Catholicism

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Con Don: Why some conservative Catholic news sites were duped by Donald Trump

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Con Don: Why some conservative Catholic news sites were duped by Donald Trump

Now that Donald Trump is no longer president, the discussion about his time in office and legacy is something that has become a media preoccupation despite Joe Biden being inaugurated last month.

That’s because Trump upended much of the way government worked. Add to that a media that can’t quit him (some outlets saw a huge increase in readers and viewers since 2016) and the U.S. Senate impeachment trial, and you can see why Trump remains a focal point.

The U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6 is the coda to the Trump presidency and the reason why he remains a news cycle fixture. You may no longer see the former president on Twitter, but The New York Times and CNN — to name just two mainstream news organizations — continue to give him plenty of coverage.

This brings us to another development in today’s evolving news-media marketplace: Catholic media also blossomed during the Trump years.

What has been the result of some Catholic news websites giving Trump any form of editorial support?

Catholic news sites across the doctrinal spectrum should have done a better job calling out both sides — something the mainstream press no longer does, especially on moral, cultural and religious issues. Most often, they don’t run opposing opinion pieces and it appears that the selection of news stories and their arguments are often guided by politics.

However, if we have learned anything over the past four years it is that marrying one’s faith to a political ideology can be a form of idolatry. How else would you explain the zeal of some Catholics who argued that Trump should remain in office?

Catholics have been seduced by the concept that the government can remedy the nation’s problems. They weren’t duped by Trump in as much as they tried to find a solution for what ails society, from their point of view, by supporting an imperfect man. Catholics, like many people of other Christian denominations, wanted to believe Trump. They had too much invested in him and his policy decisions.

Where right-wing Catholics news sites, in particular, go from here remains to be seen.


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Joe Biden era puts transgender rights atop newsroom agendas (which creates religion news)

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Joe Biden era puts transgender rights atop newsroom agendas (which creates religion news)

Among American "social issues," freedom of abortion is long-settled as a matter of law, so foes largely nibble at the edges. Courtroom victories for gays and lesbians have put dissenters on the defensive seeking to protect conscience claims.

Meanwhile, in the Biden-Harris era the transgender debate -- emotion-laden, multi-faceted and religiously weighty -- is moving to the top of the news agenda. {The Guy admits at the start he brings no psychological insight to this complex terrain and has personal knowledge of only two such situations.}

Democrats' zeal is the major new factor. President Joe Biden has said that he believes "transgender equality is the civil rights issue of our time. There is no room for compromise." Last year, Donald Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch made the case for "gender identity" rights in the Supreme Court's Bostock ruling, but this covered only secular employment. During his first hours in office, President Biden issued an executive order that extends this outlook across the board.

The president declared, for instance, that school kids shouldn't have to worry about their "access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports," nor should adults be mistreated "because how they dress does not conform to sex-based stereotypes." He directed each government agency to spend the next 100 days reframing all gender policies accordingly.

Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, elected leader of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, immediately responded that on this and other matters like abortion, America's second Catholic president "would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity." Chicago's Cardinal Blasé Cupich assailed Gomez's Inauguration Day statement as "ill-considered." (Click here for GetReligion post and podcast on this topic.)

Then New York's Cardinal Timothy Dolan and four other chairmen of bishops' committees jointly declared that by reaching beyond the Supreme Court ruling Biden "needlessly ignored the integrity of God's creation of the two complementary sexes, male and female," and threatened religious freedom. This protest echoed the 2019 Vatican pronouncement "Male and Female He Created Them (.pdf here).”

A second Biden executive order Feb. 4 defined the new "LGBTQI+" approach in U.S. foreign policy. He directed 15 Cabinet departments and agencies to press other countries to comply with America's new stance, using diplomacy and, as needed, financial sanctions or visa restrictions. The State Department is to report annually on problem nations.


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Once again, AP accuses big Catholic bosses of abusing government coronavirus relief efforts

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Once again, AP accuses big Catholic bosses of abusing government coronavirus relief efforts

There they go again.

In this case, “they” refers to whoever is in charge of religion-news coverage these days at the Associated Press. Someone there needs to take a remedial course in (a) church history, (b) church-state law in the United States or (c) both.

