Catholicism

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Your weekend think piece: Doing the math (think demographics) in post-Christian Europe

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Just when you thought it was impossible to find another new layer of meaning in the brutal murder of Father Jacques Hamel, who was slaughtered at the altar of a French church dedicated to the memory of the first New Testament martyr St. Stephen, columnist Ross Douthat of The New York Times dug a bit deeper.

This Sunday piece ran under this headline: "The Meaning of a Martyrdom." In it, Douthat -- a pro-Catechism Catholic, to one of my own pushy labels -- reflects on the current debates about whether Hamel was or was not a martyr for the Catholic faith. This also happened to be the topic of my Universal syndicate column this past week. Click here to check that out.

But in the midst of that discussion, Douthat made this blunt observation, noting that Europe, and our world today in general:

... is not actually quite what 1960s-era Catholicism imagined. The come-of-age church is, in the West, literally a dying church: As the French philosopher Pierre Manent noted, the scene of Father Hamel’s murder -- “an almost empty church, two parishioners, three nuns, a very old priest” -- vividly illustrates the condition of the faith in Western Europe.
The broader liberal order is also showing signs of strain. The European Union, a great dream when Father Hamel was ordained a priest in 1958, is now a creaking and unpopular bureaucracy, threatened by nationalism from within and struggling to assimilate immigrants from cultures that never made the liberal leap.

This reminded me of a sobering Catholic News Agency piece that ran recently at Crux about a blast of statistics from Catholic pews, pulpits and altars in postmodern Germany. To be blunt about it, Catholicism in Germany is not producing new babies or new believers, according to findings released by the German bishops' conference.

Check this out:


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

Papal blast on kids and gender? The New York Times can't wait to dump on it

, , , , , , , , ,

In the world of newspapers, there’s what we call first-day stories and second-day stories.

A good first-day story this week is that Pope Francis spoke out -- strongly -- about teaching very young students that they can choose their own genders. Then, a second-day story would follow up with the reaction to his speech.

And Francis did make such a speech last week and the transcript was just made public (official English translation is not out yet). The Washington Post ran a short first-day item -- actually an Associated Press story --- describing the pontiff's speech. Apparently, this only appeared in the Post's online edition and not in the dead-tree version. Did someone there wish to bury it? 

However, The New York Times definitely did not bury this news. It cut to the chase with the reaction to the pope’s statement -- albeit only the reaction of activists one side.

Here’s how a story headlined “Pope Francis’ remarks disappoint gay and transgender groups" began:

Leaders of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups expressed dismay on Wednesday after Pope Francis said that schoolchildren are being taught they can choose their gender as part of what he called an “ideological colonization.”
Francis was meeting privately with bishops in Poland last week when he broached the matter. “Today, in schools they are teaching this to children -- to children! -- that everyone can choose their gender,” he said, according to a transcript released by the Vatican on Tuesday.
Marianne Duddy-Burke, the executive director of DignityUSA, a leading organization of L.G.B.T. Catholics, said the comments represented a “dangerous ignorance” about gender identity, which is no more a choice than height or hair color.


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

Prosperity gospel vs. social gospel: What religion means to Trump, Clinton & Co.

, , , , , , ,

In back-to-back features this week, NPR delves into the faiths of the Republican and Democratic presidential tickets.

It's safe to say that these profiles — by Godbeat pro Tom Gjelten — are not definitive journalism on what Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton & Co. believe.

In fact, these reports are more like CliffsNotes study guides for those interested in a crash course on the candidates' religious backgrounds. But taken as such, these accounts are really nicely done.

On the Republican side, NPR focuses on how positive thinking and the prosperity gospel define Trump's faith outlook.

On the Democratic side, Gjelten explores how Clinton and running mate Tim Kaine are driven by their faith in a social gospel.

In each case, the author allows the candidates to describe their faith in their own words.

Trump:


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

Historical facts rock solid on female deacons? RNS story makes it seem that they are

, , , , , , , , , ,

As he promised, Pope Francis has set up a commission to study whether or not the Church of Rome should ordain women as permanent deacons.

A previous Vatican study of the issue but a spotlight on a key question. Yes, there were female deacons, or deaconesses, in the New Testament. However, did they serve as ordained clergy at the altar -- in a clearly liturgical role -- or did their duties center elsewhere, especially in work with the poor and other women?

Let's flashback for a second to an earlier post -- "Deaconesses or female deacons? Journalists do you know the history of these terms?" -- before taking a look at a new Religion News Service report.

