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When elected officials promote BS about politics or world affairs or the state of the economy, it’s a reporters responsibility to let readers know. (Not saying it happens often enough, but that is the expectation.) But what about when a pol says something religious that doesn’t pass the smell rest?
I realize that many GetReligion readers are very, very, very tired of reading posts about the mainstream press coverage of the internal Catholic disputes about the doctrinal and liturgical content of the funeral rites for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.
The other day a reader sent in a story submission with the note, “The story does a good job of laying out the canon law of the bishops’ retirement and why this is curious.” It included a link to a very brief Associated Press report about Pope Benedict XVI accepting the early retirement of an outspoken bishop in Pennsylvania. At the time, it didn’t seem terribly noteworthy, but it was just a straightforward and concise summary of canon law.
Since starting to write for GetReligion last year, I’ve become increasingly aware that there are outposts in American religious life that rarely get much, if any attention from the mainstream media. One of these (can you say Eckhart Tolle, anyone?) is New Age spirituality — and beliefs that syncretize New Age beliefs with Christian or Jewish practices.
Okay, I know readers are getting testy about all of the Ted Kennedy coverage (believe me, it’s wearing on me, too) but I have just one final story to highlight. It’s not about Kennedy per se but it uses his death as a hook to discuss the death of large Irish-American families in general. The New York Times story by Michael Wilson is worth highlighting because it does what so few stories about fertility do — it discusses how religion plays a role in the number of children women have. Huzzah! After making the case that Irish-American family size has plummeted, we’re told:
On Saturday, a multi-bylined story in the Washington Post wrote that terrorists became helpful intelligence assets after — and only after — they were subjected to the CIA’s harshest interrogation methods, including waterboarding.
Bacchanals at his residence, liaisons with prostititutes, an ambiguous relationship with a teenage girl — allegations against the Italian Prime Minister have been roiling the country for months.
During a recent post about the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy, I used the term “cafeteria Catholic” and then — with great haste — emphasized that this condition exists on the right side of the political fence, as well.
In terms of political content, the unofficial state funeral (video here) of Sen. Edward Kennedy was pretty normal, with pews full of presidents and prose full of allusions to legislation that helped the masses, with President Barack Obama in full civil-religion flight.