Let’s start by flashing back about six months, when the AP rolled out an investigation of what its editors clearly thought was a scandal of epic proportions. Does anyone remember this lede, and this GetReligion dissection (“AP explains why it was wrong for local-level Catholic employees to get coronavirus relief money“), of the expose)?

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Roman Catholic Church used a special and unprecedented exemption from federal rules to amass at least $1.4 billion in taxpayer-backed coronavirus aid, with many millions going to dioceses that have paid huge settlements or sought bankruptcy protection because of clergy sexual abuse cover-ups.

That was a bizarre, but honest, opener. The entire story was built on the assumption that there is such a thing — corporately and legally speaking — as a “U.S. Roman Catholic Church.”

As I said at the time, this is “like saying that there is an ‘American Public School System,’ as opposed to complex networks of schools at the local, regional and state levels.” One could also note that there is a Planned Parenthood of America. However, government coronavirus aid in the paycheck-support program went to 37 regional and local Planned Parenthood groups.

The Associated Press has now produced a sequel, with this headline: “Sitting on billions, Catholic dioceses amassed taxpayer aid.” While the editors avoided the “U.S. Roman Catholic Church” label this time around, this lengthy story is built on a similar misunderstanding of what happened when Catholic parishes, schools, nonprofits and other ministries applied for coronavirus aid.

As readers can see in the headline, in the sequel AP leaders focused on finances at the diocesan level, as opposed to a mythical national Catholic structure. This is closer to the truth, but it still misses the mark. While many issues of church authority are linked to local bishops, in local dioceses, the crucial issue here was paycheck-relief money reaching staff members in individual parishes, schools and ministries that had been rocked by falling donations during the COVID-19 crisis. Let’s start with the overture:


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President Joe Biden's a Pope Francis fan, but does that mean the pope's a fan of Biden?

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President Joe Biden's a Pope Francis fan, but does that mean the pope's a fan of Biden?

Pope Francis appears to be a big supporter of President Joe Biden.

A majority of the U.S. Catholic bishops are not.

At least that’s a prominent narrative concerning America’s second Catholic president (after John F. Kennedy).

To wit: The headline on a Los Angeles Times news story this week declared: “Pope Francis is a Biden fan, but some U.S. Catholic leaders give president a frosty reception.”

My sincere question: Is it accurate to characterize Francis as a Biden fan?

“While Pope Francis has enjoyed a warm relationship with Biden from time spent together in both the U.S. and at the Vatican, it would be wrong to classify him as a partisan player in U.S. politics,” Christopher White, national correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, told me. “His approach to any world leader is to try to find common ground and see where there’s work to be done together.”

Clemente Lisi analyzes Catholic news for Religion Unplugged.

“I’d say the pope seems cordial to Biden, and the two have met a few times,” Lisi said in response to my question. “There seems to be a fascination in the media to lump these two men together.”

The Los Angeles Times is, of course, just the latest major news outlet to contrast the difference in tone between how the Vatican and top U.S. bishops — notably Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez — have greeted Biden’s inauguration.

The prominent West Coast paper suggests:

The rift stems from opposition by many in the church to abortion and same-sex marriage, while others see a broader interpretation of the sanctity of life, promoted by Francis, to include climate change, immigration and fighting poverty.

Biden “keeps a picture in the Oval Office of himself with Pope Francis,” the story notes. But does that picture mean as much to Francis? The paper doesn’t say.


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New podcast: Are tensions between Speaker Pelosi and her archbishop a valid news story?

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New podcast: Are tensions between Speaker Pelosi and her archbishop a valid news story?

The following is not a hypothetical case or a parable. This is the heart of the news story that was the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

Step one: Speaker Nancy Pelosi was a guest on Hillary Clinton’s “You and Me Both” podcast. As you would expect, since this was recorded a week after the stunning January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, they spent some time discussing their views on the Donald Trump years.

This led to a discussion about the choices made by pro-life voters in the 2016 election. Here is some crucial material from a Catholic News Agency story about the exchange.

… House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that support of pro-life voters for former President Donald Trump was an issue that “gives me great grief as a Catholic.”

“I think that Donald Trump is president because of the issue of a woman’s right to choose,” she said of abortion, implying that pro-life voters boosted Trump to victory in 2016. She added that these voters “were willing to sell the whole democracy down the river for that one issue.”

