Catholicism

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For futures files: Women deacons and Latter-day Proclamation (plus bonus Godbeat anecdote)

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Right now, amid a global medical and economic emergency, few editors want stories on complicated religious debates about doctrines and church traditions, nor will distracted readers pay much attention.

Enter the futures file, where religion writers squirrel away material for later coverage when we all get a breather. Here are two key themes from last week.

An important Vatican announcement said Pope Francis has dissolved a study panel that couldn’t agree on whether women should join the order of deacons, and has appointed a completely new commission to undertake the task. This will remain a good situationer months from now because women’s role in the church is perennially interesting and no commission report will appear that soon.

The new study could be the most important — and controversial — result of last October’s synod on the Amazon region. Francis shelved the proposal there to allow married priests in special situations of dire clergy shortages. Deacons could help fill the gap and some said women should be included. Analysts figure that women deacons are more likely to be approved under the liberal Francis than future popes.

Deacons used to be only men on the path to ordination as priests. But the Second Vatican Council restored the ancient order of “permanent” deacons, including married men. They can perform most duties of priests (e.g. leading worship, preaching, teaching, pastoral and charity work, baptisms, weddings, funerals) except for three sacraments: celebration of Mass, hearing confessions and anointing of the sick.

The starting point for writers is a 30,000-word report from the International Theological Commission in 2002.

Also keep on hand National Catholic Reporter articles on the 2020 news here and also here.

The 2002 report acknowledged there were female “deaconesses” in the early Christian centuries but that their functions in church life and, especially, worship “were not purely and simply equivalent to” those of male deacons.


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Notre Dame fire a year later: Foreign news outlets lead the way on coverage

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The world continues to deal with the coronavirus pandemic and the lives it has taken. That this global outbreak occurred during Lent put a renewed focus on where and how people practice their faith, especially in so many countries where houses of worship have been shuttered to weaken the spread of the virus.

It is in this context that the date April 15 takes on larger significance this year. It marks the one-year anniversary of an accidental fire that destroyed large sections of Notre Dame, the famed gothic cathedral that soars over the Parisian skyline. The French capitol hasn’t been the same since the blaze.

A year later, there remain so many unanswered questions about the cathedral’s future, how and when it will be rebuilt and what hurdles remain. The current pandemic has shifted attention and journalistic resources away from a story like the status and future of Notre Dame. Journalists are limited in their ability to travel to Paris, for example, to report on this story as France remains on lockdown — like most of the world.

A sweep of news sites shows that the cathedral did get some attention in the days before Easter — but only because a special liturgy was celebrated there on Good Friday. The cathedral’s most prized relic, the Crown of Thorns, even made a return after it had been rescued from the blaze.

Anniversary journalism is a big part of what editor’s remember when assigning stories every morning, when making pitches in editorial meetings or for stories to fill their Sunday editions.

Despite that, Notre Dame fire coverage has been sparse a year later, especially in the U.S.-based press. It is also a religion story and one that the mainstream press largely covered a year ago like it wasn’t. In general, the fire was covered like it had destroyed a museum rather than a house of worship. Anniversary coverage also remained focus on the building, but had no mention or quotes from religious leaders.

As mentioned, Easter did bring Notre Dame temporarily back into the news cycle. The New York Post, in its Easter Sunday editorial, held up the cathedral as a metaphor for our current troubled times:

As Notre Dame recovers from its ravages, so may we all rebound from the ravages of COVID-19.

Metaphors aside, there are lingering questions about what the future holds for this iconic structure.


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Here we go again: Protestant pastor locked out of his church when he arrived for 'mass'

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This is one of those questions readers keep asking in the Internet age: Is an error an error, even if newspaper editors correct it without admitting that they made an error?

What if it’s one of those tiny errors that only matter to strange religious believers who care about picky little words that have to do with their most cherished beliefs? You know, like the fact that Protestants are not Catholics and they use different words to describe what goes on in their sanctuaries?

