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'SNAP' decision mars a good story on outreach to clergy-abuse victims

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From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune comes a story on an event that the reporter calls "a first in Minnesota, and perhaps a first in the nation": a visit by Catholic Archbishop John Nienstedt to a support group for survivors of clergy sex abuse. Although the reporting is mostly solid, the article has a notable factual error that betrays a near-universal problem with mainstream-media stories on clergy abuse: an over-reliance on the authority of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

The lede aims for drama:

It was a first in Minnesota, and perhaps a first in the nation. A support group for survivors of clergy sex abuse hosting the man who represents the church they believe betrayed them — Archbishop John Nienstedt.

The ground rules for last weekend’s meeting quietly were laid in advance. No media allowed. No robes or collar on the archbishop. The survivors would be respectful.

Held in a suburban library conference room, the unlikely meeting allowed survivors to share their painful stories with Minnesota’s top Catholic leader and provided Nienstedt a rare and inside look at the impact of abuse.

“I really didn’t think he’d be there until he actually showed up,” said Shawn Plocher, a Minneapolis man who was abused as a child. “This is a group of hurting people who want some sense of healing or closure. … I’m hoping things are heading in the right direction.”

Next there are some good quotes from Nienstedt expressing how moved he was by the meeting. After that come the obligatory remarks from SNAP's spokesman:

David Clohessy, national director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said he was unaware of any similar event elsewhere. Former Twin Cities Archbishop Harry Flynn met with Louisiana clergy abuse victims in a prayer group several times, he said. And SNAP met with some bishops at the 2002 U.S. Conference of Bishops meeting in Dallas that hammered out the church’s policies on clergy sexual abuse.
“In Dallas we heard, ‘This isn’t the last time you hear from us,’ ” said Clohessy. “Without exception, we heard nothing when we got home.”

If Clohessy is "unaware of any similar event elsewhere," he would do well to look at the website of the Diocese of Arlington, Va., which has been hosting similar events for several years running. He could also read Catholic San Francisco's September 2012 feature about how two auxiliary bishops of that diocese met with six victims to develop a policy for helping victims. That article quotes one of the survivors, Paul Fericano:


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Planned Bible museum gets an intelligent, literate look from Washington Post

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Last week, my colleague Bobby Ross Jr. briefly praised Michelle Boorstein's long-form feature in the Washington Post on the planned Museum of the Bible. In my own admiring review, let me count the ways.

Boorstein gives details on the look and feel and content of the museum, planned for Washington, D.C. by 2017. She presents the truly celestial numbers: a $50 million price for the 430,000-square-foot Washington Design Center, to be stocked with 44,000 biblical artifacts in Green's personal collection; the need to deal with a "dozen or so agencies" in starting the museum.

She offers an engaging look at Steve Green, president of the Hobby Lobby store chain, who expects to pay $800 million for the museum.

She traces how Green's vision for the museum has shifted, from promoting the truth of the Bible toward a scholarly, nonsectarian approach.

And  (insert Hallelujah Chorus) she spends only two of the 63 paragraphs to the Supreme Court case that won Hobby Lobby the right not to insure some forms of birth control. Some writers would have digressed and obsessed over that case, adding enough text to fill a Bible.

Boorstein often puts us into the scene with vivid wording. In one example she says the future museum building is close to the National Mall: "It’s just two blocks away, and from the roof it feels as though you can take a running leap onto the U.S. Capitol."

Here is the kind of intelligent, searching content you get when an actual religion writer like Boorstein writes a religion story. She avoids taking sides, yet compels you to read further:


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Jump in the WABAC Machine: New York Times buried Jesus way back in 1997?

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There has been quite a bit of reaction online, as you would expect, to the GetReligion-esque takedown that the Divine Mrs. M.Z. Hemingway wrote for The Federalist about that New York Times travel piece that -- in the print edition -- said the following:

Nearby, the vast Church of the Holy Sepulcher marking the site where many Christians believe that Jesus is buried, usually packed with pilgrims, was echoing and empty.

The piece was later changed in the online edition, with "is" changed to "was" in keeping with, well, the crucial doctrine at the heart of global Christendom -- the Resurrection. The Times team did not, however, deign to publish a formal correction (and I just checked the online text again).

If you read the comments on several different posts on this topic -- M.Z. and Rod "friend of this blog" Dreher, for example -- you know that many readers were convinced that this was a tempest in a teacup about a mere typo that just slipped past the world-class copy desk at the world's most powerful newspaper.

Here at GetReligion, reader Tom Hanson offered this example of that line of thinking:


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God-given gifts and a financial windfall for members of a Chicago church

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I came across a story about a Chicago church giving away $500 to each of its 300 or so members via CNN's Eric Marrapodi, who, by the way, did an exceptional training session at #RNA2014 on video interview best practices.

Sadly, though, Marrapodi had no tips to improve voices — like mine — made for print. 

But I digress.

The version of the story that Marrapodi tweeted came from WGNtv.com in Chicago:

A Chicago church came into some money following a decades old real estate deal. What to do with the extra dough weighed heavily on the pastor’s mind. Then she decided to do something crazy.
She wanted the church to tithe and give 10% of the money away. That may not sound so crazy, but here’s the hitch, she gave it back — all $160,000 of it–to the congregation. Anyone who is “actively engaged in LaSalle Street Church” got a sizable check. Not $5 or $50 – we are talking $500 a person. Personal checks made out directly to the parishioners to go forth and spend, invest or give away as they see fit. No strings attached.
Pastor Laura, as she’s known, is beaming–ever since she announced to her congregation of 300 back on Sept 7th that they would all get $500 from the church.
“Some started to cry,” she said. “Their mouths started to drop. I started to sweat because it sounded so crazy.”


