Catholicism

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At this point, why would journalists ignore faith issues in Colbert's life? (updated)

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As far as I am concerned, there was journalism about comedian Stephen Colbert before the GQ cover story by Joel Lovell -- "The Late, Great Stephen Colbert" -- and then there is journalism on this subject after that piece.

It's not that this was some kind of stunning investigation into Colbert's career, his finances, his alleged politics, etc., etc. It's not even that this story covered totally new material about Colbert's faith and family history.

Trust me. I've had a research folder open on Colbert and Catholicism since 2005 or thereabouts and I've read most of the crucial speeches and interviews in which he talks about his beliefs. I have a pretty big collection of iTunes selections and Comedy Central URLs that feature revealing quips and comments. I've written some columns on this guy and led seminar sessions focusing on the debates about his work.

What made this interview special was the depth of the comments and the way in which they linked the wounds in Colbert's past to the strengths of his comic sensibility today. It was really quite stunning, even for people (I've heard from some) who didn't take Colbert all that seriously in the past. 

After that interview, why would journalists for a major news organization -- The New York Times leaps to mind  -- fail to explore the God questions (and answers) that haunt this guy? In a major magazine feature before his arrival last night on CBS, this is what the Times team offered while trying to talk about the "humanity" that Colbert has hidden in the past:


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New York Times advance on Pope Francis visit spins religion as economics

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It's almost become a slogan for Terry Mattingly that one of the "deadly sins" of mainstream media is to reduce all religious issues to politics.  But if he reads this New York Times story on Pope Francis' upcoming U.S. visit, he may well add economics to his complaints.

No, economics isn't the only thing in the article. It also looks at Francis' personality and his approach to church matters; the fact that he has never been here before; what he thinks of capitalism; what Americans think of him; and the differing views of politics between South America and the United States.

But a sizable chunk of the story reads like this:

He is not opposed to all America represents. But he is troubled by privileged people and nations that consume more than their share and turn their backs on the vulnerable. The message he will probably deliver when he comes, they say, is that the United States has been blessed with great gifts, but that from those to whom much is given, much is expected.
“I think what he criticizes in the U.S. is the absolute freedom and autonomy of the market,” said the Rev. Juan Carlos Scannone, a professor emeritus of philosophy at Colegio Máximo, a prominent Jesuit college near Buenos Aires. He taught the young Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who would become Francis, as a seminarian and became a friend. “We should admire the U.S.’s democracy and the well-being of its people, but what Bergoglio would criticize is the consumerism: that everything is geared toward consumerism.”

Much of the story, in fact, resembles the Aug. 30 advance by the Associated Press. It's almost like someone at the Times read AP and said, "Hey, that's a good idea!" -- then assigned their own version.

Both stories emphasize how new the experience will be for a 78-year-old pope who has never visited here. Both style him a "homebody" who prefers to hang out with the poor than jet to public appearances. The Times quotes Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York saying Francis is "a little nervous about coming."

Both articles also quote sources who say the pope isn't really anti-American -- he just opposes the social and environment harm it's caused, he believes, by our economy: "maximizing profits" in the AP story, "savage capitalism" in the Times piece.

But where AP devoted two paragraphs to Francis' economic views, the Times deals with them in four, like this one:


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Vatican conservatives rebel against Pope Francis, the pope hailed by news media

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Haven't we read this Washington Post story before? Every few months, someone big in the mainstream press writes this same basic story.

A quick summary: Conservatives hate Pope Francis because he is the liberal that we -- as in the mainstream press -- say he is, even though, dang it, he hasn't actually changed any of the loathsome doctrines that we think are so terrible. But we love this pope's quips, as opposed to his actual sermons and writings, and we'll keep printing those quotes over and over. Oh, and if your don't like the version of Pope Francis that we're describing, then you oppose this pope.

Or words to that effect. But the key is that conservatives inside the Vatican are planning a revolt of some kind. We know this because some of them are talking about "confusion" in the church, confusion that -- this is crucial -- has nothing to do with the media's consistent portrayal of the pope as a heroic liberal seeking doctrinal reform, although he hasn't changed any yet. And why does the pope keep urging everyone to go to confession? Doesn't Francis know that no one goes to confession anymore, because that would imply that sin is real?

