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The papal visit is over, which means that we have only one major media ritual left to survive — a final wave of “what it all meant” features. It’s hard not to note that these stories will serve as logical bookends to those “what his visit will mean” features that ran just over a week ago. Please know that I am not knocking these journalistic rites. After all, I plan to write a wrap-up column myself, this week.
So Pope Benedict XVI moved on up the coast to New York and, as you would imagine, the newspaper of record in those parts is packed with coverage today. We could do an entire day or two on this here blog simply trying to scan all of that. But did I miss any editorials or op-eds today?
Actually, there isn’t a ghost in the Barack Obama “Bittergate” fuss. The religion element has been right there front and center (or to the left of center) all along.
As we continue to ride the papal tsunami, it appears that The Politico has another interesting story all to itself (unless I have missed it elsewhere and, if so, please correct me).
Pope Benedict XVI held a private meeting yesterday with a small circle of victims of clergy abuse, which, following a surprisingly large number of references to the issue in sermons and speeches, steered the mainstream media coverage in a totally different direction here in Washington, D.C.
Historian Martin Marty once told me that many people have a definition of “ecumenism” that goes something like this: “I don’t believe very much and you don’t believe very much, so we must have a lot in common.”
Here’s the text of President Bush’s speech at the White House. Then, here’s the pope’s statement at the White House.
One of our goals here at GetReligion is to find stories in mainstream journalism that are “haunted” by religion ghosts, which we define as a clear religious element or theme that the reporters and editors either didn’t notice or simply ignored.