Everyone involved in this debate knows that the word used in Romans 16:1 to describe the woman named Phoebe is diakonos. However, some translations render this as "servant," while others use "deacon. The New International Version, beloved by Protestants, says: "I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae."

In an earlier news report, the Crux team noted that the earlier Vatican study of women deacons offered "two points for reflection."

First, the document says that deaconesses in the ancient Christian church “cannot purely and simply be compared to the sacramental diaconate” that exists today, since there is no clarity about the rite of institution that was used or what functions they exercised.
Second, the document asserts that “the unity of the sacrament of orders” is “strongly imprinted by ecclesiastical tradition, the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and the post-councilor magisterium,” despite clear differences between the episcopacy and priesthood on the one hand and the diaconate on the other.

Let me note, speaking as an Eastern Orthodox layman, that this is pretty much what I have heard in similar discussions of this issue in the churches of the East.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , ,

Muslims at slain priest's funeral: AP thinks they should be seen but not heard

, , , , ,

What a wonderful story of solidarity: Muslims joining French Catholics at the funeral of Father Jacques Hamel, uniting in sympathy for the victim of knife-wielding ISIS sympathizers. 

Let's hear the thoughts and feelings of the Muslims after the funeral. 

Or not. At least not if you read the Associated Press' account. Or those of many other media.

Muslims are mentioned six times in the AP story, including the headline. A hundred of them, just at the Rouen cathedral. And dozens more around France and Italy for Mass, "as a gesture of interfaith solidarity following the attack on the priest."

Yes, it's nice to show not that all Muslims are haters. And it's true that actions speak louder than words. But since a news story is made of words, shouldn't some Muslims have gotten to say a few of them?

I'm not even sure how much original reporting AP did here. Looks like at least some of the story is borrowed from other reports:

ROUEN, France — French media reported Tuesday that roughly 100 Muslims attended the funeral Mass of a Catholic priest slain by two men who claimed allegiance to the Islamic States, capping a week in which Muslims in various European nations attended Masses to express sympathy and solidarity.
The Archbishop of Rouen, leading Tuesday’s solemn funeral Mass, said Father Jacques Hamel tried to push away his attackers with his feet, saying "go away, Satan," remarks that underscored the horror of the murder at the altar that touched a chord throughout France.
Hundreds of priests and bishops filled the sumptuous Rouen cathedral along with many hundreds more people, including Muslims who have joined in the grieving since the murder of the 85-year-old priest, slashed by his attackers while celebrating morning Mass.

Who were those 100 Muslims? Imams?  Professors? Quranic scholars? How many mosques did they represent? Why did they feel the need to come? 


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

(Cue: loud sigh) AP report about private colleges has a familiar doctrine-shaped hole in it

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

One of the questions your GetReligionistas hear the most from friends of this blog, as well as critics, is this: Do you ever get tired of having to write about the same journalism issues over and over and over?

Yes, this can be tiring. It's frustrating to watch reporters, especially at major news organizations, leave the same religion-shaped (or First Amendment-shaped) holes in their news stories and longer features about important issues and events.

But we keeping doing what we do. We remain pro-journalism. We remain committed to the basics of old-school reporting and editing, holding out for values such as accuracy, balance and fairness.

So, as you would imagine, this post is about a familiar topic. First, here is a flashback to a recent Julia Duin post that spotted an important hole in several news reports about SB1146, a bill in California that would shake the church-state ground under all of the state's private schools. At the time Julia wrote this post -- "Christian colleges on chopping block: Why are California newspapers ignoring the story?" -- mainstream news organizations were simply missing the story -- period.

But there was a more specific problem in a report from The Sacramento Bee:

... The Bee does not add that students have a choice whether or not to attend these private schools. In most cases they sign documents in which they affirm the school's stands on doctrinal issues, including those linked to sexual behavior. Here at GetReligion, we’ve brought up again and again the fact that religious schools tend to have something called covenants whereby the students who attend them and those who teach and work at them agree to live according to the doctrines affirmed by that institution.

Let me stress that this is true for private schools on the cultural and religious left, as well as the right.


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

Once more unto the breach, dear friends: 'Why Readers See The Times As Liberal'

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

Here is the understatement of the year: Yes, a few GetReligion readers noticed that the new Public Editor (think readers' representative or ombudsman) at The New York Times published an essay entitled "Why Readers See The Times as Liberal."

Actually, it seems like someone representing the great Gray Lady writes an essay on this basic topic every five years or so. I know, because I have been collecting these pieces for a decade-plus to use in the classroom, as part of a New York Journalism Semester lecture entitled "The Spiritual Crisis at The New York Times." In this case, "spiritual" refers to the religion of journalism itself, as in the classic 2004 PressThink essay by Jay Rosen of New York University entitled "Journalism Is Itself a Religion."

