LGBTQ

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First in a series? Ambitious AP feature examines waves of stress hitting Catholic priests

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When covering complex, controversial subjects, the journalism educators at the Poynter Institute have long stressed the importance of paying attention to criticisms made by “stakeholders” linked to a story.

What’s a “stakeholder”? Basically, it is a person or group directly linked to the core issues and information included in a news story, people whose lives and work will be directly affected by this coverage.

That’s the first thing I thought about when I saw the ambitious Associated Press feature that ran with this headline: “US Catholic priests describe turmoil amid sex abuse crisis.” It’s an important article addressing a topic — waves of change sweeping over a declining number of priests — that would be hard to cover in a book-length report, let alone a newspaper feature.

What do the ultimate “stakeholders” — Catholic priests — think of this story?

As you would expect, the story had to find a way to focus — focusing special attention on the work of one priest who symbolizes larger trends. Thus, readers are introduced to the Rev. Mark Stelzer, a 62-year-old professor and chaplain at a Catholic college in Western Massachusetts who is also a recovering alcoholic who helps others wrestling with that demon. Now, he has been asked to serve as administrator at a nearby parish with 500 families. This brings us to the heart of this report:

Weighing on the entire Catholic clergy in the U.S. is the ripple effect of their church’s long-running crisis arising from sex abuse committed by priests. It’s caused many honorable priests to sense an erosion of public support and to question the leadership of some of their bishops. That dismay is often compounded by increased workloads due to the priest shortage, and increased isolation as multi-priest parishes grow scarce. They see trauma firsthand. Some priests minister in parishes wracked by gun violence; others preside frequently over funerals of drug-overdose victims.


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Thinking with N.T. Wright and Ryan Burge: Let's talk specifics of that 'evangelical' crisis

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If you follow top-tier American media, you know that retired Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright is in the news right now. This is the kind of thing that happens when British intellectuals come to the United States to promote their new books.

Wright is a theologian known around the world as an apologist for a traditional, ecumenical brand of Christianity, to the point that some have said that his pew-level apologetics can be compared with C.S. Lewis.So what’s are the hot topics for Wright, as he tours in support of his new book, “The New Testament in Its World”?

Wait for it.

Well, have you heard that 81% of white evangelicals in American just love Donald Trump? And that American evangelicalism is in a state of crisis?With all of that in mind, let’s make this an N.T. Wright weekend, with some “think piece” input from two religion-beat professionals who will be ultra-familiar to GetReligion readers — Sarah Pulliam Bailey of The Washington Post and Emma Green of The Atlantic.

So Bailey’s breakfast Q&A ran with this headline: “ ‘A wakeup call:’ British theologian N.T. Wright on the prosperity gospel, climate change and Advent.” Here’s a sample:

Q: How do you compare Brexit and Trump, and how British Christians understand American evangelical support for Trump?

A: The same sort of movement propelled both events. With Brexit, we did not see the white evangelical support Trump had. The churches are probably divided. They’re probably mostly Remainers [who wanted Britain to remain in the European Union].

In Britain, the word “evangelical” doesn’t mean what it means in America.


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NBC News toasts Pete Buttigieg in a hit piece aimed (#Surprise) at the Salvation Army

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Here we go again. No doubt about it, one of the key stories of the day offers a fiery mix of politics, money, sexuality, social justice and, yes, religion.

I’m talking about this NBCNews.com headline: “Pete Buttigieg criticized for volunteering with Salvation Army.”

Stay tuned for upcoming debates featuring Democrats seeking the White House. Will this issue have legs in the news? Maybe. Maybe not. I think it depends on whether candidates on the woke side of the party decide that it is good or bad for their prospects for an openly gay candidate to even hint at a willingness for dialogue and tolerance on religious-liberty issues.

Meanwhile, there is this journalism question: Does anyone at NBC News realize that the Salvation Army is a CHURCH as well as a major provider of help to the poor? Hold that thought. First, here is the overture:

Pete Buttigieg is drawing criticism after pictures of him volunteering for the Salvation Army, which has historically opposed gay rights, recently resurfaced on social media.

In the photos, Buttigieg is seen standing outside Peggs restaurant in South Bend, Indiana, where he is the mayor, for the Red Kettle Ring Off, an annual charity initiative during which public officials compete to raise money for the Salvation Army. While the photos were from 2017, Buttigieg, who has surged to the top of many polls of Democratic presidential candidates in Iowa, has been participating in the event since at least 2015, according to local news reports. He also held an event at the Salvation Army in South Bend last year. 

“I know the photos are two years old, but still, I can't help but wonder if Mayor Pete just looks at what LGBTQ activists have been working on for years and then chooses to spite it,” tweeted Zach Ford, press secretary of the Alliance for Justice, a progressive judicial advocacy organization.


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Serious question: Is Buttigieg being gay a reason for his low support among black voters in the South?

