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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).
After saying Mass yesterday, Pope Benedict XVI spoke to Catholic educators from around the country. His speech was not easy to write about, as it was long on philosophy and theology. Still, reporters should have done more than treat his speech almost exclusively in terms of the culture wars.
Major props to Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post for a wonderful story on the front page of yesterday’s Style section analyzing the significance of Pope Benedict XVI’s papal garments.
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.
Tmatt will write about The Washington Post’s fine job in linking the church sex-abuse crisis to “the wider context” of relativism. Three other dailies also mentioned Pope Benedict’s critique of secularism and relativism, though not to the extent that I think they should have.
Writing about a court’s opinion in a lawsuit should be easy. At least you may think it would be. The court’s opinion typically contains all the relevant facts, important quotes, the history of the law and how it applies in the particular case. For example, you’d expect that news reports of a opinion finding a coach’s participation in pre-football game prayers unconstitutional would include the words of the prayer, right?
With Pope Benedict XVI in town, the media are running with every angle imaginable on the Catholic Church.
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.”
Religion reporters have had some time to reflect on the raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Texas.
