Godbeat

Tony Snow, Catholic, dead at 53

Tony Snow, journalist and aide to two presidents, died on Saturday at the age of 53. As with the death last month of beloved journalist Tim Russert, friends and fans are grieving the loss. Like Russert, Snow was a devoted family man with a strong Christian faith. I thought most obituaries of Russert did a good job of including religion in their tributes. Let’s look at some of the accounts of Snow’s death.


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Hello CT: Take Trib folks to lunch

This doesn’t happen very often. The folks at the Chicago Tribune‘s features staff have done it again, leaving me in an interesting position. Once again, they have named their favorite 50 magazines and, once again, their view of life in the modern world (and Chicago) does not include a single magazine dedicated to faith issues.


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Sigh ... Back into 'On Faith' fog

I know, I know. I have said what I have to say already about the mini-firestorm over Sally Quinn of the Washington Post electing to receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion at the funeral Mass for the late Tim Russert. I really don’t want to have readers start clicking “comment” again to talk about the theology of this or the state of Catholic canon law.


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Chuck Colson, Renaissance man

Sir John Templeton, the wildly-successful mutual-fund manager who pioneered international investing died Tuesday at the age of 95. He was also well-known for giving away much of his fortune to scientific and religious causes.


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Williams: Russert 'took the call'

We are into the second wave of media coverage of the death of NBC’s Tim Russert, featuring stories that are one step away from the actual memorial service and the mainstream press memorials. Some of these events are going to be linked to more complex, personal aspects of Russert’s career — such as his faith.


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'Take, eat; this is My body'

It seems that if reporters don’t know much else about Roman Catholics, they should know something of what they believe about the Eucharist. Catholic belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist has various supporting dogmas, including Transubstantiation and the Permanence of Presence and the Adorableness of the Eucharist.


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Discussing doctrine

Unless Mitt Romney gets picked to be John McCain’s VP nominee, the mainstream media may completely forget about that major news story from earlier in the primary season: Mormonism. Without that news hook, most reporters have moved on to different topics — debunking Christianity and shark attacks, or something.


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Put a cork in it

There is nothing the media like more than to sensationalize undeserving stories. Usually this involves either the disappearance of young, attractive white women or alleged revelations about Jesus. in the latter category, we’ve read that Jesus walked on an ice floe (not water), that he wasn’t crucified in the manner in which people think, that Jesus’ father was a Roman soldier named Pantera, not Joseph, and that Jesus didn’t die on the cross so much as pass out after being doped up.


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