Catholicism

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In Bible Belt town split on immigration, passing glimpses of religious influence raise questions

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As I mentioned in a recent post, Alabama ranks as the nation's second-most religious state after Mississippi, according to Gallup.

In a different post last year, I noted that Alabama's estimated 1.2 million Southern Baptists represent a quarter of the state's 4.8 million total residents. Overall, the state's number of evangelicals tops 2 million.

So yes, as I read an in-depth CNN story out today on an Alabama town split on immigration, I wondered what role faith would play in the text.

Here's the good news: The talented writer provides glimpses of religion that make it clear she understands its importance to the community.

Here's the bad news: Those glimpses are just that — glimpses. As in "a momentary or slight appearance," to quote one of the Dictionary.com definitions. More on those glimpses in a moment.

But first, some background: Overall, it's a nice story — fair and balanced on the immigration issue itself. The CNN piece even includes a scene where a resident watches headlines on Fox News, which made me chuckle. The journalist does an excellent job of interviewing a wide variety of sources, giving each a voice and helping her audience understand where everyone is coming from. 


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Journalists cover candidate Kaine's LGBTQ prophecy, but words of his bishop? Not so much

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Let’s settle one issue right up front, so that readers know what this post is about and what it is not about.

Yes, it is bigger news -- in the heat of a White House race -- when the Democratic Party’s vice-presidential candidate (he would be one blood clot away from naming several U.S. Supreme Court nominees) openly attacks a sacramental doctrine of his church, as in the Church of Rome (Catechism reference here).

Truth is, a giant chunk of space rock could wipe out Jerusalem -- at this point in the sacred rites of American horse-race politics -- and elite journalists would immediately calculate the impact on Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers.

My question today is whether news organizations should have paid any attention to the response by the actual Catholic bishop who, for those who care about Catholic theology and tradition, is the shepherd for the church in which Sen. Tim Kaine is an active communicant. Also, if a newsroom decided to cover that story, would the bishop’s actual words deserve attention? How much attention? 

So let’s start with a flashback to the original story, care of The Washington Post:

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine, a practicing Catholic, on Saturday described his evolution on same-sex marriage and predicted that his church would change its views as well.
“My full, complete, unconditional support for marriage equality is at odds with the current doctrine of the church that I still attend,” Kaine said at a dinner celebrating gay rights. “But I think that’s going to change, too.”

It’s crucial that Kaine also signaled that God is for same-sex marriage and the Vatican has not caught up to the implications of it’s own theology. Kaine threw down a doctrinal glove and asked for a fight.


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How far back should coverage go in clergy sex scandals? Two Penn newspapers differ

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Child porn charges against a Pennsylvania priest are yielding coverage with a different kind of ghost" -- the specter of past crimes illustrated with a literal list in a newspaper. But is such a focus always warranted? Do journalists use this with the Catholic sins, alone?

After a Faithful Reader brought this up, I looked at the examples sent in. Here's what I saw.

The focus is retired Monsignor John S. Mraz, charged with collecting and viewing child porn on two laptops. Two local newspapers do a fine job on the story -- to a point. 

Both of them do what newspapers do best: narrating the chilling details. Take the Reading Eagle account:

A senior Allentown Catholic Diocese priest who began his career in Reading was caught with child pornography on his computer, Lehigh County District Attorney James B. Martin said Tuesday.
Officials said Monsignor John S. Mraz admitted that he sought out and viewed the images for his sexual gratification. They said the investigation began after a parishioner of Mraz's Emmaus church reported uncovering a file with a name along the lines of “naked little boys” while performing maintenance the priest had requested.
Mraz, 66, is the former pastor of the Church of St. Ann, a neighborhood church with an on-campus elementary and middle school. He taught at the former Reading Central Catholic High School from 1975 to 1980 and was an assistant superintendent of the diocesan school system.

The 1,000-word story is a model of fact, narrative and multisourcing. It includes the story of how the volunteer found the images on Mraz's machines, then reported that to the diocese. In turn, the diocese reported it to law enforcement authorities, who investigated and indicted Mraz.


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WomenPriests scores yet another PR feature in yet another sympathetic newspaper

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It's not every day that I see a news feature that starts with a fact error.

"Mary Alice Nolan will soon be ordained a Roman Catholic priest," says the lede of a Q&A feature in the Marin Independent Journal.