The latest version of this parable, in The Washington Post, opens with a Vatican City anecdote in which the uber-conservative Cardinal Raymond Burke "appeared" -- no one actually heard the exchange -- to have reminded the pope that papal powers to change doctrine are limited.

Gasp. Someone arguing with a Jesuit? I have never heard of such a thing.

Burke’s words belied a growing sense of alarm among strict conservatives, exposing what is fast emerging as a culture war over Francis’s papacy and the powerful hierarchy that governs the Roman Catholic Church.


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Refugees flee ISIS: Maybe there is a religion angle in this tragic story? Maybe?

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If you have read anything about the rise of the Islamic State, you know that ISIS is crushing anyone who rejects its drive to build a new multinational caliphate rooted in its approach to Islam.

Thus, hundreds of thousands of people are either dead or fleeing. Who are they?

The answer is pretty obvious: They are the people who rejected the reign of ISIS. And who might that be? The answer is complex, but one fact is simple. It's impossible to talk about this refugee crisis without talking about the religion angle, because the refugees are either members of minority religions in the region, including thousands of displaced Christians, or centrist Muslims or members of Muslim-related sects that are anathema to ISIS leaders.

Now, the religion angle has jumped even higher in the story with the appeal by Pope Francis for every Catholic parish, school, monastery and social ministry in Europe to take in at least one refugee family. If you know anything about the Bible, you probably have a good idea what verses the pope is going to quote on this question.

But Europe is tense, not just because of the sheer number of refugees, but because of faith questions related to them.

So why, I ask, did The New York Times team basically ignore the religion content of this story in its major piece on the pope's challenge? The results are especially strange when contrasted with the corresponding international-desk story in The Washington Post. Here is the key passage in the Times piece:


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The usual: Covering Pope Francis the pastor, as if he is Pope Francis the politician

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The usual: Covering Pope Francis the pastor, as if he is Pope Francis the politician

Does anyone remember the big religion-beat story of the week BEFORE Rowan County clerk Kim Davis went to jail in Kentucky?

I am referring, of course, to the alleged move by Pope Francis to liberalize or modernize or do something radical to his church's teachings on abortion.

Right. That story, the one discussed by our own Bobby Ross Jr., in this post and then Julia Duin in this update, the post featuring that must-see MSNBC headline. We then offered this bonus essay by a GetReligion reader, veteran Catholic scribe Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz. The key: Pope Francis was extending -- for one year -- the ability of priests around the world to hear the confessions of women who have had abortions, or women and men directly involved in performing abortions, and to absolve these sins without their local bishops being involved in the process.

As is often the case, the American press rushed to portray this as another:

(a) Brave move by media star Pope Francis (actually, the two previous popes had taken the same action at one time or another).

(b) Confrontation between a compassionate pope with culture-wars bishops in the United States (actually, many or even most American bishops had already extended this right to their priests).

(c) Subject sure to cause tensions with ugly Republicans during the pope's upcoming visit to the Acela Zone between Washington, D.C., and New York City.

All of this was discussed, this week, in my "Crossroads" podcast chat with host Todd Wilken. Once again, the key to understanding the pope's move was to view it in pastoral terms, rather than political terms. Click here to tune in that conversation.

Now, here is another way to understand what the pope is doing.


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Catholic scribe notes the hidden news story: This pope's emphasis on Confession

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We get all kinds of comments and email here at GetReligion, some of which readers see online, some of which we refer to in posts using careful language and some troll offerings -- few of which have anything to do with journalism -- that we trash before we start laughing or crying or both.

Quite a few -- critical and/or supportive -- come from working journalists, including religion-beat pros. I wish that I could share more of these, including the ones that are critical of the website, yet also constructive. It would be great to dialogue with these professionals, but most cannot let us use their real names.

As you would expect, we frequently hear from the same readers over and over. Quite a few of these people are professionals in religious or denominational newsrooms, the kinds of people who spot the errors and holes (real and, every now and then, not so real) in mainstream news reports about their own flocks.

For years, one of the website's most loyal and most constructive readers of the site has been Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz, the veteran Catholic scribe currently is a producer at The Drew Mariani Show on Relevant Radio. He is the former editor of The Catholic Times in the Diocese of La Crosse in Wisconsin. He has a degree in theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio.

