Christianity

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Journalists should focus more coverage on Catholic police chaplains and less on 'cancel culture'

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I have covered my share of police funerals over the years. With some regularity over the course of two decades working in journalism, police officers have been shot and killed in the line of duty.

What follows — in print and on television — is a funeral, a mourning widow, crying family members and hundreds of officers gathered at a church. Even hardened reporters can tell you that covering these events can be heartbreaking.

There was no greater pain to hit New York City, and indeed the country, than the loses suffered with the 9/11 attacks. Of the 2,977 people killed in the attack that destroyed the World Trade Center, 412 were emergency workers who responded that day. They included:

* 343 firefighters (including a chaplain and two paramedics) of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY)

* 37 police officers of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department (PAPD)

* 23 police officers of the New York City Police Department (NYPD)

* 8 emergency medical technicians and paramedics from private emergency medical services

* 1 patrolman from the New York Fire Patrol

That list keeps growing as more die each year from cancer and other health-related issues associated with the attacks.

While the death of these brave men and women is something Americans will never forget, one has to wonder about that legacy now that there is a movement to defund the police in the wake of George Floyd’s murder while in police custody in Minneapolis.

I was there on 9/11. As a reporter for the New York Post at the time, I was only blocks away when the second tower collapsed. I spent the next few months covering the tragedy and the many lives it impacted. One of the deaths I remember most was that of Father Mychal Judge, a Franciscan friar who served as an FDNY chaplain. I had spoken with Judge just a few weeks prior to his death after he officiated the funeral Mass of Michael Gorumba, a rookie firefighter who died in August 2001. Gorumba suffered a heart attack shortly after battling a giant fire.

On 9/11, Judge was the first certified fatality.


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That question again: Where is the familiar faith theme in news about these civil rights events?

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Coverage continues of protests and other events linked to the life and death of George Floyd.

It’s impossible, of course, to read all of this material. But while reading what I can, I have continued to look for facts and images linked to what I think is one of the most interesting elements of this story — an angle readers might expect to be seeing, in light of the history of civil rights work of this kind.

The big question: Where are the African-American clergy in these news stories? I doubt they are sitting on the sidelines during this historic moment. This question is, of course, central to discussions of press coverage of religion in these events.

Did you see this material in Julia Duin’s fascinating first-person visit into CHAZ territory? See this post: “Seattle's de-policed CHAZ district is a religion-free zone, even in mainstream press.”

As my friends and I were arriving at CHAZ, there was a meeting of black pastors south of us who were trying to support the local police — who’ve taken a beating in all this. The police were forced to vacate CHAZ, even though the chief, a black female, told the media she has not wanted to leave. Mayor Jenny Durkan, who calls CHAZ a place with “a block party atmosphere,” overruled her. …

These black clergy clearly resent how the white Social Justice Warriors are taking over the debate. Wish a reporter could explore that angle more.

Once again, here is the question: Are black clergy attempting to play a leadership role in some of these discussions and (a) being shunned by other leaders? Or are the clergy there, as usual, but (b) not receiving any coverage? What’s going on?

In a way, this is a hard-news angle linked to questions that I raised the other day in this post: “Dramatic funeral service for George Floyd: Was there Gospel in it, or only politics?”

It is interesting that some reporters — in religious publications — took the time to dig into the live-streamed video of this funeral and note the Christian themes and content, especially in the music and biblical images.

Here is a must-read on that, care of Kate Shellnutt at Christianity Today: “The Songs and Scriptures of George Floyd’s Houston Funeral.” Here is a crucial passage from this feature:


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Hong Kong's religious freedom crisis takes backseat to basic journalistic norms in USA

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It’s been quite a time in America — arguably unprecedented — with massive Black Lives Matter demonstrations erupting across the nation following the death in police custody of George Floyd. And all of it in the midst of a killer pandemic, economic upheaval and a frightening, and for many psychologically debilitating, uncertainty over what will happen next.

Importantly, the BLM protests have also popped up in many smaller cities in America’s hinterlands, communities not generally thought of as activist hot spots. Click here for a sampling of the coverage of how widespread this has been, care of USA Today, or here for The Washington Post.

There are many offshoots to this monumental story, the core of which is the state of race relations, policing injustices and the Donald Trump administration’s response to this national reckoning.

One sidebar (from The Washington Post, again) is the absurdly hypocritical response of some authoritarian nations — perhaps China above all — to America’s turmoil.

That’s the nature of international political maneuvering, isn’t it? Never miss an opportunity to blame your adversaries when they display problems — no matter how unequal the comparison —that they’ve pestered you about for years.

I’m reminded of the quote attributed to G.K. Chesterton: “When a man concludes that any stick is good enough to beat his foe with — that is when he picks up a boomerang.”

I will pick on China — you would not be wrong to think, “What, again?” — because of its Hong Kong problem that has, understandably, largely been absent from American press coverage of late.

