Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Flash back a few years and you may remember all of those big headlines about the controversial decision by Pope Benedict XVI to park Vatican tanks on the lawn of Canterbury Cathedral and, thus, begin an ecclesiastical invasion of England. Click here for a refresher course.
Churches handle special needs children in different ways, some large enough to create dedicated ministries while others look at it on a case-by-case basis. As Bobby mentioned earlier, some churches can’t handle children with special needs and end up either subtly or explicitly rejecting them.
In a way, it just isn’t fair to criticize the reporters and editors who work in small and even midsized newspapers. They often are forced, by the facts on the ground, to be journalistic jacks of all trades to a degree that is often staggering. It is rare to have experienced people working on specialty beats (except, of course, for stories involving religion — oh, sorry, I meant to say sports).
Another day, another mainstream news report on the Womenpriests movement that seems to have been written with the assumptions that (a) people are Roman Catholics if they say they are Roman Catholics (as opposed to being believers who are in sacramental Communion with the Church of Rome) and (b) that the Church or Rome is, or should be, operating on organizational principles that are much looser than, say, the Church of England.
I’m not much for displays of civil religion but there’s one recent governmental intervention that really chaps my hide. That’s where the government requires citizens to submit prayers for governmental approval before they’re uttered.
Click here if you want to read the dead-tree-pulp Washington Post story about the final show by Oprah Winfrey. Or don’t. It really doesn’t matter, because this story is about a television event — not a signpost event in the development of pop and/or civic religion in American culture. Ditto for this news report in the New York Times.
I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that attempts to cover the following story are a mess. The hook is that South Floridian Henry Borga paid the Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church in West Palm Beach $10 to put bin Laden’s name on the prayer list there. The name appeared with four others under the mass intentions section in the church’s pamphlet, with a cross next to bin Laden’s name.
One would think, after decades of liberal Protestant battles about sexual morality, that each and every American journalist who comes near one of these stories would have the basic facts down pat.
First let me note that, even as we justifiably debate some questions about the life, death and burial of Osama bin Laden, I am one of those guys who think that mainstream press coverage of the religious elements of this story has actually been quite solid — in some cases pushing past the early answers from the White House and into unexplored territory.
