Terry Mattingly

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First miracle of John Paul II?

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Here is a lovely little Associate Press feature about an element of the pope’s life that has been hard to imagine in the past decade or so of sickness and decline — John Paul II the athlete. The story also includes a reference to what may be the first miracle of his papacy: “He has been a terrific sportsman,” said George Weigel, author of a biography of John Paul. A key clip: “As a young man he was a very active soccer player, a skier, a hiker. As a young priest he became very involved in a ministry to university students built around hiking, skiing and kayaking. . . . The first 15 years of his pontificate he took breaks to go skiing, and the miracle about that was the Italian paparazzi actually left him alone.” Anyone see any good photos from this era?


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Maybe it's just a coincidence? Maybe not

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The mainstream media are now working their way out of the hands-clutching-rosaries stage of their coverage, after a marathon of anchorpersons trying to project nonstop sympathy for the pope and those who loved him. Now we are transitioning into the serious coverage that will resemble the New Hampshire primary with vestments and incense (more on that later). The faux-political polls ought to start coming out any minute now.


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St. Pete Times keeps covering Terri news

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As one would expect, the best newspaper in Florida is continuing to cover the Terri Schiavo case, even as the national and global media focus on events at the Vatican. Here is a direct link to The St. Petersburg Times website dedicated to the life and death of Terri. The news for today is that the precise location of her body and its immediate fate remain unknown. There also is a roundup of clergy views on the case, most of which are pro-life, and, from recent coverage, a profile of the other woman in Michael Schiavo’s life. As the pope story grows, this link is the one to keep for the aftermath of the Schiavo drama.


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Another wrinkle in the Sunni story

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For those following the post-Christian Science Monitor Iraq story, Robert F. Worth of The New York Times has a new wrinkle. There is another sign that the Sunni leaders are not united, and what a symbolic sign it is — a group of clerics have urged their followers to join the Iraqi police. The key: “The edict, signed by 64 imams and religious scholars, was a striking turnaround for the clerics, who have often lashed out in sermons at the fledgling army and police force and branded them collaborators. Prominently missing from the signers was Harith al-Dari, the leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars and one of the most influential Sunni Arab clerics in Iraq, who is said to have close ties to the insurgency. Still, the directive, which carried the signature of Ahmed Hassan al-Taha, an imam at an important Baghdad mosque who has been a strong critic of the occupation, seemed to represent a significant step.”


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Memory eternal, media eternal

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Howard Kurtz is already up with a roundup of the final media issues in the Terri Schiavo case. Lots of links to people on the right as well as the left, but the emphasis once again is on the pundits. It you want another blast of the “I know what Terri Schiavo would have wanted” opinion, then by all means click here and read it. I expect more and more coverage now on the pope’s feeding tube as the press moves on to the next story. Reporter Daniel Williams at The Washington Post is already listening to the Catholic debates and, no surprise, finds that some are already not-so-gently asking if this pope is being a good Catholic at this moment. The key: Please help GetReligion spot the good and the bad in the hard news coverage in the next 48 hours or so. Let us hear from you.


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Let's play "Spot the loaded verb"

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Reuters religion editor Tom Heneghan has just used one of those verbs that taints an entire news story. At least, I think that “Pope’s ‘Living Will’ Wants Life Support to the End” is supposed to be a hard news story about the implications of a major papal address. Then again there is this: “The Catholic Church has traditionally taught that doctors and families could end artificial life-extending measures in good conscience if a dying patient’s prospects seemed hopeless. John Paul, who has long railed against a ‘culture of death’ he saw in abortion and artificial birth control, surprised moral theologians in a speech in March 2004 by insisting Catholics can no longer make such decisions even in extreme cases.” Whoa! Spot the loaded verb?


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