Other than the “sellout” implication, the key phrase there is “as a Catholic.”

Step two: The archbishop who — canonically speaking — is charged with overseeing Pelosi’s life as a Catholic believer was not amused by this assertion. Here is another chunk of that CNA report.

“No Catholic in good conscience can favor abortion,” said Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, Pelosi’s home diocese. … “Our land is soaked with the blood of the innocent, and it must stop.”

Pelosi has long supported abortion despite her Catholic faith. In 2008, she said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” regarding when life begins, “over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition.” She said that her Catholic faith “shouldn’t have an impact on a woman’s right to choose.” …

Archbishop Cordileone clarified that "Nancy Pelosi does not speak for the Catholic Church. … And on the question of the equal dignity of human life in the womb, she [Pelosi] also speaks in direct contradiction to a fundamental human right that Catholic teaching has consistently championed for 2,000 years.” …

Step three: Write a mainstream news story?


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Happy birthday (I guess): GetReligion will keep highlighting 'religion ghosts' in the news

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Happy birthday (I guess): GetReligion will keep highlighting 'religion ghosts' in the news

Growing old is complicated.

This is especially true during these bizarre COVID-19 days in which one day runs into another and sometimes it’s hard to remember what is what and when is when.

Oh well, whatever, nevermind. I being this up because GetReligion.org launched on Feb. 2, 2004 (even though the first post was written a day earlier). I think that means we just turned 17 and are headed into year No. 18, but my aging mind goes rather numb just thinking about it.

This blog has always had two essential goals.

The first is to highlight what we call “ghosts” in mainstream news coverage, as in essential facts and themes about religion that journalists — on lots of beats — frequently miss when covering news stories, big and small. A side effect of that task has been urging newsroom managers to hire experienced religion-beat reporters to strengthen their newsrooms.

Goal No. 2 is related to that. We have tried, year after year, to defend what is frequently called the American Model of the Press (see this .pdf) — with its emphasis on accurate, fair-minded, even balanced coverage of stories in which there are competing, or even clashing, viewpoints. For a taste of what that sounds like, check out this famous 2003 memo by the late, great, Los Angeles Times editor John Carroll. Here’s a crucial chunk of that, after his critique of a one-sided story:

The reason I'm sending this note to all section editors is that I want everyone to understand how serious I am about purging all political bias from our coverage. We may happen to live in a political atmosphere that is suffused with liberal values (and is unreflective of the nation as a whole), but we are not going to push a liberal agenda in the news pages of the Times.

I'm no expert on abortion, but I know enough to believe that it presents a profound philosophical, religious and scientific question, and I respect people on both sides of the debate. A newspaper that is intelligent and fair-minded will do the same.

In recent years, economic, cultural and political forces have greatly weakened the American Model of the Press (see this recent Celemente Lisi post on that topic). Some people say this model is outdated, in a digital age in which opinion is cheap and information is expensive and the safest business model — producing mouse-clicks and loyal subscribers — is to tell your niche audience what it wants to hear.


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Black church leaders working to promote COVID-19 vaccines to their skeptical flocks

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Black church leaders working to promote COVID-19 vaccines to their skeptical flocks

Some religious people see the COVID-19 vaccines as an answer to prayer.

Others are skeptical.

To encourage wary African Americans to roll up their sleeves, many Black churches are working extra hard.

The Tampa Bay Times’ Margo Snipe notes:

As COVID-19 continues to push health disparities to the forefront, Black churches have become advocates for mask-wearing, hand sanitizing and vaccine distribution.

In a Religion News Service interview with Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, the Rev. Jacques Andre DeGraff of Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem, New York, “talks about how Black communities are overcoming distrust of the medical community.”

This week, Dr. Anthony Fauci joined Bishop T.D. Jakes of The Potter’s House church in Dallas in a discussion aimed at quelling distrust about the vaccines, report the Dallas Morning News’ Jesus Jimenez and Religion Unplugged’s own Jillian Cheney.

“You have to respect the skepticism in the African American community,” said Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases official. “You can’t just ignore that.”

Here in my home state of Oklahoma, the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Oklahoma City partnered with state and county health departments to organize a “vaccine pod.”