Why understandably? Because, as should be obvious, the first responsibility of American mainstream journalism is to cover important domestic stories. Moreover, I’d wager that few Americans currently give a hoot about Hong Kong’s concern, given what’s going on in their own lives and streets.

So even normally well-read GetReligion readers may have fallen behind on the crucial human-rights angles in the Hong Kong story.


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Journalism cancels its moral voice: What does this mean for Catholic news? For religion news?

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I have always been fascinated with the concept that journalism functions as a moral watchdog on our society. As someone who spent most of his career at two New York tabloids (15 years at the New York Post, two others at the rival Daily News), reportage and story selection revolved heavily around morality.

A lot of it mirrored traditional religious morality.

Editors and reporters never used that language to describe their work, of course.

They still reported both sides of the story and gave people who were the subject of said story the chance to rebuke accusations. Whether it was a news account about an unfaithful politician (former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and former Congressman Anthony Weiner spring to mind), a Wall Street executive who embezzled money or a regular guy who shot and killed a convenient store clerk over a few dollars, if you broke one of the Ten Commandments then you had a very good chance of being splashed all over page one.

ProPublica, one of my favorite investigative news sites, has a mission statement that sums up this philosophy very well:

To expose abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing.

Where does this morality come from? It is rooted primarily in Judeo-Christian values, something that helped form American society during what is now called The Great Awakening.

News coverage — be it about politics, culture or religion — is largely made up of crimes (in the legal sense) or lapses in judgement (in a moral one). But the news media has changed in the Internet age, primarily because of social media. Facebook, Twitter and TikTok, to name just three, allows users — everyday people — to pump out content. That content can take many forms — from benign observations to what’s called hot takes — for all to read and see.

Truth, fact checking and context are not important. What matters are likes and followers. What we have now is something some have called “The Great Awokening” and it appears to have forever transformed our political discourse and the journalism that tries to report on it.

Mainstream news organizations, in their quest for clicks amid hope of figuring out a new business model, now mirror the content we all see on social media platforms.


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The Quran, round 2: Publishing commentary based on Christian perspectives makes news

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The Quran, round 2: Publishing commentary based on Christian perspectives makes news

Only a month ago, The Religion Guy proposed that people with COVID-imposed time on their hands take this opportunity to study Islam’s holy book, the Quran, which is so vital for 21st Century faith and also for national security and politics in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries.

The Guy Memo especially recommended “The Study Quran” (HarperOne), with its fresh new translation and elaborate commentary. This work was produced by a team of North American Muslim scholars led by Seyyed Hossein Nasr of George Washington University.

Now, by coincidence, The Guy alerts fellow writers to the release of an equally path-breaking publication: “The Quran with Christian Commentary” (from the Zondervan line at HarperCollins). The Guy believes this is a first for a Christian publisher, and quite a bold innovation.

The extensive verse-by-verse commentary is by Mennonite Brethren scholar Gordon D. Nickel (Ph.D., Calgary), who directs the Islam program at the South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies in India and he formerly taught in Pakistan. His chief consultant was J. Dudley Woodberry (Ph.D., Harvard), an Islamic studies professor and former dean at Fuller Theological Seminary with research experience in 35 Muslim countries.

This work arrives with fond blurbs from experts at universities in Birmingham (U.K.), Bonn, Brussels and Oxford. Nickel’s commentary, and topical articles from a dozen other specialists on Islam, accompany the well-regarded English translation of the Quran by A. J. Droge of the University of Toronto at Scarborough (Equinox Publishing, 2012).

Obvious news angles abound.

The commentary explains and responds to Islam’s viewpoints on Jesus (yes a prophet and messiah, but neither crucified nor divine) and on Jews and Christians, and attacks upon the Bible’s veracity. There’s important discussion of interpretations in Islam’s minority Shi’a branch and of the complex history of Quran texts, which were standardized at a crucial 1924 conference in Cairo.

From the standpoint of religious knowledge, those are central questions. Nickel’s tone seeks to be friendly and respectful but — important for journalism and for cultural awareness otherwise — he clearly defines the substantial differences in belief between the world’s two dominant religions.


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Catholic media highlights trend in young people gravitating towards faith during pandemic

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The ever-evolving coronavirus pandemic has upended our world in ways no one could have ever expected. Journalists still don’t know where this story is going.

But one thing is clear. While death tolls climb and fall depending on which countries are effectively flattening the curve, the vast majority of those of us who are healthy and staying at home still have to deal with loneliness.

How does faith play a part in mitigating isolation? A survey released four weeks ago by Springtide Research Institute, which studies trends of those ages 13 to 25. What did they find? The survey revealed the following regarding young people, faith and the novel coronavirus. The following summary is long, but essential, especially for religion-beat professionals:

… For many young adults, shelter in place and social distancing provokes fear and uncertainty, leading to increased levels of isolation, loneliness, and anxiety. The survey found that the single most important way to mitigate loneliness is for trusted adults to reach out and connect with young adults.

