I realize the following criticism is going to sound picky, picky, picky.
A 10-year clergy abuse scandal?
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Arnold and Maria's 'Catholic' marriage
Even on a remote tropical island, it’s been hard for me to escape news of the disintegration of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s marriage. My former governor and the First Lady announced their split last week, and the story has only gotten more sordid since.
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Branding the rapture
Since coverage of the Family Radio Network started heating up in January, Bobby’s been all over it. You can check out his installments here, here and here. Family Radio Network is the group that’s predicting the end of the world at 6 PM tomorrow.
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The power of generic public prayer
Suffice it to say that the Newspaper That Lands in My Front Yard has a complicated church-state story on its hands. It’s one of those stories that takes place when civil religion collides with free speech (and old local traditions) and the usual suspects start getting mad.
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Not the Dungy way
During the NCAA tournament, a religion reporter asked me about the faith of Butler University’s basketball coach Brad Stevens. A few of my siblings attended Butler and one of them has a bulldog so surely one of us would know Stevens’ religion, right? We did some Googling and asking around, but it took a while to figure it out. No one had really thought to ask because he didn’t exactly point to the sky after they continued to plow through the tournament.
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The surprisingly sad McGreevey story
When I first read this profile of James McGreevey, the former governor of New Jersey, I thought it was a pretty puffy piece. McGreevey, you’ll recall, resigned after a former aide accused him of sexual harassment. In one of the most exciting press conferences I can recall, McGreevey announced his resignation by saying “My truth is that I am a gay American.” Reporters live for this kind of stuff. I love a good sex scandal and I remember sitting in my newsroom with my mouth ajar, thinking “this will never be topped.” And then just five years later we had that press conference with South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.
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Holy Catholic Rollers Praying For Osama?
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.
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Clergy abuse: Love the one you're with?
Clearly, we are in the early stages of a major wave of mainstream and niche-media coverage of the new John Jay College of Criminal Justice report about the half century or so of clergy sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church.
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ESPN's big gay ghosts
ESPN has been pretty good at getting religion in the past few years. On average, they seem to do much better than non-Godbeat reporters at most daily newspapers and even better than some of the religion reporters at major metros.
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