Earlier this week, during the latest media explosion on Pope Francis, abortion and moral theology (post by Bobby Ross, Jr., here and then Julia Duin here), he wrote us a note with some very precise reactions to the mainstream coverage. I asked him if he would flesh out his thoughts a bit, as a memo to reporters covering this story. Here is what he produced.

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Remember back in March of this year when Pope Francis told a gathering of seminarians and priests that Confession should not be a form of torture? The subsequent reporting featured a lot of emphasis on that torture part, but something was missed:


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For Boston Globe, a crazy question concerning New Hampshire and John Kasich's faith

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The headline from the Boston Globe grabbed my attention:

In N.H., talk of faith from Kasich

So I clicked the link and read the lede:

HENNIKER, N.H. — It was one of the last questions at a town hall meeting, and it happened to come from a recent retiree from Ohio: How had Governor John Kasich’s time as that state’s chief executive prepared him to be president?

“Early in your administration, my colleagues in the public and private sector, kind of viewed you as rather intense and kind of dictatorial,” Jeff Weber said inside of New England College’s Simon Center. “They said you’ve mellowed some.”

“How has the job changed me?” asked the governor who is beginning to break through in a Republican primary field packed with 17 candidates, the most noted of whom is businessman and reality TV showman Donald Trump. “Number one, my faith has gotten deeper. Why does that matter? Because it’s given me perspective.”

There were religious overtones to many of Kasich’s remarks on everything from climate change to the national debt Wednesday morning as he wrapped up a five-event, two-day swing through a state that usually doesn’t embrace overtly religious candidates. Yet the Ohio Republican is appealing to voters in New Hampshire with its first-in-the-nation primary.

So far, so good.

The Globe spotted a key religion angle on the campaign trail and went for it. 

I kept reading, excited about getting to the meat of the story. I just knew — or at least I hoped — the Globe would provide important context on the role of religion in Kasich's personal life and presidential aspirations. Alas, such details never came.


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Francis' U.S. visit: About that (mostly) exemplary Associated Press advance story

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Friendly and perceptive and literate? The Associated Press' advance on Pope Francis' U.S. visit forms almost a shopping list of things that should go into such a story.

Written by Godbeat veteran Rachel Zoll, along with Nicole Winfield out of Rome, the article looks at the rift between the Argentinian Jesuit pontiff and the nation he'll visit Sept. 22-27 -- for the first time in his life, the story points out.

This nearly 1,300-word piece notes that previous pontiffs like John Paul II knew the place well. Why doesn't Francis? For answers, AP asks its sources about Francis' mindset, his South American heritage, and how politics and economics may influence his relations with the United States.

"Francis’ lack of firsthand experience of the United States stands out for many, especially those struggling to absorb his unsparing critique of the excesses of global capitalism and wondering whether this first Latin American pope harbors resentment about the history of US policies in his native region," AP says.

Nor does the article just pontificate, as it were. It gets live quotes from its sources:


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MSNBC wins for worst headline on pope, confession, forgiveness and abortion

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 Those of us who aren’t Catholic or haven’t had abortions -- or both -- may not be familiar with the intricacies of how the Catholic Church forgives women who have had them. A woman is automatically excommunicated if she has an abortion, but if the sin is confessed and she repents, the normal policy has been that a bishop must be involved in restoring her to the church. The same policy has applied to men and women directly involved in performing abortions.

Most bishops in the United States have delegated such power of absolution to their priests, so it’s not huge news that Catholic clergy have the power to forgive abortions during confessions.

But apparently not all priests around the world have that latitude. Thus, Pope Francis, who has an amazing ability to gauge what the public wants together with what his church's doctrines will allow, announced Tuesday morning that:

I have decided, notwithstanding anything to the contrary, to concede to all priests for the Jubilee Year the discretion to absolve of the sin of abortion those who have procured it and who, with contrite heart, seek forgiveness for it.

The press coverage of this act has been interesting to say the least -- as you can see in the art at the top of this post. Our own Bobby Ross, Jr., dove into the topic early yesterday and here is your update on what happened later.

First, there’s the New York Post, which ran a story under this headline: “The Catholic Church will now forgive your abortion.” Well … not quite. The church has been forgiving abortions for quite some time, so that snark was undeserved. The text of the article was a bit more precise but still carried a few digs:


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