresses world peace AND persecution (again)

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Covering speeches is tricky, I tell the students in my reporting classes.

A good public speaker says all kinds of interesting things before he or she gets to The Big Idea, the point to which they have been building all along. A good reporter, on the other hand, has to find a way to take The Big Idea -- especially if it is truly newsworthy -- and plant it right at the top of the story, while maintaining a sense of context.

The reporter can add the other important details later, I tell students. The key, as every journalist knows, is not to "bury the lede." And may the journalism gods have mercy on a reporter who misses The Big Idea altogether.

This brings us to one of the most symbolic moments in the annual cycle of the Catholic liturgical year -- the short message delivered by the pope at Christmas that is called “Urbi et Orbi,” which is Latin for “to the city and the world." This is not the sermon in the Christmas Mass, but an address that is, to be blunt, aimed at the public square.


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