Catholicism

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Holy Week, Easter, Passover, Ramadan are coming: Will they vanish this year? #NoWay

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Holy Week, Easter, Passover, Ramadan are coming: Will they vanish this year? #NoWay

Forget the cancellation of the Easter Egg Roll at the White House.

Right now, many journalists need to focus, instead, on what the coronavirus crisis is about to do the Easter, Passover and Ramadan observances around the world. That’s the story, right now — even if we don’t know the precise details of that story, right now. There are really three options for what is ahead.

First, there is always the chance that something stunning could happen — some major breakthrough in COVID-19 treatments — that would let these tremendously important religious seasons proceed, if not in a normal manner, in a way that is something close to normal. Hardly anyone thinks this is possible.

Second, almost everything could be cancelled and we are left with a few “virtual” events, with religious leaders and skeleton crews doing versions of rites that end up being carried online or in major broadcasts.

But there is another option, one that host Todd Wilken and I discussed at length in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). Most of our discussion focused on Holy Week and Easter, since these are the traditions that Wilken (a Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pastor) and I best understand.

What if religious leaders found some new way to downscale and “re-symbolize” the events of Holy Week in some way that specifically connected their messages to the astonishing times in which we are living right now? It’s also possible — let’s take the Vatican, for example — that testing may take a leap forward and make it possible for congregations (much smaller for sure) of priests and believers to gather who have tested negative or who have never shown any symptoms at all.

What if they took part in rites — perhaps outdoors — in which it was easier to keep people at a distance?

So why am I speculating about this? In part because of of this recent headline on a Crux report: “Vatican backtracks on Holy Week coronavirus statement; situation still ‘being studied’.” Perhaps you missed this development?

ROME — After a Vatican office announced … that all Holy Week liturgies would be livestreamed rather that celebrated publicly amid Italy’s coronavirus crackdown, a day later their communications department walked part of that back, saying the method for celebrating Holy Week is still being studied.


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A priest is a priest is a priest: Do editors need to include church labels in headlines?

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If you know anything about how newsrooms work, then you know — as your GetReligionistas often stress — that reporters do not write the headlines that top their stories.

Now, add to that fact another sad reality: Many readers never make it past the headline when they are scanning a newspaper. Then there are readers who struggle to make sense of a story that — in their eyes — seems to clash with the contents of the headline.

All of this underlines the importance of copy-desk pros writing good headlines.

This brings me to a recent story here in East Tennessee that ticked off a GetReligion reader. I mention this topic because the “mistake” made in this case is one that readers ask me about rather frequently. At the heart of this issue is a simple fact: When most Americans (and some journalists fall into this category) see the word “priest,” they automatically assume that this is a reference to a Roman Catholic priest.

In this case, the headline pointed toward events that could have painful and even fatal consequences. Thus, the stakes were high in this particular headline, which stated:

Infected Chattanooga priest may have exposed others to coronavirus, church says

Now, if you read the actual Knoxville News Sentinel story, the confusion was cleared up quickly — by the second paragraph.

A Chattanooga priest who has tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, may have inadvertently exposed others when he officiated a wedding, served communion and led a staff meeting, his church announced. …

Father Brad Whitaker, rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Chattanooga, fell ill shortly after returning from a conference held by the Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes, the church said in a statement. At least six people who attended the conference, which ran from Feb. 19-22 in Louisville, Kentucky, have since tested positive for COVID-19, according to the consortium.

So the basic question is this: How many people read that headline and assumed this was a Catholic priest?


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The quest for religion and science coverage of COVID-19 -- in the same news report

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We are living in surreal times.

The world as we knew it just over a week ago has been brought to a halt by the COVID-19 pandemic. After the virus devastated China’s Wuhan province, it spread to Europe and now the rest of the world. Our daily lives have been disrupted in a way never seen in our lifetimes.

I have for weeks been concerned about the virus. Most of my family lives in Italy, a nation hard hit by it. My many uncles and aunts — all 65 and older and therefore more at-risk of dying — have not left their homes after the government imposed a national lockdown. What has happened in Italy and now the rest of Europe could certainly happen in the United States.

There has been some very good journalism being done. My go-to sources for news have been The Associated Press and The New York Times. For broader context and commentary have been valuable resources such as The Atlantic and The Economist. We must give these journalists praise and thanks for the long hours they have been putting in to inform us all. In a time where misinformation can lead to death, the press should be largely lauded for their efforts. I can tell you, as someone who covered a massive event like the Sept. 11 attacks and its aftermath, that newsrooms are in overdrive at this moment and will be for months.

While the aforementioned four media outlets — and the countless others — have done an exceptional job covering the pandemic, so have Catholic news organizations. For those across the Catholic doctrinal spectrum, the religious press has also done a wonderful job covering COVID-19 from a faith perspective. EWTN, with its TV and radio broadcasts as well as digital media, has done a wonderful job.

In particular, Catholic News Agency has updated readers with a constant stream of stories over the past few weeks.

