Catholicism

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Key words in New York Times look at nuns killed by coronavirus? Don't look for 'Jesus' or 'God'

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There are often times when it isn’t fair to compare a story from one news source with a story offered by another newsroom on a very similar topic. This may be one of those times.

I’ve been reading The Atlantic and The New York Times for decades, through good times and bad — focusing on coverage of religion. I am well aware of the ingredients that you tend to find in feature stories in these elite publications.

Earlier this week, I joined readers and religion-beat pros in pouring social-media praise on an Atlantic feature about the Little Sisters of the Poor. The key was their efforts, in a Catholic nursing home, to carry on with their ministry work — while the coronavirus kept striking down elderly sisters (and a priest) in their flock. Click here to see that post.

As you would expect, the story was packed with news information, as well as poignant details that took readers inside the prayers and rites that define life among the sisters, while discussing the deep religious challenges and questions raised by the pandemic. Yes, “theodicy” questions lurked in the background.

The bottom line: These sisters were living lives defined by the vows and traditions of their faith. There was no way for readers to avoid that — which was crucial during this life-and-death crisis.

This brings me to a stunningly faith-free report at New York Times that ran under this headline:

After Decades of Service, Five Nuns Die as Virus Sweeps Through Convent

The coronavirus outbreak was difficult to trace in the Wisconsin convent, which specializes in care for aging nuns with dementia.

This feature focuses on the School Sisters of Notre Dame, a global order that — as the name suggests — focuses on teaching, at all levels. Here is how they define their mission, shown in an excerpt from the order’s constitution:

Our Mission is to proclaim the good news as School Sisters of Notre Dame, directing our entire lives toward that oneness for which Jesus Christ was sent. As He was sent to show the Father’s love to the world, we are sent to make Christ visible by our very being, by sharing our love, faith, and hope.

How is this mission expressed in Times-speak?


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Sacraments in age of social distancing: How will bishops walk that church-state tightrope?

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Sacraments in age of social distancing: How will bishops walk that church-state tightrope?

Priests in the Church of England have faced many challenges in recent decades -- from plummeting attendance numbers to fierce debates about marriage and sexuality.

Nevertheless, a coronavirus epistle from Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Archbishop of York John Sentamu was a shocker -- offering worship guidelines even stricter than those released by the government.

"Our church buildings must now be closed not only for public worship, but for private prayer as well and this includes the priest … offering prayer in church on their own," they wrote. "A notice explaining this should be put on the church door."

Thus, there was quiet defiance in Father Marcus Walker's voice as he stood alone near the altar of St. Bartholomew the Great -- London's oldest surviving church -- on the first Sunday after Easter and said, "I speak in the name of the Living God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. And so we're back."

There was no response from his Facebook Live flock, but the priest stressed that he had been listening to his people. The bottom line: There had to be some way to proceed that stressed public safety, while addressing people's spiritual needs.

"Their voices have been loud, insistent and -- so far -- unanimous," he said, in his sermon. "I have received scores of letters and emails, calling on services to be restored here in their church: the church they have upheld and kept up, where they were married, where they buried a partner, saw a child christened, found God, were confirmed.

"This is their church and I am their pastor. I owe them my solidarity. As one said in her letter: 'We don't need you in solidarity at home, we need you in solidarity at the altar of our church.' "

With Easter in the rear-view mirror, members of ancient Christian flocks -- those built on liturgies and sacraments -- are waiting to see how their shepherds will walk a liturgical tightrope between church and state.

The bottom line: It's easier for megachurches to put their dramatic sermons and worship bands on home computer screens than for priests to digitize Holy Communion and rites of confession.


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Little Sisters of the Poor in crisis: This Atlantic feature is about COVID-19 and sacrifice

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The Little Sisters of the Poor are back in the news.

Yes, it’s true that, for the third time, the order’s legal team is back at the U.S. Supreme Court. This is, of course, a case linked to the Health and Human Services mandate requiring most religious institutions to offer employees — even students — health-insurance plans covering sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including "morning-after pills."