* The survey consisted of a national panel of 508 respondents ages 18–25, with a margin of error of +/- 4% at a 95% confidence level, administered between March 24 and March 31, 2020.

* One in three respondents are sheltering in place alone.

* 63% of all respondents say that they do not feel as alone or isolated when people reach out to them.

* Among young adults who are sheltering in place with others, half still say that they feel alone, and nearly eight out of ten report feeling less lonely when a trusted adult from outside their household checks in on them.

* About 58% say they feel scared and uncertain, and 66% of those who feel this way say they don’t have anyone to talk to about their emotions. Thus, they feel isolated because no one is reaching out to them.

* Respondents are not experiencing a decrease in their faith; in fact, 35% increased their faith and 47% stayed the same.

* Nearly 46% have started new religious practices, and 43% have participated in at least one religious service online.


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Mainstream press misses backstory of why Francis has (for now) vetoed married clergy

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Pope Francis — a week after the dust settled from his decision not to create an Amazonian rite that would have allowed married men to serve as priests and women as deacons — continues to garner news coverage as Catholic progressives and traditionalists debate what it all means.

The mainstream press, often too concerned with propping up Francis’ progressive bona fides, has largely not reported on why the pope decided to go the way he did. The factors that resulted in the pope’s decision came from a variety of camps inside the church. And what about this question: Did conservatives in the Vatican hierarchy, led by Cardinal Robert Sarah (helped by the recent intervention of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI), raise enough concerns to tip the decision in their favor?

The Amazonian rite, however, was never only just about South America. The pope’s decision could have had global ramifications. The tug-of-war mostly involves German bishops pushing the pope to allow all clergy to marry (along with other changes in discipline and doctrine), while on the other is conservative prelates warning against doing away with the 1,000-year church tradition.

Once again, much of the backstory behind Francis’ decision can be learned from reading the religious press, both Catholics on the doctrinal left and right.

The mainstream press largely missed these angles, meaning readers had to delve really deep into internet news sources (with help from social media) to get analysis of how Francis reached his decision and whether the issue of married clergy/women deacons will rage on.

In the end, much to the chagrin of the mainstream press, Francis decided in favor of Catholic orthodoxy and tradition. What the mainstream press saw, but failed to report, was the Francis defies typical contemporary political categories.


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Something completely different from Ryan Burge: Atheists love cats, while believers love dogs?

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Tired of all those statistics about white evangelicals and Citizen Donald Trump?

Tired of charts about soaring “nones” and imploding Mainline Protestants?

This time around, political scientist and progressive Baptist pastor Ryan Burge has served up something different. I mean, who doesn’t want to read a Religion News Service essay with this headline: “Atheists prefer cats, Christians love dogs, study shows.” Click here for a .pdf of the original academic paper.

Let me interject, as a personal confession, that my wife and I have had our share of cats and dogs, even in the same household. However, as an adult, I developed a strong allergy to cats — except for a beloved black cat. Go figure.

But back to this week’s dose of Burge material, in the text of the RNS piece:

Dogs are the most popular household pet. In fact, there’s no religious traditi­on in which fewer than half of adherents own a dog. 

However, there are some interesting differences among faith groups. Evangelicals and Catholics are more likely to have dogs than are mainline Christians. Mainliners are more likely than evangelicals and black Protestants to own cats. Jews prefer dogs to cats. Jewish families are also more likely than other traditions to own a small mammal or a bird.

Those who claim no religious identity are most likely to have a cat.


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Start of a new year: Stories and trends to watch for on the Catholic beat in 2020

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There are no shortage of religion stories, but you already knew that. You wouldn’t be here — and we wouldn’t be doing this — if you also didn’t think so.

This time of year brings with it pieces looking back on the biggest stories of the year. It’s also a time to look ahead. The coming year will certainly be a busy one once again for journalists who cover Catholicism, Pope Francis and the church’s hierarchy.

The pontiff already made his claim for newsmaker of 2019 (and 2020) after a bizarre incident on New Year’s Eve that included slapping the hand of a woman who grabbed him in St. Peter’s Square in the same evening where he denounced domestic violence against women. The video went viral to start 2020 as the pope apologized for the incident on New Year’s Day.

With that, here are six of the biggest storylines and trends journalists need to watch for in 2020: 

The 2020 presidential election: Yes, there will be another presidential election this November. That means politics will dominate the news cycle and our everyday conversations. Yes, even more than it already has the past few years. Trump and the digital age has wrought news overload — even with coverage of religion news. Look for reporters to cover religion a lot, if the news is linked to the president and his Democratic challengers.

How Catholics vote will be a big storyline throughout the primaries and in the general election.


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