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“If your mother says she loves you, check it out,” urges an old journalistic adage.

What about a prominent liberal pastor saying something? Should the news media check that out, too?

More on those questions in a moment. But first, I’ll back up and offer a little background: Pete Buttigieg, the South Bend, Ind., mayor who has emerged as a surprisingly strong contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, went to church Sunday in North Carolina.

As The Associated Press helpfully pointed out, Buttigieg even brought his own Bible to worship.

Along with AP, the Washington Post and the Raleigh News & Observer — and probably other news organizations that I missed — offered interesting takes on the white gay mayor’s visit to a church pastored by a prominent left-wing black activist. Give credit to the Post for noting that (1) Buttigieg is an Episcopalian, and (2) the church he visited is affiliated with the Disciples of Christ — both theologically progressive denominations.

The stories get into poverty and other crucial issues, but I’m going to focus on a specific point raised in all three articles: the connection, if any, between Buttigieg’s sexual orientation and his low support among black voters in the Bible Belt.

Let’s start with AP’s reference to that issue:

Buttigieg discussed topics from health care to climate change during the forum that followed the church’s Sunday service, to which a campaign spokesman confirmed that the mayor brought his own Bible. Even before the candidate began speaking, however, Barber sought to defuse a question that has proven thorny for Buttigieg in his struggle to break through with black voters: whether being gay plays any role in his troubles with a constituency that can trend more socially conservative.

Barber swatted away what he called the “false narrative” of division between African American and LGBTQ voters, and after the service reiterated that any portrayal of tension between the two communities is “not factual.”


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Press doesn't get why a Catholic priest would withhold Communion from outspoken gay judge

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Debates about Catholic priests denying Holy Communion to U.S. pro-choice politicians or public officials have been around for more than a decade; indeed I covered that exact issue back in 2009. It was quite the raging issue in 2004 as well when the archbishop of St. Louis refused Communion to Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry.

The issue hasn’t faded at all; in fact this Washington Post piece, published a few months ago, notes that Democratic politicians are still being denied the sacrament if they have come out in favor of abortion.

Now there’s a priest in East Grand Rapids, Mich., who is doing something similar — not about abortion, but same-sex marriage. Here is how one TV station covered it. It happens to be the local NBC affiliate.

EAST GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Judge Sara Smolenski, chief judge of the Kent County District Court, has been denied Communion at the church where she has been a parishioner for more than six decades because she is married to a woman.

It is a move that for many was the final straw in a pattern of behavior that has them calling for the removal of a priest — a priest who came to St. Stephen Catholic Church about three years ago.

Right there you can see where this article is a set-up. The second paragraph could also read that: “It is a move that several in the parish applauded because they felt it was high time St. Stephen’s took a stand on crucial Catholic doctrines.”

Instead, you hear the dissidents’ point of view for the entire first half of the story.

In 1966, under the leadership of Rev. Msgr. Edward N. Alt, St. Stephen Catholic School became the first integrated Catholic school in Metro Grand Rapids and had a student body that was nearly 40 percent non-Catholic.

This tradition of inclusion and acceptance would be the essence of the school and the church for 50 years.

But now, some here say that is changing.


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Thinking along with Stephen L. Carter: What's at stake in Salvation Army culture wars?

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We live in an age, alas, of predictable reporting and predictable opinions coming from the keyboards of predictable writers.

However, Yale University law professor Stephen L. Carter has, for a couple of decades, been one of the pundits who — in his essays, columns and books — very, very rarely fit into the predictable molds seen in the chattering classes.

This weekend’s think piece is a perfect example of Carter doing that thing that he does, in a Bloomberg column that ran under this double-decker headline: “The Salvation Army's Actions Speak Louder Than Its Theology — Judge volunteers on their actions, not their religious beliefs.”

The hook for the piece is, logically enough, the Thanksgiving weekend and the appearance — from coast to coast — of the familiar Salvation Army red kettles and the bell ringers asking shoppers to make donations to help the poor and needy.

This image of American life and community has, of course, become controversial in recent years for a simple reason — the Salvation Army is a church that clings (hello President Barack Obama) to traditional Christian teachings on the Bible, marriage and sex. Toss in the decision by Chick fil-A leaders to add some waffling to their chicken and you have a mess in the public square.

So what does Carter have to add to this discussion?

… (In) keeping with the season of giving thanks, I want to focus on a different problem: the effects on the volunteer sector of any boycott based on the teachings of a religion. 

Religious groups, regardless of their theology, provide assistance to millions who are unable to help themselves. Without religiously motivated volunteers, we would have scarcely any volunteer sector at all.


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Let's give thanks that it's Dolly time, even if New York folks don't get all that faith stuff

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Greetings and a Happy Thanksgiving nod from here in the mountains of East Tennessee, a unique and proud region that includes the kingdom of Dollywood.

