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On the same day that Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput was critiquing media coverage of the church, we got a real time example of some less-than-stellar religion reporting. Pope Benedict XVI landed in Africa this week and received breathless coverage because, as Amy Welborn put it over at Beliefnet, “the Pope has not booked a seat on the condom train.”
I don’t watch American Idol, but I think that if I lived in a foreign culture, that country’s version of the show would be a great place to learn about that particular society. This rather amazing Guardian story on Afghanistan’s Afghan Star television show gives readers a glimpse into a society that we generally only hear in the news when it relates to war, terrorism and international politics. As a reader noted, how often do we hear about the regular people from Afghanistan, the ones who have put up with multiple invasions, governments and a bleak future.
Yesterday Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput addressed a gathering of top religion journalists at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in Washington, D.C. His speech was billed as a discussion on the political obligations of Catholics but he also spent a great deal of time discussing the strengths and weaknesses of media coverage. I had the privilege of attending, while also getting to put the names of reporters we discuss here with their faces.
To disagree on an appropriate response to a tragedy, as a few Vatican church officials have done, is not to disagree on a core doctrinal belief. But the way the debate among high-ranking Vatican clerics has “gone public” may portend another, more interesting trend–the Pope’s willingness to allow sunlight in arenas formerly keep priviate.
Now here is one of those matches that seems to have been made in new media heaven. The New York Daily News notes:
If you’re one of those rare individuals who is interested in the topic of sex, you may enjoy Patricia Leigh Brown and Carol Pogash’s story in the Sunday New York Times about a co-ed live-in commune dedicated to the female orgasm.
I have no idea how this national-angle story ended up in the Waco Tribune-Herald — in a city that is not exactly a major center for Roman Catholic culture and news, unless we are talking about Baylor University wars over the role of faith in higher education. But I fear that there really is something to this story, because it’s, well, so logical in this day and age.
Associated Press technology writer Peter Svensson produced a wry, understated story on Sunday about two services that will tie up loose ends after their clients die. Svensson’s angle makes sense, given his beat. He concentrates on the technological challenge of informing a person’s online friends that they will hear nothing more from the deceased:
For those of you who haven’t had the experience of attending a mainline seminary or studying the Bible in an academic institution, the Essenes are almost as much a matter of contemporary Biblical orthodoxy as the historical-critical method.