You see, many journalists see what they do as a vocation that verges on being a calling, in part because of classic American Model of the Press doctrines about accuracy, fairness, balance and truth telling. The issue is whether the doctrines of the journalism faith are changing, often because of struggles among journalism elites to do old-school journalism when covering hot-button issues linked to (wait for it) religion, morality and culture.

The surprising thing, this time around, is that the essay by Public Editor Liz Spayd talks about differences between left and right, but does not seem to be aware of the role that religious and cultural issues (as opposed to arguments about Donald Trump) have played in previous debates about this topic at The Times. Can you say "Bill Keller"?

So should we discuss all of this again? Yes, dear friends, once more unto the breach. This is why we are here, as in our Year 10 refresh.

The starting point for Spayd is the same as always, as in complaints from readers. Here is a sample:

One reader from California who asked not to be named believes Times reporters and editors are trying to sway public opinion toward their own beliefs. “I never thought I’d see the day when I, as a liberal, would start getting so frustrated with the one-sided reporting that I would start hopping over to the Fox News webpage to read an article and get the rest of the story that the NYT refused to publish,” she says. ...
Emails like these stream into this office every day. A perception that The Times is biased prompts some of the most frequent complaints from readers. Only they arrive so frequently, and have for so long, that the objections no longer land with much heft.


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

Hey, editors at The Los Angeles Times: Who are the missing players in this Zika story?

, , , , , , , ,

The Los Angeles Times can come out with some gorgeous photo essays and their latest, about Brazilian moms with Zika babies, is one. The writer is a veteran of the Times foreign desk and the photographer is an old Washington Times colleague of mine who has risen up in the world.

Specifically, the story is about these Zika moms whose husbands or lovers have abandoned them when the men discovered the extent of their offspring’s handicap. Heartbreakingly, these women are now having to go it alone.

But there’s something left out of this narrative. You might even call it a "ghost," to use the proper GetReligion term. It starts thus:

The day Josemary Gomes brought her newborn son Gilberto home to a tiny pink house on a sun-baked cobblestone street, she laid him on her bed and wept.
But there was no one to comfort the single mother. “I raised my head,” she said, “and carried on alone.”
Gomes is among a growing number of women in Brazil who are raising children damaged by the Zika virus on their own. As many as a third of mothers are unmarried in this nation of 200 million, the hardest hit in an epidemic that has swept around the world. Studies suggest that the rate is highest in impoverished rural villages and crowded slums -- the places most affected by the mosquito-borne virus that has been linked to at least 1,638 cases of birth defects across the country.
Even mothers who have a partner have found themselves suddenly abandoned as their relationships crumble under the emotional strain, economic burden and social stigma that come with raising a child who may require almost constant attention.

The story goes on to chronicle Gomes’ horror when she learns her newborn child’s head was abnormally small.


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

Italy's trend away from church weddings: That might connect to stories close to home

, , , , , , , , ,

I don't know about you, but this kind of thing happens to me all the time when I am reading the news.

Let's say that you are cruising along and you hit an interesting story. Then, as you keep reading, the hard-drive in your mind starts spinning and eventually a thought balloon pops up that says something like this: "Wait a minute. Maybe this story is connected to ...."

Trust me. This happens to journalists all the time. This process is part of the mental tool kit that reporters develop when they work on a beat for a decade or two (or in the case of the members of the GetReligionista team, a combined 150-plus years or more on the religion beat).

Here's a recent example, which is a pretty obvious one. We start with a Crux story I saw the other day with the headline, "Study suggests Catholic marriage will be dead in Italy by 2031." Here's the overture:

Pope Francis has made family life and marriage a keen priority, and if he ever needed proof of the urgency of the cause even in his own backyard, a widely respected Italian research group has provided it: According to its recent projection, by the year 2031 absolutely no one in Italy will be married in church.
Censis (“Center for Social Investment Studies”) has a quasi-official status in Italy, with its analysis often relied upon by the government in forming policy decisions. In a recent study on marriage in Italy, based on trends over the last 20 years, it found that the number of Italians entering into formal marriages has been in freefall.
In 1994, according to its data, there were 291,607 marriages in Italy, a country of 60 million people where Catholics still account, formally speaking, for 95 percent of the population. By 2014, the number of marriages had fallen to 189,765, a drop of 35 percent.

We are, of course, talking about sacramental, Catholic marriages -- as opposed to civil rites.


Please respect our Commenting Policy