Salvatore Cordileone

Questions for journalists: What would it take for Catholic church attacks to become news?

Questions for journalists: What would it take for Catholic church attacks to become news?

I am venturing into Clemente Lisi territory with this post, and I know that. However, there are questions about the national wave of attacks on Catholic churches and sacred sites that have started to bother me. Maybe this is a test case of how the post-American Model of the Press marketplace is really going to work? Just how biased is the acceptable bias going to get?

Let’s start here: If bad people attack African-American sanctuariess, is this a news story? The answer, of course, is “Yes.” Everyone agrees, with the exception of unrepentant racists.

Now, if bad people attack Roman Catholic churches, is that a news story? The answer appears to be “No.” This is news for “Catholic,” “religious” and “conservative” newsrooms. It appears to be a minor story, zip code by zip code, in local news. This violent trend is not news for elite, national-level media.

Why is that? Possible answers include: (a) These attacks are being done by people who are “good” in the eyes of journalists because their cause is just. (b) These are bad Catholic churches (they do not fly Pride flags, etc.). (c) There are just too many of these attacks for them to be considered “news.”

Finally, (d) if these attacks were news, public officials would have to ponder whether they are “hate crimes.” This would violate the unspoken law that it’s impossible to commit a hate crime against a group that has not been declared “oppressed” by The New York Times, National Public Radio, Yale Law School and others.

Would this trend be a story if the world’s second most famous Catholic delivered an Oval Office address on the subject? Maybe we will see, if President Joe Biden sees trouble brewing in New Hampshire.

Oh well, whatever, nevermind. Here is yet another one of those “local” stories: “Cross cut down at Santiago Retreat Center in Silverado Canyon, investigators looking for suspect.” The familiar details:

A 14-foot wooden cross at the Santiago Retreat Center was sawed down this week, leaving staff and counselors shocked while Orange County sheriff’s officials try to identify a suspect, authorities said.


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New podcast: Are tensions between Speaker Pelosi and her archbishop a valid news story?

New podcast: Are tensions between Speaker Pelosi and her archbishop a valid news story?

The following is not a hypothetical case or a parable. This is the heart of the news story that was the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

Step one: Speaker Nancy Pelosi was a guest on Hillary Clinton’s “You and Me Both” podcast. As you would expect, since this was recorded a week after the stunning January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, they spent some time discussing their views on the Donald Trump years.

This led to a discussion about the choices made by pro-life voters in the 2016 election. Here is some crucial material from a Catholic News Agency story about the exchange.

… House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that support of pro-life voters for former President Donald Trump was an issue that “gives me great grief as a Catholic.”

“I think that Donald Trump is president because of the issue of a woman’s right to choose,” she said of abortion, implying that pro-life voters boosted Trump to victory in 2016. She added that these voters “were willing to sell the whole democracy down the river for that one issue.”

Other than the “sellout” implication, the key phrase there is “as a Catholic.”

Step two: The archbishop who — canonically speaking — is charged with overseeing Pelosi’s life as a Catholic believer was not amused by this assertion. Here is another chunk of that CNA report.

“No Catholic in good conscience can favor abortion,” said Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, Pelosi’s home diocese. … “Our land is soaked with the blood of the innocent, and it must stop.”

Pelosi has long supported abortion despite her Catholic faith. In 2008, she said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” regarding when life begins, “over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition.” She said that her Catholic faith “shouldn’t have an impact on a woman’s right to choose.” …

Archbishop Cordileone clarified that "Nancy Pelosi does not speak for the Catholic Church. … And on the question of the equal dignity of human life in the womb, she [Pelosi] also speaks in direct contradiction to a fundamental human right that Catholic teaching has consistently championed for 2,000 years.” …

Step three: Write a mainstream news story?


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At last! Actual journalism on the same-sex marriage beat

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War. I was an early skeptic of the war, back when that was a somewhat lonely place to be. Journalists who engaged in more cheerleading than skepticism toward that war have been spending the week issuing mea culpas for their failure to consider unintended consequences. In fact, so many people have been writing their “I was wrong” pieces that the contrarian in me wonders whether I should change my mind and now support the war.


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