Immigration

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Dear Washington Post editors: Ask some orthodox Catholics why THEY oppose Trump

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You knew this story was coming sooner or later, in The Washington Post as well as in every other mainstream news outlet. The understated Post headline: "Donald Trump has a massive Catholic problem."

Of course he does. I mean, let's think it through.

Raise your hand if you are surprised that the majority of Catholics and ex-Catholics who oppose their church's defense of ancient Christian doctrines on sex, marriage, the defense of life from conception to grave and related issues are going to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Raise your hand if you are surprised that Catholics who say they support those teachings, but have not defended these doctrines in public life or even a voting booth since, oh, 1973, are going to vote for Clinton.

Raise your hand if you are surprised that millions of Latino Catholics are going to vote against Donald Trump.

So far, it's easy to do the math. So what is the interesting question in this piece of news? Hint. You will not find the answer in the Post piece that is currently getting lots of promotion. First, here are some key facts right up top:

Yes, the man who once feuded with the pope (how soon we forget that actually happened) is cratering among Catholics.


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Burkinis, Ghazala Khan and the overlooked issue of female religious free choice

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Burkinis, Ghazala Khan and the overlooked issue of female religious free choice

You should by now be familiar with the burkini brouhaha, and French officials' (all of them male, as far as I can tell) unconvincing claims that they're acting in the public good by trying to help liberate Muslim women from Muslim male-imposed dictates about allowable female beachwear.

Frankly, I think its a ridiculous overreaction to the very real problem of Islamist terrorism that has France on edge and desperate to find a successful strategy to assimilate (or at least pacify) it's growing Muslim population.

It has made for some strange bedfellows, though. Many journalists who are normally harshly critical -- and rightly so -- of the horrible treatment of women in some Muslim-majority nations have opposed the burkini bans put in place by several French beach towns, and backed by Prime Minister Manuel Valls.

Journalistically, this issue underscores the complexity of balancing respect for religious tradition -- or religious freedom -- in an age of Western secularism. Put another way, as the French seem to be doing, it's about preserving local social norms (scanty female beach wear) in an age of globalized (Muslim) population movements.

These overlapping complexities can be downright confusing for journalists unschooled in the importance of religious traditions to individual and group identity. At the same time they're what, for me, make the religion beat so intellectually compelling.


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About that Pew survey on politics and the pulpit: So what makes an issue POLITICAL?

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Many Americans Hear Politics From the Pulpit

That was the takeaway from a recent national survey of thousands of churchgoers by the Pew Research Center.

This was the lede from Religion News Service:

(RNS) Most American churchgoers are hearing politics from the pulpits of their churches during this presidential election season, according to a new survey.
Nearly two-thirds of the respondents (64 percent) in the survey released Monday (Aug. 8) by the Pew Research Center say their clergy have spoken about at least one political or social issue in the spring and early summer.

And from the Los Angeles Times:

At wedding receptions, barbershops and on park benches, this year's unusual presidential campaign is often an unavoidable topic of discussion.
As usual in presidential races, it's also seeping into houses of worship across the nation. 

From Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton, and from abortion to immigration, many Americans are hearing politics from the pulpit, according to a survey released this week by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. 

But here's my question: Are Americans really hearing political issues from the pulpit?


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Catholic Church in Poland: 'Powerful' and 'conservative,' except when it isn’t

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World Youth Day is under way in Poland, with up to 1.5 million expected at the main events. American news readers, of course, have learned to expect something else on such occasions: a long, ponderous look at church and state by the New York Times.

And the Gray Lady comes through, with nearly 1,500 words on the church in Poland -- mainly how cozy it is with Polish conservatism and, of course, how out of step its traditional faith is with that of Pope Francis:

WARSAW -- When Pope Francis arrives in Poland this week to attend World Youth Day, one of the major events on the Catholic calendar, he will face a politically powerful church closely tied to the country’s new right-wing government. The church here carries a deep strain of social conservatism that does not always align with the pope’s more open and welcoming views.

Is there a contest for the number of liberal catch-terms in a single paragraph? Because it looks like the Times is trying to win it. You gotcher "right-wing." You gotcher "politically powerful." You gotcher "conservatism" -- a word used in various forms four times, including the headline: "Pope Francis Will Encounter a Socially Conservative Church in Poland."