The issue, of course, is whether leaders of the Little Sisters of the Poor, and others, can be forced to cooperate with government programs that violate the doctrines that define their work.

This raises a question that few SCOTUS-beat reporters have answered. Who are the Little Sisters of the Poor and what do the members of this order do to help others?

That brings us to a must-read feature at The Atlantic (by religion-beat pro Emma Green) that ran with this dramatic double-decker headline:

Nuns vs. the Coronavirus

At a Catholic nursing home in Delaware, one-fifth of residents have died. The nuns who run the facility are grappling with their calling.

This story isn’t about politics and SCOTUS, although it might have helped to have included a sentence or two pointing to this order’s role in that First Amendment fight. This feature offers an inside look at the work that the Little Sisters of the Poor are doing during the coronavirus crisis.

As it turns out, they are doing what they have always been doing — but this work now requires them to risk their lives on a daily basis. Here is a crucial early summary:

In many ways, the Little Sisters were founded for a moment like this: The nuns take a special vow of hospitality, promising to accompany the elderly as they move toward death. But like other long-term-care facilities in the U.S., the Little Sisters home in Delaware was blindsided by this pandemic. Even those most at peace with death have been deeply shaken by COVID-19.


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Thinking with Ryan Burge and Rod Dreher: Where did all those American Catholics go?

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Are you managing to keep up with political scientist Ryan Burge on Twitter?

Well, why the heck not?

Trust me, I know that it’s hard to keep up. I have a jam-packed online file on Burge items — he is a GetReligion partner — that I want to use and it keeps growing. You don’t have to agree with this progressive Baptist minister all the time (predictable people are of little use to journalists) to be able to see the trends and insights in his charts, graphics and bites of commentary that come with them.

The crucial skill here is the ability to spot the obvious, then jump to the trends that reporters really need to dig into.

Consider the item at the top of this weekend’s think piece. There are four lines of commentary and each one is worthy of coverage. Here’s the gist: Nones are still growing. The active members of evangelical and mainline churches are (independent of membership statistical trends) still going to church has much as ever. African-American Protestant churches are holding steady.

But it’s the bottom line that Rod “Benedict Option” Dreher focused on in a recent blog item:

What has happened to Catholics? I suppose it could be that Catholics still identify as Catholics, even if they have ceased to participate in the life of the Church. I’ve known plenty of Catholics who for all intents and purposes have ceased to be Catholic, but who still call themselves Catholic, despite being unfaithful to their baptism. Protestants who have ceased going to church tend not to continue to identify as Methodist, or Evangelical, or whatever. I would expect that natal Orthodox Christians who have ceased to practice the faith would nevertheless identify themselves as Orthodox to a pollster.

Still, that can’t explain the entire Catholic collapse, can it? I shared Burge’s tweet with a friend who is a churchgoing Millennial Catholic. It made him disconsolate and angry at the leadership class of the Church. “Well, what a friggin’ disaster,” he texted back. “And there will be only a shrug. Nothing to see here. Just another reminder of the Catholic dumpster fire.”

As always, Burge’s thoughts led to lots of interesting comments and questions.


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Catholic media highlights trend in young people gravitating towards faith during pandemic

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The ever-evolving coronavirus pandemic has upended our world in ways no one could have ever expected. Journalists still don’t know where this story is going.

But one thing is clear. While death tolls climb and fall depending on which countries are effectively flattening the curve, the vast majority of those of us who are healthy and staying at home still have to deal with loneliness.

How does faith play a part in mitigating isolation? A survey released four weeks ago by Springtide Research Institute, which studies trends of those ages 13 to 25. What did they find? The survey revealed the following regarding young people, faith and the novel coronavirus. The following summary is long, but essential, especially for religion-beat professionals:

… For many young adults, shelter in place and social distancing provokes fear and uncertainty, leading to increased levels of isolation, loneliness, and anxiety. The survey found that the single most important way to mitigate loneliness is for trusted adults to reach out and connect with young adults.

* The survey consisted of a national panel of 508 respondents ages 18–25, with a margin of error of +/- 4% at a 95% confidence level, administered between March 24 and March 31, 2020.

