Politics

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Label this! Pope tells Congress everything starts with defense of human life -- period

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There's no question that, for those reading the Pope Francis address to Congress through the lens of politics, the most newsworthy passages were his explicit references to immigration and climate change. Why? These words pointed to wedge issues between Democrats and Republicans that will almost certainly play a major role in the 2016 elections.

Also, there were powerful passages about the death penalty and the blood money earned through the international arms trade.

It was a remarkable scene, all the way around. What are the other nominations for a list of the deepest and most philosophical speeches ever delivered to Congress?

However, if you look at the pope's remarks through the lens of doctrine -- as Francis urged reporters to do days earlier -- then the crucial passage, the thesis statement, was this one:

We need to avoid a common temptation nowadays: to discard whatever proves troublesome. Let us remember the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Mt 7:12).

This Rule points us in a clear direction. Let us treat others with the same passion and compassion with which we want to be treated. Let us seek for others the same possibilities which we seek for ourselves. Let us help others to grow, as we would like to be helped ourselves. In a word, if we want security, let us give security; if we want life, let us give life; if we want opportunities, let us provide opportunities. The yardstick we use for others will be the yardstick which time will use for us. The Golden Rule also reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development.

This conviction has led me, from the beginning of my ministry, to advocate at different levels for the global abolition of the death penalty. I am convinced that this way is the best, since every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity ...


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Doctrine vs. politics: Think pieces to ponder during this week of Pope Francis

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Every now and then, normally on weekends, your GetReligionistas point readers toward what we call "think pieces" -- editorial features (as opposed to hard news) about topics that are directly linked to religion news and/or the mainstream press coverage of religion news.

As you would imagine, there has been a ton of this kind of writing this week with the pope visiting the media-rich Acela zone between Washington, D.C., and New York City. 

Pope Francis set the agenda for this in that off-the-cuff Shepherd One chat with reporters in which he tried to explain, well, as the headline from Time stated -- "Pope Francis: I Am Not a Liberal." The top of that essay added:

As Pope Francis flew to the United States for the first time, the pontiff assured journalists on the flight that he is not a liberal. Asked to comment on the many media outlets who are asking if the Pope is liberal, the Pope seemed bemused and decisive.
“Some people might say some things sounded slightly more left-ish, but that would be a mistake of interpretation,” he said before landing in the U.S. ... “If you want me to pray the creed, I’m willing to do it.”
He underscored the point: “It is I who follows the church … my doctrine on all this … on economic imperialism, is that of the social doctrine of the church.”

Did you see what happened there? Hint: It's pretty much whatever happens when a pope delivers a major address in a setting that journalists consider newsworthy, only this time the process was in reverse.

The journalists, thinking politics (the ultimate reality in the real world), asked the pope why "media outlets" think he is a liberal and the pope, starting with a remark about praying the creed, responded in terms of doctrine.

The key phrase is "my doctrine on all of this."


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Pope in DC: Ssssshhhh! Francis also slipped away to visit the Little Sisters of the Poor

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Whenever the pope -- any pope, at any point in time -- comes to town, the visit generates thousands of words of content from speeches, homilies, remarks by dignitaries and in reactions from Catholics and others on the street. It's a classic case of the big journalism question: OK. What's the news here? What goes at the top of the main story?

Throw in the superstar status Pope Francis currently enjoys with the mainstream press and this question becomes even more important.

In an early report on the pope's packed day in D.C., The Washington Post took a safe and responsible tact -- casting a broad net over a host of issues.

But what if, at the end of the day, Francis added a new and unexpected event to his calendar, one linked to issues that have dominated U.S. headlines this past year both at the U.S. Supreme Court and in Congress? Would that event be worthy of prime coverage? Hold. That. Thought.

First, here is how the Post opened an early version of its summary story:

A fast-moving Pope Francis plunged into his first U.S. visit with gusto Wednesday, embracing the adulation of jubilant crowds as he crisscrossed Washington and confronted enduring controversies that included global warming, immigration and the clergy abuse scandal.
The popular pontiff, who has captured the imagination of religious and secular Americans with his humble style, began to establish an in-the-flesh identity as a committed champion of the poor, the dispossessed and the planet. But he also positioned himself as a loyal adherent of church teachings and hierarchies that are much less popular than he is, pushing back, Vatican watchers said, on efforts to enlist him on either side of the culture wars.
The pope thrilled a White House gathering by introducing himself as the son of immigrants and aligning himself with President Obama’s climate-change efforts. But he also echoed the call for religious liberty that conservatives claim as resistance to same-sex marriage and other fast-changing social mores.

Lots of content, touching on many topics. However, at the end of the day Francis himself added a highly symbolic grace note -- slipping away to meet with members of the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order dedicated to helping the poor and elderly.