What we have here is a mistake that happens all the time, especially when religion is in the news and, for logical reasons (think holiday breaks or the current COVID-19 crisis), newsroom managers are short on well-rested personnel.

Nevertheless, a mistake is a mistake and journalists need to pay attention to this kind of thing. In this case we are dealing with yet another story about a preacher who wants to carry on with business as usual, no matter what. The New York Post headline says: “Landlord changes church locks to stop pastor from defying coronavirus lockdown.”

Now, this is a piece of click-bait aggregation, which means that it’s even more likely that an intern or someone low on the journalism food chain cranked it out. Here’s the crucial information:

Pastor Jon Duncan had vowed to continue preaching at Cross Culture Christian Center in Lodi, telling Fox 40 the services were “protected by the First Amendment and should be considered essential.” But he was met by several police officers when he arrived on Palm Sunday — and was unable to enter the completely shuttered church, the Los Angeles Times said.

The building’s owner, the nearby Bethel Open Bible Church, had “changed the locks on the doors in response” to his threats to defy coronavirus restrictions, Lodi police Lt. Michael Manetti told the paper. …

Duncan had no idea that the locks had been changed when he arrived for mass, his attorney, Dean Broyles, told the L.A. Times.

Now, that’s what the story said when a GetReligion reader read it, did a face-palm move and sent me copy from the original story.


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An Easter think piece: What happens when movie-makers talk to scribes who 'get' religion?

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When I first met Dwight Longenecker in 1999 I already thought his life story was unique.

The setting was an international journalism conference in Chichester, England. Longenecker was working in journalism at the time, after studying theology at Oxford University. He had already been ordained as an Anglican priest, but then saw the writing on the ancient church walls and swam the Tiber to Roman Catholicism.

But here’s the biographical detail that grabbed me. I was fascinated that, after growing up evangelical in Pennsylvania, he had done his undergraduate work at Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C. — America’s famous campus that proudly embraces the loaded term “fundamentalist.”

From BJU to England and on to Rome! What a journey, I thought. And people said my pilgrimage from Southern Baptist preacher’s kid to Eastern Orthodoxy was unusual.

But there was one more remarkable shoe to drop in the Longenecker story. In 2006 he returned to America with his wife and four children and — taking the Pastoral Provision door opened by Pope John Paul II (now a saint) — Longenecker was ordained as a Catholic priest.

So where is he now? He is the pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church in — wait for it — Greenville, S.C., a few miles from his old BJU stomping grounds. So the Catholic priest who is “in charge” of Bob Jones territory (long ago, the founder called Catholicism a “Satanic cult”) is a BJU graduate.

Now, I offered all of that as an intro to our think piece for this Easter Sunday (for Western churches). It’s a blog post by Longenecker entitled “The Passion of the Christ, me and Mel Gibson” that includes a fascinating detail about what many consider the most beautiful image in that controversial movie (click here for his “Standing on my head” website).

The key: Longenecker, as a journalist, did quite a bit of writing about film. Thus, he ended up in one of those famous advance screenings with Gibson — who showed a rough edit to a variety of religious audiences while raising money to independently release the film. After showing this early version of his movie, Gibson came out to take questions from the small crowd. Then this happened:


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Faith on film and TV: Five takes on the life of Jesus that you can watch this Easter

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With Easter just ahead and many of us stuck at home during the coronavirus pandemic, there is no better time than now to both watch movies about the life and death of Jesus. You should be able to find several on television this weekend.

Christ has been depicted in a variety of ways on film over the last six decades. Some depictions have been better than others. Some of these movies made headlines and some did not. The debate over which portrayal of Jesus was most realistic, authentic or powerful has raged on for years.

In 1997, James Martin came up with his own list, republished two years ago in America magazine. In it, he made some controversial picks, ones that keep this debate going every Easter. For many, movies about Jesus allowed many people who would otherwise not have an interest in Christianity or faith and awaken some religious curiosity.