* One in three respondents are sheltering in place alone.

* 63% of all respondents say that they do not feel as alone or isolated when people reach out to them.

* Among young adults who are sheltering in place with others, half still say that they feel alone, and nearly eight out of ten report feeling less lonely when a trusted adult from outside their household checks in on them.

* About 58% say they feel scared and uncertain, and 66% of those who feel this way say they don’t have anyone to talk to about their emotions. Thus, they feel isolated because no one is reaching out to them.

* Respondents are not experiencing a decrease in their faith; in fact, 35% increased their faith and 47% stayed the same.

* Nearly 46% have started new religious practices, and 43% have participated in at least one religious service online.


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Dawn of the dead: Faith-based colleges face challenges even bigger than coronavirus

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Dawn of the dead: Faith-based colleges face challenges even bigger than coronavirus

Every week or so, John Mark Reynolds does something that presidents of academic institutions rarely do -- he cleans his office at Saint Constantine School.

This isn't a symbolic gesture in an age of ominous trends, and now a global pandemic, that threaten private education. Reynolds always takes his turn -- with other members of his team -- cleaning administration offices at this classical school in Houston.

"We have no administrators who are just administrators. Everyone teaches. Everyone shares many of the jobs that need to get done," said Reynolds, reached at his "sheltering in place" home office. "We have a maintenance team, but we all help out. The first lady and I plan to water some plants later today. …

"We call this the economy of small."

Saint Constantine is a K-16 Orthodox Christian school, which means it offers four years of college credits. College tuition is $9,000 per year.

"Our whole model was created to survive the collapse of liberal arts education, while striving to preserve the core of liberal arts education through an Oxford-style tutorial system," said Reynolds. "This pandemic is only exposing the weaknesses of what was already a business model fraught with peril."

College educators have long known that painful challenges were coming in 2025, due to falling birth rates and the end of high millennial-generation enrollments.

Now, the coronavirus crisis is forcing students and parents to face troubling realities. A study by McKinsey & Company researchers noted: "Hunkering down at home with a laptop … is a world away from the rich on-campus life that existed in February."

What happens next? The study noted: "In the virus-recurrence and pandemic-escalation scenarios, higher-education institutions could see much less predictable yield rates (the percentage of those admitted who attend) if would-be first-year students decide to take a gap year or attend somewhere closer to home (and less costly) because of the expectation of longer-term financial challenges for their families."


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No #SURPRISE -- Another Womenpriests story offers public-relations ink instead of news

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How many times have your GetReligionistas written about one-sided mainstream press coverage of the tiny Womenpriests church, or movement, or association, or denomination, or independent church?

We have already noted that no one seems to know if the proper journalistic style for the movement’s name is Womenpriests, WomenPriests or Women Priests. Wait, are there now two organizations at work here, Roman Catholic Women Priests and the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, Inc.? What’s up?

We have already published a post (“Surprise! It's time for another one-sided look at the birth of a new church — the Women Priests”) that opens with six essential journalism problems to look for when evaluating mainstream media coverage of this issue. Here are the first two and, yes, (2) is really a two-fer:

(1) As Mollie “GetReligionista emerita” Hemingway used to say, just because someone says that he or she plays shortstop for the New York Yankees does not mean that this person plays shortstop for the world’s most famous baseball team. Only the leaders of the Yankees get to make that call.

(2) The doctrine of “apostolic succession” involves more than one bishop laying hands on someone. Ordination in ancient Christian churches requires “right doctrine” as well as “right orders.” Also, it helps to know the name of the bishop or bishops performing the alleged ordination. Be on the alert for “Old Catholic” bishops, some of whom were ordained via mail order.

Also, we have issued this challenge to readers, which — so far — has drawn zero responses:

Would your GetReligionistas praise a mainstream news story on this movement that offered a fair-minded, accurate, 50-50 debate between articulate, informed voices on both sides? You bet. Once again: If readers find a story of this kind, please send us the URL.