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WaPo blog announces a new good (i.e. liberal) South Africa mosque

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No one expects tons of original reporting in a blog like Ishaan Tharoor writes for the Washington Post. But when five sources are patched together in a 382-word post -- and any actual reporting isn't evident -- the result can be, well, patchy.

In this case, it's about the so-called Open Mosque that just formed in a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. The mosque advertises acceptance of anyone without regard to "sect, gender or sexual orientation." This naturally rankles more traditional Muslims, from whom we never hear.

We'll start with the headline, which of course Tharoor may not have written: "A ‘gay-friendly’ mosque just opened in South Africa." As you know by now, the mosque is billed as cutting across several divisions. To make it mainly about gays creates a pinhole view of the story.

But let's hear from the blog post itself.  Here's the top:

The "Open Mosque" is intended a space of worship for all, irrespective of sect, gender or sexual orientation. It is the creation of Taj Hargey, a Cape Town-born academic and cleric based at Oxford University who has long agitated against fundamentalist interpretations of Islam. This new prayer space, open to all, was a direct challenge to the extremists he opposes.

Hargey delivered the sermon, inveighing against the unnecessary divisions between Christians and Muslims, according to Agence France Presse. He blamed "contaminated Saudi money" for promoting "toxic and intolerant manifestations of Islam."


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Those 'Arab' nations: I do not think that single word means what you think it means

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Once again, we have an "Arab" issue to discuss.

Pick up a newspaper right now, or turn on cable news, and you will almost certainly run into a story or two about the White House efforts to recruit "Arab" nations to join in the sort-of-fight against the Islamic State. This is slightly confusing, when you stop and think about it. As I wrote the other day:

What is the most important uniting characteristic in the governments being courted by the Obama White House? Is "Arab" the most accurate label to assign, when pondering the common structures and influences in cultures such as Turkey and Egypt (as well as Lebanon)? What unites them?
The bottom line: Journalists must be careful when using the term "Arab." Often that word does not mean what journalists seem to think that it means.

Now, a new story from the Tribune Washington Bureau, which has appeared in many newspapers from coast to coast, has quite precisely illustrated the tricky issues journalists are facing in this case.

The problem? A missing word -- "league."


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'Blase'd and confused: Media overlook crucial factor in Francis's choice of Chicago archbishop

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If you have been following coverage of the news that Pope Francis has named Spokane, Wash., Bishop Blase Cupich to replace Cardinal Francis George as archbishop of Chicago, you know that the mainstream media is busily spinning the choice as a slap in the face to conservatives.

The adjective of choice being used to describe the prelate is "inclusive," as in the New York Times headline "Pope Sets Tone in U.S. by Naming Inclusive Prelate as Chicago Archbishop." In like fashion, the Times' lede exemplifies the joys and hopes of the liberal press:

In his first major appointment in the United States, Pope Francis named Bishop Blase J. Cupich of Spokane, Wash., on Saturday to be the next archbishop of Chicago, replacing a combative conservative with a prelate whose pastoral approach to upholding church doctrine is more in keeping with the pope’s inclusive tone.

As a member of the faithful in the archdiocese that is to be Cupich's new home, I find such facile, "inclusive"-vs.-"conservative" analysis simply irresponsible. It doesn't do justice to Cupich, who, as Thomas Peters has said, has robustly defended Church doctrine on marriage and human life. It certainly doesn't do justice to George, who, as Rocco Palmo observed, has labored hard to uphold the Catholic social-justice teachings that the media considers "liberal," particularly civil rights. Most of all, it doesn't do justice to Francis, who, as Cupich has noted, often warns against "ideological interpretations of the Gospel."

 


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What kind of religious stuff provoked interest the past 22 months?

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What kind of religious stuff provoked interest the past 22 months?

This is the 100th “Religion Q and A” posting. So instead of answering the usual weekly question The Guy pauses to scan what sort of religious stuff provoked interest since December, 2012. That’s when this blog began posting non-sectarian answers to anonymously posted questions on “any old thing about any and all faith options,” after a strategic boost from Terry Mattingly of the estimable www.getreligion.org.

The Guy, as a journalist, naturally wants current topics in the mix, and thus recently dealt with: new movies, the career of Chick-fil-A’s pious founder Truett Cathy, the Supreme Court ruling on birth control under “Obamacare,” suicide and the Robin Williams tragedy, religious conflict in Ukraine, and the disputes about tax exemption, civic prayers, legalized marijuana, and same-sex marriage.

Yet check the handy archives on the blog’s home page and you’ll see less timely topics predominate. A prime principle in education is that there’s no such thing as a stupid question, and The Guy welcomes queries about basic information. Many others will have asked themselves the same thing. So The Guy examined Catholic intermarriage policy, whether military service is sinful, a deceptively simple query on “what is faith?” and this golden oldie: “When does life begin?” (the blog’s very first question).


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Revenge of GetReligion MZ: Concerning the New York Times effort to bury Jesus

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How does that song go? "There she goes, there she goes again"?

Obviously, you can (sadly) take the Divine Mrs. M.Z. Hemingway out of GetReligion, but you cannot take the GetReligion DNA out of her (thank goodness) in her work with The Federalist. 

Case in point: If you get religion-beat pros together, we often end up sharing hilarious (laugh to keep from crying, actually) examples of mistakes that news organizations make when attempting to cover religion news. Click here for a USA Today op-ed piece that I wrote on this topic long ago.

Mollie likes to play this game, too, and specializes in hunting for the most prestigious prey -- mistakes in The New York Times. You'd be amazed how often basic mistakes on Christian history and doctrine show up in those holy pages.

Take, for example that travel story that ran last week under the headline, "Hoping War-Weary Tourists Will Return to Israel."


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