Easter — Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection — is the most significant event of the Bible, one that changed the course of history. There are a number of movies that have captured that moment in both a touching and stirring manner. At the same time, several actors have portrayed Jesus to great public acclaim. The movies, appealing to Christians of all denominations, are a wonderful way to celebrate Easter and educate younger people to the life and times of Jesus.

This list doesn’t consider edgy pop-culture phenomena such as Jesus Christ Superstar or sacrilegious ones like The Last Temptation of Christ, with its mentally unbalanced and rather depressed messiah who calls himself a sinner. Instead, I have focused on serious interpretations through the years of the life of Jesus. As Christians prepare for Easter, here are five movies about Jesus, both in theaters and on TV, that rise above the rest:


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Court frees Cardinal Pell: Washington Post offers basic journalism. And the New York Times?

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This will be a very simple post about a very complicated religion-news story.

I am referring to the news that lit up Twitter the other day, when the news broke that Australia’s highest court had — with a 7-0 vote — overturned controversial (I need a stronger word) decisions by two lower courts convicting Cardinal George Pell of sexually assaulting two choirboys at the Melbourne cathedral in the 1990s.

I will not attempt to hash out the many ways that the secret nature of these Aussie court proceedings affected the news coverage. I will not discuss the details of the victim’s testimony against Pell and whether it was possible for a bishop, wearing many layers of thick, complicated vestments and almost certainly accompanied by an aide, to have committed these crimes in a public place.

No, my goal here is to contrast the journalism in two elite-media reports — in The Washington Post and then The New York Times — about this final court decision, which set Pell free and unleashed hurricanes of online arguments (yet again).

In terms of journalism, what is the essential difference between these two stories?

First, let’s look at the Post story, which ran with this headline: “Cardinal George Pell is released from prison after court quashes sexual abuse conviction.” If you read this story, you will find several passages like this:

In a written statement, Pell said he felt no ill will toward his accuser and did not want his acquittal to add to the bitterness in the community.

"There is certainly hurt and bitterness enough," he said. "However, my trial was not a referendum on the Catholic Church, nor a referendum on how church authorities in Australia dealt with the crime of pedophilia in the church.

"The point was whether I had committed these awful crimes, and I did not."

Readers will also read passages like this one:

The decision is likely to upset Pell's many detractors, who hold him responsible not just for the alleged assault on the choirboys but for the broader record of the Catholic Church in Australia, where some 4,444 people reported being abused in recent decades, according to an official inquiry. Their average age was about 11 years old.


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No confessions? Coronavirus crisis creates legal, doctrinal Lenten minefield for priests

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No confessions? Coronavirus crisis creates legal, doctrinal Lenten minefield for priests

Every now and then, while a priest is traveling or out running errands, a stranger will approach and ask: "Father, will you hear my confession?"

This can happen on a city sidewalk or in a quiet corner of a big-box store. Often the question is urgent -- because something disturbing has shaken someone's faith.

"I've been asked for confession in a taxi. I've been asked while on a train," said Father Fergal O'Duill, part of the Dallas-Fort Worth branch of the Catholic movement Regnum Christi. His name is pronounced "O'Doul" and he is originally from Dublin, Ireland.

These requests happen, he added, because "people see you and they know you're a priest. We're priests no matter where we go."

Hearing confessions is crucial during the penitential season of Lent, which precedes Easter, which is on April 12th this year for Catholics and Protestants (and April 19th for Eastern Orthodox Christians). Centuries of Catholic and Orthodox tradition urge believers to go to confession during Lent, before receiving Holy Communion on Easter.

The irony, right now, is that O'Duill can hear confessions during chance encounters, but not during scheduled times at the school where is serves as a chaplain.