One of our Faithful Readers fumed over what she saw as a "prism of anti-Catholic bias." She saw "socially conservative" as the Times' semi-curse term that means "following church teachings." 

Actually, I liked the article better than that. For one, it quotes Polish sources instead of using the "sources say" phrase, which often covers for a reporter's own opinion. The seven named sources include church leaders, a theologian and leaders of Poland's political parties. 

The Times also establishes the prominence of faith in Polish history and society. It says 92 percent of Poles identify as Catholic, and 40 percent attend weekly -- higher than other Catholic countries.


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So is 'evangelical Catholic' a religious term or a political term? The honest answer: yes

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So is 'evangelical Catholic' a religious term or a political term? The honest answer: yes

After all the the press attention dedicated to Donald Trump's wooing of evangelicals, it's time to get down to what really matters in American politics -- the never-ending battle over Catholics who regularly or semi-regularly visit church pews.

Yes, it helps Democrats if evangelical Protestants are not terribly excited about the GOP nominee and, thus, are more likely to vote with clenched teeth or even to stay home. This time around, Trump has strong supporters among the Religious Right old guard, but he also has strong, strong critics among solid, conservative Christian leaders (as opposed to the small, but press-friendly, world of progressive evangelicals).

But the big game is among Catholic voters. While lapsed and cultural Catholics are solidly in the Democratic Party camp, along with those in the elite "progressive Catholic" camp, the real question is what happens among millions of ordinary Sunday-morning Catholics and the much smaller number of traditional Catholics who are even more dedicated, in terms of participation in daily Mass, Confession and the church's full sacramental life. This is where the true "swing voters" are found. Does Trump have a prayer with those voters? We will see.

What does this have to do with the "evangelical Catholic" tag that has been claimed by Gov. Mike Pence, who got the VP nod from Trump? Hang on, because that connection came up during this week's "Crossroads" podcast conversation with host Todd Wilken. Click here to tune that in.

The term "evangelical Catholic" is highly controversial, for obvious reasons. In the media, this tends to be a negative term, applied either to people who were raised Catholic (see Pence) and are now evangelicals, or to Catholics who stress the church's ancient, orthodox teachings on moral and social issues on issues such as abortion, euthanasia and sex outside of marriage. Thus, these "evangelical Catholics" tend to be more popular with modern evangelicals than with the elite Catholics who often gather with journalists for cocktail parties on or near the Georgetown University campus.


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Muslims and the GOP: Charlotte Observer shuns real questions for public relations

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Good hustle, Charlotte Observer. You knew Rose Hamid staged a one-woman protest at Donald Trump's rally in South Carolina. So when she showed up in a hijab in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention, you  pounced with a profile and indepth on Muslim-American relations. 

But why the lame, propagandistic headline -- "Charlotte Muslim leader brings message of love to Republican convention"? You could have written "Triteness Alert!" in fewer words.

And the top of the story ain't no model of fresh reporting either:

Red flower pen in hand, Charlotte’s Rose Hamid spoke in Cleveland’s Public Square Monday, delivering the message she hopes to bring to a larger audience at this week’s Republican National Convention: that Islam is not a violent religion to be feared.
"It doesn’t have to be us versus them," she told a few dozen listeners. "These terrorist groups are not following the Islamic doctrine."

Hamid may be telegenic and articulate, as when she talked to the BBC after being tossed out of the rally in Rock Hill, S.C. But that doesn't make it a good idea to recycle clichés that could have been written by, say, Nihad Awad.

Especially because in this story, we heard directly from Awad, head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. He was in Cleveland the same day, saying, "We all have the same love for and commitment to America." Triteness by association, I guess.

Only in paragraph four does the Observer spell out its thesis: the contrast between loving, patriotic American Muslims and a political party that is turning against them:


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Women, rape, Germany and immigrants: What's missing in the news coverage?

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Only once in my life have I been surrounded by a mob of men.