The mainstream press, other than focusing on churches going remote during this time of social distancing (and the usual questions about Holy Communion from a “common cup”), hasn’t bothered much with the religion angle.


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Autism and the mysteries of the Mass: Holy Communion is not 'home food'

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Autism and the mysteries of the Mass: Holy Communion is not 'home food'

Ever since the Last Supper, Catholics have pondered what happens during the Mass when they believe the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus.

"Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering … it has always been the conviction of the Church … that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood," proclaimed the Council of Trent, after the Protestant Reformation.

"This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation. The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist."

Believers approach this mystery with the greatest care and respect. This may be hard for children to grasp as they prepare for First Communion.

Now imagine trying to teach this core Catholic doctrine to persons -- young and old -- who have mental and physical disabilities that make it hard, or impossible, for them to acknowledge what is happening in the Mass.

"Because we believe Holy Communion is the Body and Blood or our Lord, we want to be very careful about this," said Father Matthew Schneider, who is known to his Twitter followers as @AutisticPriest.

"This isn't a theology test. No one needs a theology degree to take Holy Communion. We simply need to make sure that they know this is an act in a church rite -- that they are not eating ordinary food like at home. We're trying to find out if they have a basic understanding of what's happening."

Under Catholic canon law, children can be given Holy Communion "if they can distinguish the body of Christ from ordinary food and receive communion reverently."


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Faith in quarantine: Why are some people praying at home while others flock to pews?

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To state the matter bluntly, the question of the day is: Who went to church-temple-mosque this past weekend and who did not?

The related question: “Why?” Why did believers make the decisions that they made?

This is one of those cases in which it is impossible to write a story that captures the whole picture, since we are talking about one of the ultimate local, regional, state, national and international stories of our news lifetimes.

Journalists can try to produce a news-you-can-use list that hints at the whole. Check out this Religion News Service feature: “Coronavirus shutdowns disrupt America’s soul, closing houses of worship.” That list of bullets is so limited, because producing a representative national list would be impossible.

Thus, others will focus on the larger story by looking at the symbolic details. With the resources of The New York Times, that looks like this: “A Sunday Without Church: In Crisis, a Nation Asks, ‘What is Community?’ “ This is a fine story, although, yes, its anecdotes and examples seem mainline and limited. But, again, the true picture is too big to capture.

Journalists do what they can do. Here is the thesis statement, in magisterial Times voice, free of attributions:

This week, as the coronavirus has spread, one American ritual after another has vanished. March Madness is gone. No more morning gym workouts or lunches with co-workers. No more visits to grandparents in nursing homes. The Boston Marathon, held through war and weather since 1897, was postponed.

And now it was a Sunday without church. Governors from Kentucky to Maryland to North Carolina moved to shut down services, hoping to slow the disease’s spread. Catholic dioceses stopped public Mass, and some parishes limited attendance at funerals and weddings to immediate family. On Sunday morning the Vatican closed the coming Holy Week services to the public.

The number of Americans who regularly attend a church service has been steadily declining in recent years. Many have left the traditions of their childhood, finding solace and identity in new ways. But for the one in three adults who attend religious services weekly, the cancellations have meant a life rhythm disrupted. And for the broader country, canceled services were another symbol of a lost chance to be still, to breathe and to gather together in one of the oldest ways humans know, just when such things were needed most.

For a similar take from a smaller newsroom, consult this multi-source National Catholic Reporter piece: “Worshippers go online, those at services keep a distance.”

My friend Rod “Benedict Option” Dreher stayed home (as I did) and watched a live stream of the Divine Liturgy from his Orthodox Church in America parish in urban Baton Rouge, La. In other words, one computer screen stands for legions of screens elsewhere. See: “View From Your Pandemic Online Church.”

But I was haunted by one passage in one story — another example of how The Age of Donald Trump has infected everything, when it comes to news. The fact that the story was valid only made it worse.


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What’s happening to the religious makeup of the world (including in locked-up China)?

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What’s happening to the religious makeup of the world (including in locked-up China)?

THE QUESTION:

What are the long-term trends for the world’s religions? What’s the situation in China?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

Broad-brush, Christianity remains the world’s largest and most widespread religion and will still be so in 2050 thanks to steady growth in “Global South” nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America. However, Islam is steadily gaining ground.

Declines relative to the population have been suffered by folk religions in China, tribal traditions elsewhere, and the ranks of the non-religious. In 1800, Christianity and Islam together represented a third of the world population but these outreach-oriented faiths will encompass a projected 64 percent by 2050.

All that and much more is reported in the newly published third edition of the"World Christian Encyclopedia" (Edinburgh University Press, 998 pages, $215.95), compiled by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, an evangelical Protestant school in Massachusetts. It was edited by the center’s Todd Johnson and Gina Zurlo, who led a team of 40 along with hundreds of expert consultants across the globe.

The encyclopedia contains unique statistics and analysis on each religious group that exists within each of the world’s 234 nations and territories, with elaborate information on cultural groupings and 45,000 Christian denominations. Quite obviously, this monumental reference work belongs in every serious library in the English-speaking world.