I think that folks in these parts — the ones who pay attention to elite media — are a bit bemused about the current wave of Dolly Parton-mania in places like New York City and Los Angeles. I mean, lots of people in these hills have thought, for ages, that Parton deserved more attention and respect as an artist, songwriter and business maven.

There are mysteries about Dolly, of course, and I’m not just talking about all those questions about whether her arms are covered with tattoos and where she heads every now and then — under cover — with her husband in their RV. This is one colorful lady.

But here is another mystery: It’s clear that Parton’s intense Christian upbringing is still a part of who she is, but it’s hard to know what she actually believes. This is a subject that, like politics, Parton is very careful with in public remarks. Then again, one can always listen to what she says in her music.

But this brings back to the current Dolly-mania, which recently reached the ultimate high ground — The New York Times. Once again we face the same issues that I wrote about the other day in a post with this headline: “LA and New York scribes ask: How does Dolly avoid politics while embracing gays and church folks?”

In that post I wrote the following, which also fits with this New York Times article (“Is There Anything We Can All Agree On? Yes: Dolly Parton”):

How good, how complete, is this article? How you answer that question will probably pivot on which of the following questions matter the most to you: (1) How does Parton appeal to Democrats and Republicans at the same time? Or (2) how has Dolly, for a decade or two, managed to be a superstar with both LGBTQ and evangelical audiences?

Once again, we are talking about Parton as safe ground in the Donald Trump era.

Once again, there are nods to her unique stance in cultural no-man’s land between drag-queen culture and Pentecostal hillbillies.


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Des Moines Register offers master class on writing a slanted United Methodist-LGBTQ story

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I have never been a full-time police-and-cops reporter, but I have pulled an occasional shift on that difficult beat — which tends to involve lots of work with legal terms linked to crimes and trials.

At the same time, I have covered religion news in various capacities for 40-plus years and — this is a commentary on the divisive times in which we live — that kind of work also requires a working knowledge of legal lingo.

In the past, I have noticed that when someone is “charged” with breaking a law, that means there are debates about whether the person has committed the acts in question. In other words, officials have “charged” that a person did x, y or z, but there needs to be some kind of trial to determine if that charge is true.

With that in mind, please note the overture in this amazingly slanted Des Moines Register story — circulated via the USA Today Network — about another LGBTQ ordination conflict inside the bitterly divided United Methodist Church. Here’s the headline: “Iowa pastor facing church trial for being 'self-avowed practicing homosexual' takes leave of absence.”

An openly queer Iowa City pastor charged with "being a self-avowed practicing homosexual" in violation of United Methodist Church law will take an indefinite leave of absence, according to an agreement announced Wednesday.

A trial date had already been set when the Rev. Anna Blaedel requested a "just resolution," which focuses on "repairing any harm to people and communities," according to the Iowa Conference of the United Methodist Church. 

Blaedel, who identifies as queer and uses the pronouns they and them, expressed frustration and disappointment in a letter published in full by the Gazette. …

"Today we are naming together the truth that it is not currently possible for me to continue my ministry in the context of the Iowa Annual Conference, nor the UMC," wrote Blaedel, the former director of the Wesley Center at the University of Iowa. "That is not the truth I want to come to, but it has been, is being, revealed as true. ... I am no longer willing to subject my body and soul and life to this particular violence.

Now, let’s read this carefully.


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Los Angeles Times vs. Fuller Seminary: Is fair, accurate coverage even possible these days?

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The Los Angeles Times hasn’t had a religion reporter in years and the newspaper’s lapses in religion coverage get embarrassing after awhile.

Such was their Nov. 21 story about a lesbian student at Fuller Seminary who is suing the school because they expelled her after they learned she was married to a woman. As I read it, certain parts sounded quite familiar until I realized I’d commented on a similar story by Religion News Service last July.

Once again, I have to remind folks that doctrinal covenants, creeds and behavior codes are something students agree to, and often sign a document attesting their compliance to, when they enroll. They are choosing to join a voluntary association defined by a set of doctrines, some about moral theology.

So here we go, again.

Joanna Maxon, a 53-year-old Christian mother of two, was searching for ways to advance in her career as a supervisor and began looking into graduate schools.

She decided on Fuller Theological Seminary, a religious graduate school based in Pasadena, because it combined things she valued: her faith and her studies.

We know the middle of this story — they kicked her out.

Now, Maxon, who lives with her wife Tonya Minton in Fort Worth, is suing Fuller, alleging the college violated Title IX rules that forbid educational institutions from discriminating against students on the basis of sex.

Paul Southwick, Maxon’s attorney, alleges the school also violated the Unruh Civil Rights Act and is seeking compensation of at least $500,000 to cover attorney fees and Maxon’s federally funded student loans, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in a U.S. District Court in Central California.

Southwick said that because Fuller accepted federal aid and had not received a religious exemption, it must adhere to federal laws, including Title IX.

OK, did anyone bother to look at the sexual standards page on Fuller’s web site?


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