We are still waiting. However, a reader recently sent a URL for yet another story that repeats almost all of the errors we have seen so many times. It is clear that, while the Womenpriests church is small, it has a fabulous press-relations team.

This latest Gannett press release on this subject was published by the Daytona Beach News-Journal, under a very typical headline stating, “Defiance in DeLand: Woman ordained Roman Catholic priest.” The reader that sent this in noted:


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Thinking with Ryan Burge: Why it would be dangerous for most churches to reopen

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If you read newspapers, the world of coronavirus-era religion appears to be divided into two worlds.

On one side are lots of crazy white evangelicals — you know, the people in MAGA hats — who want to return to face-to-face worship and, thus, risk the lives of ordinary people in their communities. These are the bad guys in this drama.

There have been a few news reports that note that quite a few black Pentecostals are part of this camp, but, well, nevermind. That information just complicates things.

On the other side are the good guys — mainline Protestants and Catholics who have embraced online church life and deserve to be cheered.

Now, where does the following information from Baptist Press — the media arm of the giant Southern Baptist Convention — fit into this picture? This is from a story on initial discussions, among SBC leaders, of reopening the doors of their churches. That’s right — the Southern Baptists (I haven’t heard of any exceptions) have been worshiping online. This is long, but the details matter:

Michael Lewis, pastor of Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., said his team is cautiously planning to reopen as early as May 10, though the date is tentative and dependent on progress as measured by the official guidelines for reopening set out by the White House Coronavirus Task Force.

Lewis said Marietta, one of Atlanta's northern suburbs, is almost through the Phase 1 of the COVID-19 guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for reopening states. When the city enters Phase 2, Roswell Street Baptist, which averages about 700 in attendance Sunday morning, would conduct two worship-only services.

Two staff members would monitor two designated entrances. There would be no greeters, but those doors would remain open throughout the services. Attendees would be seated by household, with groups separated by at least six feet. They would be formally seated and dismissed in order to maintain social-distancing. Restroom use would be limited. The church would not print bulletins.

"We're going to adhere very strictly to the CDC guidelines," Lewis said, noting that the May 10 target date could be postponed if necessary.


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Podcast: Faith-based colleges face coronavirus crisis (and hard identity questions, too)

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What is going to happen on college and university campuses this fall?

That’s a huge question, right now, and nobody knows the answer yet. Parents and students want to know. Football fans want to know. Trustees want to know since, in the end, they’re the people who will end up trying to handle the financial fallout of the coronavirus crisis (including predictions of a second wave hitting with the flu-season in November).

But there is more to this story than COVID-19, if you have been paying close attention to higher-education trends in recent years. Leaders in higher-ed were already bracing for the year 2025 — when the enrollment surge linked to the massive millennial generation would be coming to an end.

Now, look past all of those state-funded schools — big and small. How will these trends hit private schools, including faith-based private schools. Many have been facing rising tides of red ink, and that was before the arrival of the coronavirus.

“Crossroads” host Todd Wilken and I talked about all of these issues, and more, during this week’s podcast (click here to tune that in). The hook for this discussion was my “On Religion” column for this week, which included this crucial passage:

… The coronavirus crisis is forcing students and parents to face troubling realities. A study by McKinsey & Company researchers noted: "Hunkering down at home with a laptop … is a world away from the rich on-campus life that existed in February."

What happens next? The study noted: "In the virus-recurrence and pandemic-escalation scenarios, higher-education institutions could see much less predictable yield rates (the percentage of those admitted who attend) if would-be first-year students decide to take a gap year or attend somewhere closer to home (and less costly) because of the expectation of longer-term financial challenges for their families."

This could crush some schools. In a report entitled "Dawn of the Dead," Forbes found 675 private colleges it labeled "so-called tuition-dependent schools -- meaning they squeak by year-after-year, often losing money or eating into their dwindling endowments." While it's hard to probe private-school finances, Forbes said a "significant number" of weaker schools are "nearly insolvent."

How many of America’s truly faith-defined private colleges are in that “Dawn of the Dead” list?


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