Catholicism

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Pelosi points to her Catholic faith in denying she hates Trump. Will news reports offer any context?

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“Don’t mess with me.”

It’s the soundbite of a busy news day — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s confrontation with a reporter who asked if she hates President Donald Trump.

But as you probably already know, Pelosi pointed to her Catholic faith in the exchange, immediately pushing this political story into the realm of religion news.

Some of the crucial details, via the New York Times:

The flash of anger from Ms. Pelosi — “Don’t mess with me,” she told the reporter — came as she was leaving a news conference in which she had just finished discussing her decision to move forward with articles of impeachment against Mr. Trump.

“Do you hate the president?” James Rosen, a reporter for a conservative television network, asked loudly as Ms. Pelosi made her way offstage in a television studio near the Capitol.

Ms. Pelosi whipped around to face Mr. Rosen, wagging her finger at him and saying, “Don’t accuse me,” as he explained that he was asking her to respond to Republicans’ claims that Democrats were pursuing Mr. Trump’s impeachment out of personal animus against him.

“This is about the Constitution of the United States and the facts that lead to the president’s violation of his oath of office,” the speaker said sharply after returning to the lectern to speak into a microphone and face the still-rolling cameras. “As a Catholic, I resent your using the word ‘hate’ in a sentence that addresses me. I don’t hate anyone.”

“I was raised in a way that is a heart full of love, and always pray for the president,” she continued. “And I still pray for the president. I pray for the president all the time. So don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that.”

In scanning the spot-news coverage today, I was curious to see if journalists would offer any background and context on Pelosi’s faith.

That information certainly seems relevant to the story, right?


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'The Two Popes' movie gets rave reviews and a good amount of fact checking, too

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The Christmas season is a time for both religious introspection and, of course, consumerism.

It’s also the time families go to the movies, which is why lots of them are released at this time of year.

Among the smorgasbord of films to open in the days before Thanksgiving was “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” the Fred Rogers bio-pic featuring Tom Hanks. That film is of particular interest because of its religion connections. See this recent tmatt post: “Podcast thinking: Fred Rogers, Tom Hanks, the Good Samaritan and the ties that bind.”

The only movie to open last week on the day before Thanksgiving was “The Two Popes.” I gave the flick a bad review over at Religion Unplugged, arguing that it needed a reality check. However, there are issues here that journalists will want to think about, as well. Here’s the key paragraph:

Where does the movie go wrong? Benedict did summon Bergoglio to Rome after the Argentine cardinal had resigned, as is custom when someone in that position turns 75. No one knew at the time how the cardinals would vote, except maybe former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Therefore, the movie imagines what a dialogue between Benedict and Francis would be like. In taking us behind the secrecy of the Vatican, Meirelles creates a work of fiction.

“Change is compromise,” Benedict tells Bergoglio. 

“Nothing is static in nature,” Bergoglio replies.

Benedict, in response, argues: “God is unchanging!” 

The invented dialogue, like in the example above, aims at trying to convey the doctrinal divide that exists between these two men.


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The Times reports on Ralph Drollinger's informal diplomacy: 'I'm really in this for the coffee beans'

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In The New York Times Magazine, Mattathias Schwartz has written an amazing 7,600-word feature story on Ralph Drollinger, who leads weekly Bible studies among members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet. “How the Trump Cabinet’s Bible Teacher Became a Shadow Diplomat” shows what excellent work can emerge when a writer emphasizes reporting over opinion and when the subject of a story responds to a trustworthy reporter with transparency.

Schwartz refers to this dynamic about a third of the way in: “Part of Drollinger’s charm is rooted in his straightforwardness. For years, he has been publishing his weekly Bible studies online to help the public understand his agenda. ‘It gives guys like you the confidence of what it is I’m talking about,” he told me. “That’s good transparency.’”

Drollinger’s work is volatile. People for the American Way filed a lawsuit [PDF] in August 2018 demanding documents related to the Bible studies and charging the Department of Agriculture with disregarding Freedom of Information Act requirements. “The facts of this case are simple: Cabinet officials have every right to participate in Bible study, and the American people have every right to know who is influencing public officials and how,” said Elliot Mincberg, senior counsel and fellow at People for the American Way.

The website for Americans United lists only four items about Drollinger, and two of them date to his time of working in California, before he moved to Washington, D.C.

Schwartz’s feature is neither puffery nor a screed. A skepticism is implicit at various points, and for a feature published by the Times, the implicit tone is remarkably restrained.


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Press doesn't get why a Catholic priest would withhold Communion from outspoken gay judge

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Debates about Catholic priests denying Holy Communion to U.S. pro-choice politicians or public officials have been around for more than a decade; indeed I covered that exact issue back in 2009. It was quite the raging issue in 2004 as well when the archbishop of St. Louis refused Communion to Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry.

The issue hasn’t faded at all; in fact this Washington Post piece, published a few months ago, notes that Democratic politicians are still being denied the sacrament if they have come out in favor of abortion.