Well, no, actually she won't.

Nolan will undergo a ritual that resembles a Catholic ordination. But it will be sanctioned by the WomenPriests movement -- not the canonical Roman Catholic Church. You see, Vatican has a system in which it chooses its clergy. It's kind of like the New York Yankees getting to decide who makes their 40-man roster and who does not.

Wish it was the only place this article messes up the facts. 

Somehow, the Journal can call Nolan a future Catholic priest while acknowledging the centuries-old corporation that holds the brand:

The 64-year-old’s ordination will not be acknowledged by the Catholic church, which only allows men to become priests, but the lifelong follower of the faith is not letting that stop her.
The San Rafael resident plans to press onward with the ordination, to be conducted by a female bishop of the Western Region of Roman Catholic Priest, in October at an Episcopalian church in San Francisco.
Though skeptical that in her lifetime she will see the church modify its rules of who can take the priesthood, Nolan said she hopes one day the church becomes more inclusive.

As a Q&A, made almost totally of a single subject's quotes, the Journal conveniently sidesteps many of the things I'd expect of a regular, reported news feature.


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Devout Catholic™ Kaine breaks with his church on gay marriage, with media blessing

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Tim Kaine has officially joined the ranks of Devout Catholic™.

How do we know? Because he says he's Catholic, yet criticizes the Church.

The Democratic vice presidential nominee played weekend prophet and theologian when he told the Human Rights Campaign that the Catholic Church will eventually change its teachings against same-sex marriage. 

But that wasn't the cardinal sin of the day. The worst was the unthinking, habit-bound, codeword-laced coverage by mainstream media -- especially calling Kaine yet another Devout Catholic™.

Count the Chicago Tribune among the worst offenders:

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine is predicting that the Roman Catholic Church may eventually change its opposition to gay marriage.
Kaine is a devout Roman Catholic as well as a U.S. senator from Virginia and a former governor of that state. He told the Human Rights Campaign during its national dinner Saturday in Washington that he had changed his mind about gay marriage and that his church may follow suit one day.
"I think it's going to change because my church also teaches me about a creator who, in the first chapter of Genesis, surveyed the entire world, including mankind, and said, 'It is very good,'" Kaine said. He then recalled Pope Francis' remark that "who am I to judge?" in reference to gay priests.
"I want to add: Who am I to challenge God for the beautiful diversity of the human family? I think we're supposed to celebrate it, not challenge it," Kaine said.

We've done a fair amount of dissection on media who toss around the Devout Catholic™ term too freely.  As I wrote two years ago, many reporters seem to use Devout Catholic™ in two ways: (1) “Doing more Catholic things than I do”; (2) “Claiming to be good Catholics while breaking with the Church over major doctrines.”


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The Palombo 10: At the 9/11 anniversary, an exceptional story of family and faith from CNN

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I didn't read or watch a whole lot of coverage of the 9/11 anniversary.

To a large extent, I can identify with what a good friend and fellow reporter wrote on Facebook:

Truth: I want to forget what I saw live on television on Sept. 11. I want to forget that it brought April 19 back to life for me. I want to forget what I saw in person on April 19. I won't forget. I can't forget. But I really don't want to remember.

Like my friend, I covered the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. The bombing was, until Sept. 11, 2001, the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. And like my friend, I still can't think about one without recalling the other. 

But I did allow myself to digest one story timed to the 15th anniversary of 9/11 — and I'm so glad I did. I perused this piece because a faithful GetReligion reader shared the link and suggested that it really needed our attention. 

"IT IS SO GOOOD," the reader said.

After reading it, I agree 110 percent. In fact, this is one of those cases where I really should just share the link and tell you to read it. No commentary necessary:


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New York Times correspondent pays faith-free visit to #NeverTrump #NeverHillary territory

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As we stagger closer to election day, the political desk at The Washington Post has produced several stories focusing on the fact that many centrist voters (Catholics in particular) are sickened by the thought of going into a voting booth and supporting either Donald Trump or Hillary Rodham Clinton.

What’s the problem? It’s something called “values,” apparently.

However, it appears that journalists believe that this has nothing to do with the whole “values voter” phenomenon seen in recent elections. In other words, this panic out there in many corners of the heartland has nothing to do with faith, morality, culture, religion or what have you. Yes, I have written several posts about this Post trend. In particular, see the recent post with this headline: “Washington Post: USA more pessimistic, divided than ever (and don’t ask about religion).”

