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Would Americans be interested? Eyewitnesses describe the murder of Father Jacques Hamel

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Here is my question for the day: Would news consumers here in America be interested in the ongoing story of Father Jacques Hamel if offered a chance to follow it?

There has been quite a bit of recent news about Hamel, the French priest murdered in July while celebrating Mass at the parish of St.-Étienne-du-Rouvray -- a Catholic church named in honor of the first New Testament martyr St. Stephen. You can follow these developments by reading news reports produced on the other side of the Atlantic or in Catholic publications. Click here for previous GetReligion posts on earlier coverage.

I realize that this drama is unfolding in Europe. Thus, American editors and producers may assume that it is not a story that would interest readers here. Frankly, I think the details are so gripping that this has become a story that, at the very least, all Catholics would want to follow -- along with other readers who are concerned about acts of terrorism by jihadists.

So what are the new developments? The first is rather obvious, as reported by The Guardian:

Pope Francis has authorised the French church to start the preliminary sainthood investigation for the Reverend Jean Hamel, whose throat was slit by Islamist militants as he celebrated Mass in July.
Francis told reporters ... he had authorized the gathering of witness testimony to determine if a beatification cause is warranted. Usually the Vatican requires a five-year waiting period before such investigations can begin, but Francis said he authorised the start of the investigation now since witnesses might die or forget over time.
Hamel was killed on 26 July in his parish church in Normandy. Police killed the assailants, and the Isis group claimed responsibility. In honoring Hamel as a martyr last month, Francis urged all to display the same courage Hamel had and denounced such slayings in the name of God as “satanic”.

This announcement came on the same day that the sanctuary in which Hamel was killed was open for the first time, following purification rites because of the bloodshed at the altar.


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Was the Bible's Abraham a real person or only a fictional character?

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Was the Bible's Abraham a real person or only a fictional character?

MARK’S QUESTION:

Liberal biblical scholars say Abraham never lived and was a literary invention of “priestly” writers in exile in Babylon. Since we have no archaeological data on him, how do we know he really lived?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The patriarch Abraham is all-important as the revered founding forefather and exemplar of faith in the one God, this not only for Jews and Christians but Muslims, whose Quran parallels some of the biblical account on him in Genesis 11–25. Islam believes Abraham was a prophet in the line that concluded with Muhammad. He is also Muhammad’s ancestor, just as the New Testament lists Abraham in the genealogy of Jesus.

For Orthodox Judaism, traditional Christianity, and the entirety of Islam, it’s unthinkable that Abraham would have been a fictional character. The stakes are high for the Bible, which presents the Abraham material in extensive narrative history, not obvious mythology. Even scholars who see Genesis 1-10 as mythological may think actual history begins with the patriarchs while, as Mark states, liberal religious and secular scholars question his existence.

In pondering such questions, the archaeologist’s well-worn maxim is that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

Yes, no texts about Abraham apart from the Bible survived. The “Aburahana” in Egyptian texts from 1900 BC(E) is thought to be someone else. But that doesn’t prove he never lived. Remains from such a long-ago epoch are necessarily scattershot, even for grand potentates with court scribes much less Abraham, a relatively obscure figure during his lifetime and a semi-nomad who moved among locations.


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A story with a bit of everything: McClatchy does Muslims, news, modesty and Playboy

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Well, she sure is one of the lovelier news anchors I’ve seen, hijab or no hijab.

That would be Noor Tagouri, and I must have been living on Pluto for the past few years not to have heard of this resourceful 22-year-old.

Four years ago, she decided she wanted to be the first hijab-wearing TV anchor in America. Somehow she managed to get into ABC-TV’s studio and have someone snap a photo of herself smiling at the anchor’s desk. That photo attracted thousands of subscribers to her Facebook page within a few weeks and still others clicked on her #LetNoorShine hashtag on Twitter. She was off and running. 

She’s hardly the typical 20-something, hijab or not. That is, how many of us graduate from the University of Maryland at age 20, get invited to give a TED talk at the age of 21, then appear in Playboy at the age of 22?

Yes, you read that right -- Playboy. As this McClatchy News Service story tells it: 

WASHINGTON -- It doesn’t matter that she’s fully covered, wearing a shiny headscarf and leather jacket. It doesn’t matter that she speaks passionately about media distortions of minority communities. And it doesn’t matter that she’s collaborated on a fashion line whose proceeds help to fight human trafficking.
Noor Tagouri is a Muslim woman pictured in Playboy, and that’s enough for some conservative Muslims to lose their minds.