Now there’s a priest in East Grand Rapids, Mich., who is doing something similar — not about abortion, but same-sex marriage. Here is how one TV station covered it. It happens to be the local NBC affiliate.

EAST GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Judge Sara Smolenski, chief judge of the Kent County District Court, has been denied Communion at the church where she has been a parishioner for more than six decades because she is married to a woman.

It is a move that for many was the final straw in a pattern of behavior that has them calling for the removal of a priest — a priest who came to St. Stephen Catholic Church about three years ago.

Right there you can see where this article is a set-up. The second paragraph could also read that: “It is a move that several in the parish applauded because they felt it was high time St. Stephen’s took a stand on crucial Catholic doctrines.”

Instead, you hear the dissidents’ point of view for the entire first half of the story.

In 1966, under the leadership of Rev. Msgr. Edward N. Alt, St. Stephen Catholic School became the first integrated Catholic school in Metro Grand Rapids and had a student body that was nearly 40 percent non-Catholic.

This tradition of inclusion and acceptance would be the essence of the school and the church for 50 years.

But now, some here say that is changing.


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New Testament texts were handed down across centuries, so are they reliable?

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THE QUESTION:

Can we rely upon New Testament texts that were copied and recopied over centuries?

THE GUY’S ANSWER:

It’s hard to think of any question more central for the Christian faith than that. The Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council and subsequent catechism proclaim that the New Testament books provide “the ultimate truth of God’s revelation.” The church “unhesitatingly affirms” that they “faithfully hand on” the “honest truth about Jesus” and the history of his words and deeds.

Yet consider this. If people were to be asked what’s their favorite saying of Jesus Christ, many would certainly choose his words while being executed upon the cross: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” Luke 23:34). Equally cherished is his admonition to the mob preparing to stone to death an adulterous woman: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone” (John 8:7).

Careful Bible readers will note that most Bible versions on sale today, including those produced by conservative evangelicals, have footnotes stating in all candor that those two sayings are absent in early and widely recognized Gospel manuscripts in the original Greek language. That does not prove the sayings are not authentic but that it’s possible or likely they weren’t in the two Gospels as originally written.

The familiar King James (Protestant) and Douay-Rheims (Catholic) translations from centuries ago raise no such questions. But today’s Bibles note such findings from modern-day scholarship in the highly technical field of  “textual criticism,” which seeks to get us as close to the original writings as possible. The fact we have around 5,300 surviving manuscripts and fragments, a few of them quite early (vastly more evidence than with other 1st Century writings), means experts must evaluate and choose from many variations.

This situation led to doubts about New Testament credibility from a respected textual critic, Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina, in a scholarly work, “The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture” (1993).


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Does the Vatican's quasi-official newspaper have a 'fake news' problem?

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The Vatican gets its fair share of coverage from news organizations around the world. Even those newspapers who don’t have a dedicated religion beat writer have Vatican coverage in its pages, either in the form of a foreign correspondent or via subscribing to wire services such as The Associated Press or Reuters.

It isn’t lost on Pope Francis that the news media ecosystem, saying this past May that journalists should use the power of the press to search for the truth and give voice to the voiceless.

Conservative news websites in the United States have increasingly set their sights on Francis in recent years. Catholic news sites that lean left doctrinally have also have a strong readership. Both need to be read by journalists who cover the Vatican and the pope. Another source they need to read is L’Osservatore Romano, a once great and influential newspaper that has over the years declined in both influence and stature.

For those who have never heard of it, L’Osservatore Romano is a daily newspaper printed in Italian with weekly editions in six languages, including English, and once a month in Polish.

The newspaper reports on the activities of the Holy See and owned by the Vatican — but is not considered an official publication. The Holy See’s official publication is the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, which acts as a government gazette. The views expressed in L’Osservatore Romano are those of individual writers unless they appear under the byline “Nostre Informazioni” (Italian for “Our Information”) or “Santa Sede” (Holy See). In other words, one needs a media literacy course in order to fully understand what this newspaper is reporting.

The publication founded in 1861 — and available at newspaper stands across Rome, via subscription and online — continues to play a major role in interpreting the papacy and the role of the Vatican in the loves of Roman Catholics around the world. Problematic for the Vatican’s semi-official newspaper has been its editorial standards as of late.


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Note to sports writers: America magazine's Notre Dame football feature required reading this fall

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College football is celebrating its 150th season this fall. As a result, there have been many retrospectives looking back at some of NCAA’s best teams and players. You can’t look back at the last century and a half without mentioning Notre Dame.

That takes me to a recent issue of America, a weekly Jesuit magazine, and the great job they did at looking back at Notre Dame football in the context of what the success of a Catholic school meant in a primarily Protestant America. Under the headline, A Fighting Spirit: The place of Notre Dame football in American Catholicism, the result is a wonderful reflection of how important religion, football and immigration are to the American experiment. It also manages to be nostalgic and at the same time wrap in the current realities of the clerical sex-abuse crisis and other issues plaguing the church.  

