Godbeat

C11: Reporters get some religions

It would be hard to pick up the big newspapers right now and try to argue that the major, elite media are not trying to “get religion” right now. It’s like the editors have all walked the aisle at the President Barack Obama revival and made professions of faith.


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Inaugural prayers, sermons and controversies

My sick daughter/frozen pipes/burst pipes trifecta-of-chaos this weekend prevented me from fully enjoying the pre-inaugural festivities here in Washington. But I watched a bit of the celebrity concert that got things going (I can’t get enough of Mary J.) and was sorry to see that HBO did not broadcast the opening prayer by Bishop Gene Robinson.


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Reporting on Vatican reports

The Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education completed its report on the health of U.S. seminaries and U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops posted the report this week. The in-depth look at seminaries was prompted by the sexual abuse crisis that received so much attention a few years ago. The report was generally positive and said that the situation at seminaries had improved in certain areas. The Catholic News Service sums it up this way:


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Star prayer power

The following bit of local news may not be the best evidence of a declining newspaper industry, or the media’s overall challenges in covering religion, but I must say a word about The Indianapolis Star‘s decisions to cut the short prayer on page A2 next to the chuckle and horoscope and then bring it back a couple of weeks later.


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Faith-free Tebow? II

Since so many of you liked talking about Florida Gator two-time champion quarterback Tim Tebow, I thought I would drop this quick follow-up on last night’s national championship BCS championship game. I managed to avoid most of the game until the final quarter, but I happened to stay awake for Tebow’s (short) post-game interview that included a shout out to his Lord and savior Jesus Christ.


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Death on a Thursday morning

Yesterday morning, I asked my 16-month-old daughter to pick out one of her books and bring it to me. Instead of “That’s Not My Bunny . . .” or some similar book, she picked up my latest copy of First Things and went through it page by page. It made me laugh but also made me immediately wonder how the journal’s founder Richard John Neuhaus was doing. I knew he’d been in poor health and had received last rites.


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