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Forget religion: For doctors, patient care is all about hot-button social issues

It's.

All.

About.

The.

Politics.

Welcome back to sound-like-a-broken-record time here at GetReligion. Once again, we have a news organization — and in this case, university researchers — viewing the world through totally political lenses. As opposed to, you know, exploring questions of religion and morality.

No doubt, the headline is the kind of clickbait that will generate a lot of page views:

Democratic and Republican doctors treat patients differently

But is this really a case of doctors' political affiliation being the key factor? 

Here's the lede from the Washington Post:

How will your doctor help you deal with issues like pregnancy, drug use or safety? A new study suggests that instead of looking at their résumés or diplomas, you might want to check their voting record. Apparently, Democratic and Republican doctors don’t just vote differently. When faced with hypothetical scenarios involving politically charged issues, they make different treatment decisions, too.
In a new study published in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a group of Yale researchers linked publicly available information on more than 42,000 practicing physicians to a list of party affiliations that’s regularly used by political campaigns to target communications. After winnowing down their data to correct for unaffiliated and unreachable physicians, they mailed out a survey to a sample of the doctors.


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Pope Francis says gender theory is part of 'global war' on marriage (journalists yawn)

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There he goes again.

You remember Pope Francis, of course. He’s the guy who, whenever he says something provocative (often speaking off the cuff, or during in-flight press conferences), journalists rush to file stories and editors serve up bold headlines. This is especially true whenever the Holy Father speaks about issues linked to sexuality and LGBTQ issues in particular.

Then happens on a fairly regular basis. Perhaps you have heard about the “Who am I to judge?” soundbite that is used over and over, almost always out of context?

So, in a way, it’s not surprising that Pope Francis has shared this thoughts on the theory at the heart of global debates about transgender issues.

What is surprising is that his statements have received little or no coverage in elite news media here in the United States. Now why is that? Let’s look at the top of a short Reuters report on the subject:

Pope Francis warned on Saturday of a "global war" against traditional marriage and the family, saying both were under attack from gender theory and divorce.
Francis made his comments in an impromptu response to a question at a meeting of the small Catholic community in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia.
"You mentioned a great enemy of marriage: gender theory," the pope said in response to a woman who had asked about it being taught in schools. He did not elaborate.

Actually, he did elaborate in remarks just after that, but hang on for that update.


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Prayer or protest: Spirituality in events unfolding at Standing Rock 'prayer camp'

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I’ve been semi-following the Standing Rock protests in North Dakota this past month, but as far as I knew, it had little to do with religion.

Until now, as I just discovered a piece by a DC-based writer about “the growing indigenous spiritual movement that could save the planet.”

Well, I figured I had to read that. It’s from ThinkProgress, a 11-year-old “news site dedicated to providing our readers with rigorous reporting and analysis from a progressive perspective” (their words). It’s funded by the Center for American Progress, an advocacy group founded by John Podesta, chief of staff for former President Bill Clinton.

I don’t usually critique pieces produced by advocacy organizations on either side of the aisle, but, other than a commendable Sept. 16 RNS piece, I’ve seen very little on the spirituality aspect of these North Dakota protests. So let's look at this. ThinkProgress reports:

When Pua Case landed in North Dakota to join the ongoing Standing Rock protests in September, she, like thousands of other participants, had come to defend the land.
Masses of indigenous people and their allies descended on camps along Cannonball River this year to decry the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline, a series of 30-inch diameter underground pipes that, if built, would stretch 1,172 miles and carry half a million barrels of crude oil per day  --  right through lands Native groups call sacred.
“We are not here to be anything but peaceful, but we are here,” Case told ThinkProgress, describing the moment she linked arms with fellow demonstrators and stared down rows of police in Bismarck. “We will stand here in our tribal names in respect and honor.”
But while media attention has focused on the massive, sometimes heated demonstrations -- which include several alleged instances of brutality and dog attacks -- there has been less attention paid to how the protest is recharging the lager climate movement, not to mention the peculiar nature of the participants. Case, for instance, traveled quite a long way to the Peace Garden State: she is from the sunny shores of Hawaii, not rugged North Dakota, and she claims a Native Hawaiian identity, not a Native American one. And she wasn’t there just to protest; the sacredness of the land is especially important to her, so she was also there to pray.
“Standing Rock is a prayer camp,” she said. “It is where prayers are done.”


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His dishonor: Mainstream media keep slanting news reports on ousted Judge Moore

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I've heard of contempt of court, but open contempt for a judge? That’s apparently OK if that judge is Roy Moore.