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New York Times celebrates Pelosi's 'unwavering faith' in opposing Catholic teachings

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Every few weeks, it seems, mainstream media celebrate a "devout" or "faithful" Catholic who takes a brave stand against church structures and strictures. This week in the New York Times, it's Nancy Pelosi.

"Strong Catholic Faith," says the headline about the California Democrat. "Unwavering faith," says the lede. And papal teachings? She reads encyclicals with "rapt attention."

With one exception: abortion. That's a "core value" for her politics and her right as a woman.

The time peg, of course, is the planned address of Pope Francis at a joint session of Congress on Thursday -- a Congress, as the Times reports, that is more than 30 percent Catholic. A further ingredient is the current debate over defunding Planned Parenthood, in the wake of widely publicized videos said to show that the group profits from selling aborted fetal body parts.

Where to bring all this together? For the Times, it's one of the best-known members of Congress , who champions "family planning" and embraces a "strong Catholic faith:"

For Representative Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, the issue of abortion rights has always been ancillary to her unwavering faith and deep approbation for generations of popes. “I actually agree with the pope on more issues than many Catholics who agree with him on one issue,” Ms. Pelosi said in an interview in her office at the Capitol last week.
But that one issue, abortion, is adding a thick layer of tension to the otherwise convivial mood as Congress prepares for the arrival of Pope Francis this week. The Capitol is ensnared in an imbroglio over funding for Planned Parenthood and a host of other abortion-related fights that could lead to a government shutdown next week.

Pelosi's Catholic creds? Well, she grew up in a "large Catholic family, for which faith was central and reverence for the pope was assured." She attended a Catholic high school and a Catholic women's college.  And she has met an amazing four popes, starting with Pius XII while she was in eighth grade.

She also reads papal teaching letters avidly, the Times says:


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Washington Post feature sticks Chaput inside an 'omniscient anonymous' voice box

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When it comes to biblical images of good and evil, you start off with God, as opposed to Satan, and then you have Christ, as opposed to the mysterious end-times tyrant called the Antichrist.

Now with that in mind, it's safe to say that in current news speak, Pope Francis is pretty much the top of the heap when it comes to good-guy status. It really doesn't matter that the edited Francis who appears in most mainstream news coverage ("Who am I to judge?") is not quite the same pope who appears in the full texts of his homilies and writings ("It is not 'progressive' to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life").

Thus, it's safe to say that calling a Catholic archbishop the anti-Francis is not a compliment.

Apparently, there are Catholics who have pinned that label on Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput and they have shared their views with The Washington Post. Readers do not know who these Catholics (and probably some journalists) are, however, because that would require Post editors to ask some of their reporters to attribute crucial information to named sources. That would be old-school journalism. That would be bad, or so it seems.

The new Post profile of Chaput contains some interesting information, including some drawn from pieces of an email interview with the archbishop. It is also positive that Post editors posted the email-interview text online. I wonder if this was a condition attached to the interview, or whether editors realized that it would be awkward if Chaput posted the text, thus allowing readers to see what he actually said. Either way, this was a constructive act.

(At this point I will stress, as I always do, that I met Chaput decades ago when he was a young Capuchin-Franciscan priest and campus minister in urban Denver and I was a newcomer on the local religion beat. We have been talking about issues of faith, mass media and popular culture ever since.)

Let's return to those anonymous Catholic voices. The Post piece opens with an anecdote about Chaput's skill at blunt, quotable remarks, some of which have been known to anger those on the other side of hot-button issues in public life. Then it launches into a classic example of the "omniscient anonymous voice" narrative that has, in recent months, dominated much of this newspaper's coverage of moral, cultural and religious issues.

This long summary passage -- the story's thesis -- frames the contents of the entire piece. Try to find some clearly identified sources.


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Muslim-Americans are uncomfortably yanked into center of new political storm

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Muslim-Americans are uncomfortably yanked into center of new political storm

Time for beat reporters to dig out their lists of good U.S. Muslim sources again.

Quite suddenly, the United States has tumbled into a major interfaith moment. The current episode began with a New Hampshire town hall question tossed at GOP candidate Donald Trump on September 17. In case you missed it, a man wearing a TRUMP T-shirt stated:

“We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims. We know our current president is one. You know he’s not even an American -- birth certificate, man. But anyway, we have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That’s my question. When can we get rid of them?”

 Note: Get rid of alleged training camps? Or get rid of American Muslims, who are the country’s “problem”?  

Either way it was an unusually perfervid attack, compounded by raising of the oft-refuted but persistent claims that President Barack Obama is Muslim and also wasn’t born in America so  is an illegal president. Trump’s fuzzy response didn’t address any of that and he was uncharacteristically silent the following day.