Here are the estimates comparing major religions’ size as of 1970 with their current numbers.


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New podcast: Autism and Holy Communion -- Like it or not, doctrine is part of this story

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This was the rare week in which my national “On Religion” column for the Universal syndicate grew directly out of a recent GetReligion post, the one with this headline: “Autism and Communion: Textbook social-media clash between parents, press and church.” The syndicated column then provided the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

That’s a lot of material to take in. Why did I think that this issue was worthy of all that attention?

Basically, it was a four-step process and I have to admit that I had a personal reason for taking this on.

(1) Let’s start with the USA Today story, which ran with this headline: “Boy with autism denied First Communion at Catholic church: 'That is discrimination,' mom says.”

That story offered a classic news-coverage clash between “discrimination” language that is so popular with journalists and the efforts of church leaders to, perhaps imperfectly, minister to people with special needs while also honoring 2,000 years of Catholic doctrine about Holy Communion.

(2) Doctrine vs. discrimination? What could go wrong? This USA Today piece was a classic example of a larger issue that your GetReligionistas have encountered over and over during the past 17 years.

Simply stated, journalists (especially reporters without religion-beat experience) have a tendency to frame religion news in images and language drawn from political conflicts. Who needs to dig into the details of Catholic tradition and canon law — including statements about Holy Communion and people with autism — when you can write a headline that shouts “Discrimination!”

Once again, there’s that doctrine found in way too many newsrooms: The world of politics is real. Faith and doctrine? Not so much.


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Ryan Burge on unique coronavirus fears in pews of America's aging 'mainline' churches

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Anyone who has worked in a newsroom knows that journalists often have to study the equation 1+1+X=3 and then find the missing X factor that produces “what comes next.”

What am I talking about? Journalists look at one set of facts in the news. Then they study another set of facts that we tend to take for granted or that we have pushed onto the news back burner. When you pay attention to where the two sets of facts overlap — #BOOM — you can see potential headlines.

Right now, the coronavirus crisis is creating all kinds of overlapping sets of facts and many are life-and-death matters. This is shaping the headlines and this trend will only increase.

However, after all of the COVID-19 stories I’ve read in the past week (while 66-year-old me has faced my usual spring sinus woes), none has hit me harder than a Religion News Service essay — “Why mainline Protestants might fear COVID-19 the most” — by political scientist Ryan Burge (also a contributor here at GetReligion). It’s crucial that he is also the Rev. Ryan Burge. He teaches at Eastern Illinois University, but he also a minister in the American Baptist Churches USA. Here is the overture:

I walked through the doors of First Baptist Church of Mount Vernon, Illinois, a congregation that I’ve pastored for the last 13 years, and shook hands with the 91-year-old greeter. Afterward, she said to me, “I didn’t know if we should shake hands today.”

I hadn’t even thought about it, but I know that she had.

COVID-19 has now infected more than 100,000 people, killing 4,000 of them across the globe. But, one of the real curiosities is that the mortality rate is dramatically different based on age. The disease takes the life of nearly 15% of the people that it infects over the age of 80.

I find that to be incredibly cruel, especially for my mainline church that has been dwindling in size and increasing in age at a stunning rate. Of our 20 or so active members, four of them are over the age of 90. Another 10 are in their 80s. If COVID-19 becomes a true global pandemic, my church would likely not fare well.


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Farewell to a familiar news story angle? Argentina shows that pope's policy clout is fading

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Past popes have exerted an enormous amount of influence on politics around the world. A pope’s influential reach — and the large number of Catholics around the world — has often been vital in the shaping of laws and policy.

The best example is Saint Pope John Paul II. The Polish-born pontiff was instrumental in the fall of communism some three decades ago. His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, had a different approach. Not a media star like JPII, Benedict focused his efforts on Africa. With help from humanitarian aid organizations, the Vatican exerted a great amount of influence in many African nations where the church matters. The church continues to grow there.

This has helped shape how journalists cover the papacy and, thus, the Catholicism. Shaping world politics? That’s news. Shaping doctrines and how people worship? That’s news— maybe. It depends. Do the doctrines have anything to do with gender or sex?

This brings us to Pope Francis.

A progressive star to some, Francis has made immigration and climate change the cornerstones of his foreign policy priorities. Although he is considered a man of great influence, his papacy has also coincided with the rise of both secularism and populism. That has given the Vatican strange bedfellows on some issues — like aligning itself with left-wing parties in Italy. His initiatives have been ineffective with others.

Francis’ papacy — aside from dividing Catholics, predominantly in the United States — has been a disappointment on a great many issues. While the pope’s position is within traditional Catholic teaching (on climate change and immigration), it has polarized many and been widely dismissed by the same populist governments that have also been appealing to doctrinally conservative-minded voters. Francis is not a forceful diplomat like John Paul II nor a prominent theologian like Benedict.

In terms of his strengths, Francis is seen as both humble and simple — traits that don’t get the job done when it comes to international diplomacy.


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