The Rev. Derrick Scobey discusses the outreach effort with The Oklahoman’s faith editor, Carla Hinton:

He said some Blacks recall the infamous "Tuskegee Experiment," a medical study in which hundreds of Black men in Alabama from the 1930s to the 1970s were misled into thinking they were being treated for disease.

"Because of that you still have African Americans that are very hesitant about taking this vaccine," Scobey said.


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Inauguration Day showdown: U.S. Catholic bishops remain divided on 'McCarrick doctrine'

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Inauguration Day showdown: U.S. Catholic bishops remain divided on 'McCarrick doctrine'

Speaking to an Italian family association in 2018, Pope Francis compared the abortion of children with genetic problems to "what the Nazis did to purify the race. Today, we do the same thing but with white gloves."

A year later, Francis bluntly asked a journalist from Mexico if it's "fair to eliminate a human life in order to solve a problem? The answer to which is, 'No.' Second question: Is it fair to pay a sniper to solve a problem? No. Abortion is not a religious problem. … It is a problem of eliminating a human life. Period."

But the pope was careful in his Inauguration Day message to America's second Catholic president, assuring Joe Biden that he would "pray that your decisions will be guided by a concern for building a society marked by authentic justice and freedom, together with unfailing respect for the rights and dignity of every person, especially the poor, the vulnerable and those who have no voice."

The pope's text was examined closely after reports that the Vatican -- on behalf of progressive American bishops -- tried to stop the circulation of a sobering statement from the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The letter from Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles addressed the challenge, and blessing, of working with "our first president in 60 years to profess the Catholic faith."

Clearly, Biden's piety had offered "solace in times of darkness and tragedy," said Gomez, leader of America's largest diocese and a crucial voice among Hispanic Catholics. He also praised Biden's "longstanding commitment to the Gospel's priority for the poor."

Nevertheless, Gomez noted that "our new President has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender. Of deep concern is the … the freedom of believers to live according to their consciences."

Cardinal Blasé Cupich of Chicago fired back on Twitter, attacking this "ill-considered statement on the day of President Biden's inauguration" while claiming "there is seemingly no precedent" for this action by Gomez.

The Pillar, a Catholic news website, reported that the Vatican Secretariat of State intervened to "spike" the statement from the U.S. bishops after objections from Cupich, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark and some other bishops.


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Creative ways to cover abortion stories near Roe v. Wade anniversary: Here's a few ideas

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Creative ways to cover abortion stories near Roe v. Wade anniversary: Here's a few ideas

I always get frustrated with the lack of original thought when it comes to covering abortion stories connected to the anniversaries of Roe v. Wade. Last week’s reporting for the 48th anniversary was no exception.

There was the predictable updates (which I am not criticizing), such as President Joe Biden’s intent to codify Roe v. Wade, which the Catholic-news website Crux covered here. And Fox News ran a piece about a restrictive abortion law passed by the state of Tennessee last summer , and how that has become ensnared in the courts.

Now I know that, with the inauguration on the same week and all, there wasn’t a lot of energy out there to come up with Roe v. Wade stories that covered new ground. But the stories are out there, folks. It’s just that many of those in the media don’t feel like ferreting them out. Let’s suggest a few:

(1) Since Black Lives Matter has been a major newsmaker this past year, how about a revisit on black abortion rates? About a year ago, the Arizona Capital Times ran this opinion piece by a black member of the state house of representatives. I’ll pull out one paragraph:

The impacts on our black communities are hard to fathom. According to the Guttmacher Institute, which generally supports abortion, in 2011 360,000 black babies were aborted. CDC statistics for 2011 show that 287,072 black deaths occurred from all other causes excluding abortion. By these numbers, abortion is the leading cause of death among blacks.

Shouldn’t there be more reporting on something that kills more black children than police brutality ever has? Can’t say I’ve seen a whole lot. This story is also linked to debates in the Black church about politics, social issues, family, etc.

(2) Personality profiles. The pro-choicers get loads of them, such as this 2018 Washington Post piece about a black gynecologist who went from being anti-abortion to pro-abortion rights — and why. This was Willie Parker. The Atlantic, however, went more creative and much deeper in a feature about a war in the abortion movement where Parker is being accused of sexual assault, and the nasty infighting that’s resulted from that. Insider politics is always an interesting read, must say.

But where are the profiles of folks like Lila Rose and Joan Andrews Bell and many other lesser-known folks?


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