The piece starts off with how the Notre Dame mystique got its start in the 1940s and what that meant to Catholics around the country. This is how writer Rachel Lu, a contributing writer for America, summed up that feeling: 

U.S. Catholics embraced the Fighting Irish with enthusiasm. When the leaves started turning each September, people who had never set foot in the state of Indiana would be decked out like frat boys, raising the gold and blue for Our Lady’s loyal sons. In parochial schools across the nation, nuns led Catholic schoolchildren in prayers for Irish victory. Notre Dame was the first school in the U.S. to have a nationwide following of “subway alums,” devoted fans for whom a radio dial represented their only connection to the university. It was said in those days that every priest in the U.S. was a de facto recruiter for Notre Dame.

In the minds of their fans, Notre Dame’s stars were much more than football players. They were warriors, fighting for the honor of Catholics across the nation.

Despite living a more secular world, Notre Dame’s Catholic roots and traditions are very much a story. I made a similar point about a year ago when Notre Dame was vying for a national title. A year later, Notre Dame isn’t anywhere close to a national championship — No. 1-ranked LSU is the favorite for now — but that doesn’t mean sports writers can’t be reminded how important religion is to the school and football in general.


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New York Times blockbuster uses leaked files to expose new horrors in China's war on Islam

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Early in my journalism career, a veteran investigative reporter gave me a piece of advice I have never forgotten: The hotter the story, the more you want a document of some kind that you can verify and then show readers. This will build trust.

You can see this principal at work in the blockbuster religion story of the weekend — that New York Times foreign desk report about ongoing and even expanding efforts to lock up and, if need be, brainwash or execute a million or more Uighur Muslims in what can only be called reeducation or concentration camps.

The dramatic double-decker headline includes a nod to the document stash at the heart of it all:

‘Absolutely No Mercy’: Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims

More than 400 pages of internal Chinese documents provide an unprecedented inside look at the crackdown on ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region.

As always, it’s good to tell readers as much as you can tell them about the sourcing, to hang on to as much trust as possible; Thus:

Though it is unclear how the documents were gathered and selected, the leak suggests greater discontent inside the party apparatus over the crackdown than previously known. The papers were brought to light by a member of the Chinese political establishment who requested anonymity and expressed hope that their disclosure would prevent party leaders, including [President Xi Jinping], from escaping culpability for the mass detentions.

This is a stunning, must-read story and it deserves the acclaim that it is getting.

However, I would like to note one religion-shaped hole. A theme running through the report is that Chinese officials are divided over whether or not they will be able to produce a safe, compromised, easy-to-control version of Islam — similar to their own state-sanctioned Christian churches.

The bottom line: It would have required only an extra line or two in this report to note that Chinese officials have also unleashed attacks on independent, underground churches, as well as the crusade against Uighur Muslims. As a rule “conservative” reports on persecuted Christians in China mention the horrors being inflicted on Muslims. Why not take a similar approach in this Times blockbuster?

But back to the crucial documents at the heart of this report.


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Should Roman Catholicism allow more married priests? Women at altars as deacons?

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Should Roman Catholicism allow more married priests? Women at altars as deacons?

THE QUESTIONS:

Reviving big Catholic issues: Should priests be married? Should women be deacons?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

Those two epochal changes in Catholicism are posed to Pope Francis in the final report from an October synod for Catholic delegates representing South America’s Amazon region. Francis expects to issue his formal response in a pronouncement by the end of the year.

Catholics in that region can go for months, even years, without seeing a priest due to a severe shortage that is fostering evangelical Protestant inroads. Therefore the synod proposed that well-proven men (viri probati) be ordained as priests even if married, an experiment in bending the celibacy rule that liberals hope — and traditionalists fear — could spread elsewhere.

Partly for the same reason, the report also asked for renewed study of ordaining women as deacons, which Francis has already agreed to authorize, though delegates did not advocate this change. The synod also recommended a new recognized ministry of “woman community leader,” and urged more participation for women in church decision-making. (Only men were voting delegates at the synod, which women attended as consultants and observers.)

Female deacons would be revolutionary, and that change seems unlikely though not impossible. The celibacy that is mandatory for (most but not all) Catholic priests is considered a matter of discipline, not doctrine, and thus subject to change. Since celibacy has provoked so much discussion, and is the more likely to occur, The Guy treats that topic first.

The New Testament records that Peter, regarded by Catholicism as the first in the line of popes, was married. Jesus taught that some would choose to live as unmarried “eunuchs” for the sake of God’s kingdom (Matthew 19:12), and a biblical letter of Paul speaks of  a “special gift” to remain unwed (1 Corinthians 7:1-9). For both, this was singleness chosen voluntarily by certain Christians, not a requirement for all those in ministry.

In early Christianity, the choice of celibacy became more widespread as clergy sought to signify total dedication to church service.


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