Meanwhile Washington’s Council on American-Islamic Relations was quick on the uptake, as usual. Its chief lobbyist Robert McCaw said that “in failing to challenge the questioner’s anti-Muslim bigotry and his apparent call for the ethnic cleansing of American Muslims, Donald Trump sent the message that Islamophobia is acceptable.”


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Did readers ask your Pope Francis questions during the Washington Post Q&A?

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As part of our ongoing efforts to gracefully point readers toward the work of former GetReligionistas, a task that we do with great enthusiasm, let me note that the religion-beat specialists at The Washington Post held an online forum today in which they took questions from readers about the upcoming Acela zone events involving Pope Francis.

One of the two, of course, is Sarah Pulliam Bailey, who was a scribe at this website for several years. Trivia note: Who can name the previous member of her family to write for GetReligion?

The long and the short of it is that Bailey and veteran religion-beat specialist Michelle Boorstein cannot (a) help readers sneak into the White House reception or (b) avoid the hassles of what is sure to be an amazingly complex several days in the already stressed mass-transit system of Washington, D.C.

However, I thought that GetReligion readers might want to know if participants in the Post forum asked some of the same questions that folks who frequent this site might want to have seen asked. So click here and check it out.

Meanwhile, here are a few sample questions:


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RNS feature on Yom Kippur misses the basics: What's the day about?

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As Yom Kippur approaches on sundown tomorrow, the Religion News Service runs a heartfelt story on non-Jews who support the Jewish community.

A heartfelt story that’s nevertheless haunted by religious ghosts. But let's praise its merits first.

The article looks at a decade-old trend among Reform synagogues: calling non-Jewish congregants to the bima, or platform, for a formal blessing from the rabbi. It begins with the leader who started it, Rabbi Janet Marder of California.

Back in 2004, as RNS tells it, Marder called 100 people, mostly spouses of Jews, to the bima, then said:

“What we want to thank you for today is your decision to cast your lot with the Jewish people by becoming part of this congregation, and the love and support you give to your Jewish partner.
“Most of all, we want to offer our deepest thanks to those of you who are parents, and who are raising your sons and daughters as Jews,” she continued. “In our generation, which saw one-third of the world’s Jewish population destroyed … every Jewish boy and girl is a gift to the Jewish future.”
The reaction to the blessing that followed — an outpouring of emotion and gratitude  — surprised Marder. “I thought it would be a nice thing to do,” she said. “I was not prepared for the way people were weeping.”

Journalistically, the story is a creative break from the usual Yom Kippur fare, which often takes the form of politics (this year, Pope Francis' visit to the U.S.) or food (tasty ways to follow the all-day fast).  The RNS article instead takes some well-known facts -- like the insularity of many synagogues and the percentage of Jews who marry outside the faith -- and tells what a group of temples are doing about it.

And rather than coast on assumptions or low-level reactions, RNS digs up data and interviews leaders like Rabbi Rick Jacobs of the Union for Reform Judaism:


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Pope Francis press watch: @JamesMartinSJ kicks off the week with #PapalGoofs

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If you are interested in (a) the Jesuits, (b) old-school Catholic liberalism, (c) humor, (d) religion news or (e) all of the above, then you really need to be following Father James Martin on Twitter -- @JamesMartinSJ. You are really going to want to jump on board this week to get his take on the @Pontifex visit to America's elite media corridor between Washington, D.C., and New York City.

Father Martin is well known for his popular books (such as "Between Heaven and Mirth" and "Jesus: A Pilgrimage"), for his analysis work at America magazine and as the official chaplain of the old "Colbert Report" on Comedy Central. He is also, as you would expect, a skilled observer of religion-beat work in the American press.

This weekend, he got an early jump on the papal-coverage tsunami by starting a lively hashtag noting some early mistakes made by print and broadcast journalists in their coverage of the Pope Francis stop in Cuba -- #PapalGoofs. He was very gentle in this series of corrections, providing no URLs pointing directly to examples of these media mistakes. Surely some of these helpful tips were offered as preemptive strikes? 

Obviously, #PapalGoofs refers to goofs that journalists may or may not make while covering the pope, as opposed to goofs that observers believe have been made by the pope. Francis critics will need to start their own hashtag.

We will jump into those tweets in a moment -- Bobby Ross, Jr., style -- but first I want to note that many, or even most, of the mistakes illustrated in the first (let's hope he continues) #PapalGoofs stream are addressed in the online stylebook of the Religion Newswriters Association. You may want to bookmark that right here at ReligionStylebook.com. 

Now, here we go. And the last shall be first:


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