The evolving coronavirus pandemic has turned Lent into a confusing minefield of legal and doctrinal questions for pastors and their flocks. In many communities, but not all, state or local officials have ordered people to "shelter in place" -- staying home unless they have "essential" needs elsewhere. This has raised an obvious question: Is going to confession "essential," even if Catholics are preparing for Holy Week and Easter rites they will have to watch on digital screens at home?

For most of March, O'Duill was one of several priests who heard confessions in a giant parking lot, or in a pair of tents, near the Highlands School in Irving, Texas. Every effort was made to provide enough privacy to maintain the "dignity" of the sacrament, he said, while priests remained a safe distance from the penitents. Priests offered similar "drive-through" confession opportunities in a few other parts of America.

Then, on March 22, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins issued a "shelter in place" order effective through April 3 and, perhaps, beyond.

The ground rules changed.


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Sex ed bill in Washington state gets lots of boos but where was the religious community?

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To think from all the photos of the embattled Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee earlier in March, one would think he was locked in a 24-hour battle for the life of his state’s 7.8 million residents. Inslee was seen everywhere as trying to abait a virus whose national epicenter – for about two weeks – was near Seattle.

But Inslee had other pots on the fire that almost no one was reporting on including a bill that mandates sex education for all public school students in Washington state.

Religious folks were very involved in opposing it, but you would have never known that fact by looking at the sparse news coverage.

A story on MyNorthwest.com, the print version of KIRO TV Ch. 7 in Seattle tells us the basics. It’s dated March 7.

A controversial sex education bill was passed by the Washington State Legislature Saturday afternoon.

Despite a passionate fight from Republicans — who at one point added over 200 amendments in the hopes of keeping the bill requiring comprehensive sex health education from coming up for a vote — the legislation cleared its final hurdle and passed in the Senate.

Now, I am not sure why the story doesn’t mention a floor debate that went on until 2 a.m. about the bill with Republicans talking about thousands of emails flooding their inboxes (like close to 5,000) against the bill.


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Angry preachers fight 'shelter in place.' #NEWS Major religious groups follow rules? #SOWHAT

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If you were going to create an FAQ built on complaints from ordinary news consumers about the journalism biz, some variation on this question would have to be at or near the top of the list: “Why do journalists cover so much bad news? Why do they ignore all the good things that people do in our town/city/country/world and focus only on the bad things that a small handful of people do?”

I believe it was the late Walter Cronkite of CBS Evening News fame who said something like this (I’ve been hunting, but can’t find the quote): It would be a terrible thing if we lived in a world in which good news was so rare that everyone considered it unique and truly newsworthy.

If you pay attention to religion threads on Twitter, you know that we are living through a textbook case study of people arguing about this subject. This time, the question looks like this: Why are the few pastors who reject “shelter in place” orders getting so much ink with their face-to-face worship services, while the vast majority of clergy who have moved their rites online — often for the first time — are getting little or no coverage? I have already written about this twice at GetReligion — look here and then here.

Some people are upset, I think, because the rebels are all independent church leaders who, as a rule, perfectly match each and every stereotype of the angry white evangelicals and Pentecostals who back, you know, Citizen Donald Trump. In a way, this is a life-and-death example of the great evangelical monolith myth. Here is what people are feeling: How come some angry preacher deep in the Bible Belt is getting all this coverage and, well, online efforts by the still massive Southern Baptist Convention are ignored?

Frankly, the leap to online worship hasn’t been ignored. It has been covered over and over in local and regional news and in a few national stories that have not received all that much attention.

It’s also true — you know this if you follow Twitter — that Catholic and Eastern Orthodox people have been arguing about “shelter in place” rules, as well. The news there is that bishops have been making decisions to protect their priests and laypeople (see my most recent “On Religion” column). That’s a big story, too.

So what do these mad-preacher stories look like? For some reason, Reuters seems to be Ground Zero. Consider this headline: “The Americans defying Palm Sunday quarantines: 'Satan's trying to keep us apart'.” The story opens with a brave woman near Cincinnati who is staying at home and then jumps to this:


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