Like this headline. " 'Not going to miss the Ayatollah of Alabama': State's chief justice ousted over anti-gay-marriage order," crows The Los Angeles Times. And that's just the most blatant of several tactics in several articles meant to manipulate your view of the case.

Moore, the always controversial chief justice of Alabama, was suspended after telling its probate judges not to issue gay marriage licenses even after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized them. That drew fire not only from the usual liberal groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center -- which filed the complaint that launched the probe -- but also their acolytes in mainstream media.

But before dissecting individual specimens, let's take a workmanlike example -- the Associated Press account, run by CBS News:

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s defiance of federal court rulings on same-sex marriage violated judicial ethics, a disciplinary court ruled on Friday before suspending him for the rest of his term.
The punishment effectively removes Moore from office without the nine-member Alabama Court of the Judiciary officially ousting him. Given his age, he will not be able to run for chief justice again under state law.
Moore was found to have encouraged probate judges to deny marriage licenses to gay couples six months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that everyone has a fundamental right to marry in all 50 states.

Not that Moore skirts controversy. He's the same guy who put a stone monument of the Ten Commandments in a court building, then refused to remove it. So the Court of Judiciary -- the same panel involved here -- tossed him out in 2003. Yet he was re-elected years later.

All of that is in the 400-word AP article, but the Los Angeles Times goes further. Right from the lede, you can tell where things are going:


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Religion figures heavily — and rightly so — in AP story on Muslim's 'honor' killing of sister

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In the past, we at GetReligion have raised concerns about news stories failing to consider religion's role in "honor" killings.

As our own tmatt has pointed out, there is no need to dwell on the Islamic element of such crimes, and it would be wrong to suggest that all Muslims in Pakistan and elsewhere practice, accept or ignore "honor" killings. (Yes, the scare quotes are appropriate on this subject.)

But for the sake of full and accurate reporting, it's crucial that journalists note when religion provides the impetus for such killings.

The Associated Press' Kathy Gannon does an excellent job of that in an absolutely riveting story on a man who killed his sister in Pakistan.

The AP lede:

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — For two months, over the thunder of machines at the steel mill, the men taunted Mubeen Rajhu about his sister. Even now, they laugh at how easy it was to make him lose his temper.
Some people had seen Tasleem in their Lahore slum with a Christian man. She was 18, a good Muslim girl, out in public with a man. Even though the man had converted to Islam out of love for her, this couldn't be allowed.
"Some guys got to know that his sister was having a relationship," says Ali Raza, a co-worker at the mill. "They would say: 'Can't you do anything? What is the matter with you? You are not a man.'"
Raza can barely contain a smile as he talks about the hours spent needling Rajhu.


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USA Today somehow manages to offer faith-free 'lesser of two evils' White House feature

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I have been away from my computer keyboard, for the most part, this past weekend due to (a) what amounted to the major-league baseball playoffs starting early and (b) long flights from Southern California back to the hills of Tennessee, via Detroit for some reason known only to the airline gods.

It is that second activity -- sojourns in airports and airplanes -- that is relevant to my strong reaction to the USA Today political feature that ran under the headline, "A sharpened debate: Is it ethical to not vote this year for president?"

You see, I made that journey while wearing a t-shirt containing this statement about the current White House race: "Giant Meteor 2016 -- Just End It Already." By no means did this represent a scientific poll of the electorate, but it did spark some interesting conversations. (Yes, my #NeverTrump #NeverHillary stance remains intact.)

Here is the bottom line: I have no idea how USA Today published an update on the whole "lesser of two evils" angle of the current White House campaign without mentioning religion and, in particular, the plight of conservative Catholics, evangelical Protestants and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Among frequent occupants of pews, the argument I keep reading and hearing can be stated like this: Yes, no one knows what Donald Trump will do since he is a reckless, unstable gambler with ethics as deep as an oil slick. However, on issues linked to the First Amendment and religious freedom (think U.S. Supreme Court) everyone knows that the only thing certain about Hillary Rodham Clinton is that she is a fierce warrior for the cultural left.

Here at GetReligion, we have been urging reporters to dig into the true Catholic swing vote -- which is Catholics who regularly attend Mass. I would assume the patterns there are similar to those found among evangelicals by Pew Research Center professionals when they did that poll showing (as covered by Christianity Today):

More than three-quarters of self-identified white evangelicals plan to vote for Donald Trump in the fall (78%). But they aren’t happy about it.


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