Now, the New York Times political desk has bravely sent a correspondent into the heartland and found pretty much the same thing. Lots of folks in red zip codes are upset about the Donald vs. Hillary situation and, what do you know, it appears that there is more to this anger than the state of the economy. The Times headline proclaims: “Reliably Red Ohio County Finds Both Trump and Clinton Hard to Stomach.”

As you can see in the overture, the Gray Lady team visited a rust-free part of Ohio in which the economy is doing just fine. 

DELAWARE, Ohio -- Donald J. Trump is not popular in this prospering county north of Columbus. The Republican nominee’s dystopian language does not resonate here. Signs that read “Now Hiring” outnumber “Trump” campaign placards.
But many residents of this reliably Republican county, which last voted for a Democratic president in 1916, simply cannot imagine voting for Mr. Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. And that goes a long way toward explaining why she has struggled to separate herself from Mr. Trump in this bellwether state.

This doesn’t fit the received wisdom among the chattering-class elites.


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Weekend think piece: What do journalists mean when they use the label 'moderate'?

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Soon after the founding of GetReligion -- we’re talking Feb. 1, 2004 -- the leaders of The New York Times did a remarkable and candid thing.

Responding to a series of stunning setbacks (see the classic book “Hard News” by Seth Mnookin), including a plagiarism scandal that forced the resignation of the Gray Lady’s top editors, the newspaper set up an independent panel to investigate what went wrong. The result was a document called “Preserving our Readers’ Trust” that, in my opinion, is just as relevant today as it was when it was released in 2005.

A major theme in the panel’s work was the need for more cultural and intellectual diversity in the Times newsroom -- especially when covering complex topics such as religion. For example, when most of the professionals in a newsroom share what they believe is an urban, tolerant, informed view of the world, they may not see their own blind spots.

Consider, for example, the power of labels. Here is a passage from the Times report that your GetReligionistas have shared in the past. This is not the only passage in the document that links religion-news coverage with this issue and others related to it:

Too often we label whole groups from a perspective that uncritically accepts a stereotype or unfairly marginalizes them. As one reporter put it, words like moderate or centrist "inevitably incorporate a judgment about which views are sensible and which are extreme." We often apply "religious fundamentalists," another loaded term, to political activists who would describe themselves as Christian conservatives.
We particularly slip into these traps in feature stories when reporters and editors think they are merely presenting an interesting slice of life, with little awareness of the power of labels. We need to be more vigilant about the choice of language not only in the text but also in headlines, captions and display type.

The term "moderate" is especially crucial when used in coverage of religion. Ask Muslims what they think of some of the labels that are often attached to their community.


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No ghosts here: Faith in the 'Vindication' of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell

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There was big news in Virginia on Thursday.

The banner headline atop today's Richmond Times-Dispatch makes that evident.

This is the straight-news, inverted-pyramid version of what happened:

Federal prosecutors on Thursday moved to drop their corruption case against former Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, bringing to a close a case that gripped the state capital, tarnishing the former governor’s reputation and the state’s.
In a brief motion, federal prosecutors asked the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to send the case back to a district court. There, the U.S. will file a motion to dismiss the indictment against Bob McDonnell — once touted as a potential Republican candidate for national office — and against Virginia’s former first lady.
“Today is a great day in which my family and I rejoice,” Bob McDonnell said in a statement. “More than 3½ years after learning of an investigation, the final day of vindication has arrived.”
The Justice Department said in a brief statement: “After carefully considering the Supreme Court’s recent decision” overturning Bob McDonnell’s convictions “and the principles of federal prosecution, we have made the decision not to pursue the case further.”
In September 2014, a federal jury in Richmond convicted Virginia’s 71st governor and the former first lady on corruption charges stemming from their acceptance of more than $177,000 in gifts and loans from Jonnie R. Williams Sr., then-CEO of Star Scientific, in exchange for promoting the company’s dietary supplement, Anatabloc.

So where is the religion angle in this long-running political drama? Why highlight this story here at GetReligion?

Because there's a strong faith component to the former governor's reaction to the dropped charges — and the Times Dispatch absolutely nails that focus in its coverage.


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