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Here we go again. It’s time to chase another ghost. In this case there is a slim possibility that the following tragic story from Russia contains no real religion angle whatsoever.
But before we get into that, raise your cyber-hands if you think one of the most important stories in the year — think religious liberty, think higher education, think politics — is the growing evidence of deep, bitter rifts inside American Catholicism linked to (a) basic matters of doctrine and (b) the degree to which people practice the faith (the old reality of the “pew gap” statistics) in sacraments and worship?
Anyone who has been paying attention in recent decades knows that large segments of American Catholic culture — especially in academia — operate with a kind of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when to comes to a variety of doctrinal and social issues. This is the reality, for example, that shaped the fierce debates about the late Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Consitiution Ex Corde Ecclesia, addressing issues linked to Catholic education.
There is much to discuss in the feature story on Rick Santorum’s faith that has been served up by The New York Times. There is lots of interesting information, some questionable information and then a pretty large chunk of missing information.
Gentle readers, I have spent much of the day dodging tornadoes and hail on the interstate from Jackson, Tenn., to Guitar Town and I am exhausted. It will take all the energy I have left to type a few paragraphs that will point GetReligion readers toward one of the must-read journalistic items of the day.
To tell you the truth, I have always thought that it is very easy for first-person journalism — especially arts and entertainment criticism — to slip into vague, self-centered mush.
One of the terms that journalists hear during many continuing education sessions at the Poynter Institute down in Florida is “stakeholder.” Basically, a stakeholder is someone whose life will be directly affected by the accuracy and fairness of a story.
Every now and then, GetReligion readers send us the URLs for stories that they assume we will dislike — often because of the actual religious content of these pieces.