I had just celebrated my 30th birthday in Jerusalem with friends and was heading for the southern Israeli city of Beersheva. To get there, I had to head through the Old City, out of the Damascus Gate, then somehow find the Egged bus terminal for the two-hour trip. I had just embarked on this route on a Friday afternoon just when crowds of Muslim men began leaving the Temple Mount after prayer. I was dressed modestly in a long skirt and long sleeves, but my head was not covered.

The street went from empty to packed in a few minutes. So many men –- I could see no women -- were pressed against me, I could have picked up my feet and been carried along. Then I felt someone reach under my skirt and make his way up my leg. Terrified, I whirled around and ordered him in English to back off. All the men around me laughed. Knowing things could get out of control fast and that I’d be on the losing end, I pushed my way through the crowd until I got through the gate.

A few years later when I was back in town with a different tour, I insisted that at least one of the men in our group accompany me at all times in the Old City to cut back on the harassment. Which is why I have a lot of sympathy for the 1,000-plus German women who have reported that they were sexually assaulted in Cologne and other cities on New Year’s Eve. You cannot imagine what it's like when it’s you against a crowd.

Earlier this month, the news came out that 2,000 men were involved in the attacks. That’s a small army, folks. But when the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle described the incidents, a key detail was missing: 

A Federal Criminal Police Agency (BKA) inquiry into the wide-spread New Year's Eve sexual assaults uncovered 900 cases of sexual crimes with over 1,200 victims, German media reported on Sunday.


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Who was behind the 'honor killing' of that Pakistani model? Conservatives!

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"Honor killings": It's hard to think of a more ironic phrase. In some lands, like Pakistan, it means to kill a relative -- most often a girl or woman -- because of anxieties over actual or perceived immorality.

It happened again with the weekend murder of Qandeel Baloch, who has been called the Pakistani Kim Kardashian for her many tweeted cheesecake photos, Facebook posts and appearances in videos. Baloch, 26, was strangled by a brother for "honorable" reasons.

At GetReligion, we've complained for years about the reticence of many media professionals to link the killings with some versions of Islam. And here we go again, with USA Today  blaming nebulously described "conservatives":

Baloch, whose real name was Fauzia Azeem, shot to fame and notoriety with a series of social media postings that would be tame by Western standards but were deeply scandalous by conservative Pakistani societal norms. She cultivated an outrageous public persona, recently promising to perform a public striptease if the Pakistani cricket team won a major tournament.
Baloch had a large following of more than 700,000 people on her official Facebook page. She posted recently she was “trying to change the typical orthodox mindset of people who don’t wanna come out of their shells of false beliefs and old practices.”

You know conservatives. Those are the guys who oppress women and hold back progress and cut welfare and keep out immigrants. The heavy implication is that in Pakistan and in the U.S., conservatives are pretty much alike.


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Musing about Brexit lessons in the literal birthplace of the Spanish Inquisition

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Musing about Brexit lessons in the literal birthplace of the Spanish Inquisition

As the repercussions from the momentous Brexit vote play out, I find myself in the charming and more than 1,000-year-old  hillside village of Sos del Rey Catolico in northeast Spain. Ferdinand III of Aragon, who with his wife Queen Isabella I, launched Cristobal Colon on his voyage to the New World -- and the start of the destruction of the indigenous tribes of the Americas -- was born here.

The royal couple also threw the Jews out of Spain and can lay claim to the Spanish Inquisition. Pretty accomplished, weren't they?

A day earlier I was in Madrid. When I arrived, a large banner hung from Madrid's City Hall, proclaiming in English, "Refugees Welcome." The following day, Spain held parliamentary elections in which gains by the conservative establishment made for banner headlines.

And the day after that, the "Refugees Welcome" banner was gone.

Was it a coincidence? A political decision? For all I know the banner lacked official approval in the first place.

But between the banner and my stay in Sos del Rey Catolico -- which, of course has its ancient and now Judenrein Jewish quarter that persists as a tourist site -- it all feels hopelessly tribal.

I've written here before that journalists need to understand that globalization has been and is about far more than cheaper products. That its about people -- people moved by dreams and a desire, perhaps "need" is a better word -- to be the consumers of those products and no longer only the producers. If they were lucky enough to have a job, that is.


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