Church & State

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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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This post really isn't about Mark Galli: Why reporters should know basics about Christian flocks

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Back in the early 1980s, I worked at The Charlotte Observer during an interesting time in Presbyterian history. I am referring to the final crossing of the “t”s and the dotting of the “i”s that completed the union of the northern United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and the southern Presbyterian Church in the United States to create the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), one of the “Seven Sisters” of liberal Protestantism.

At that time, Charlotte was a rare Southern city — in that there were as many, or more, Presbyterians than there were Southern Baptists. Thus, a “Presbyterian” merger was big news.

Ah, but trying to write about this story in a mainstream newspaper was a nightmare, due to the complexity of Presbyterianism in that region. You start with the churches that merged, the UPC and the PCUS. Then you add the PCUSA. For starters, do you also know the differences between the PCUSA, the ARPC (Associate Reformed Presbyterian), the CPC (Cumberland Presbyterian), the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America), the OPC (Orthodox Presbyterian) and the EPC (Evangelical Presbyterian Church)?

You couldn’t cover Charlotte back then without being able to handle this doctrinal alphabet soup.

This brings me to Mark Galli and the firestorm about his Christianity Today editorial (GetReligion “big idea” post here) asking for Donald Trump to be removed from the White House. At the moment, some journalists are acting like CT is part of the Religious Right, while Trump-ites are saying it’s now on the religious left. All of this, of course, is linked to confusion about how to define That Word — “evangelicalism.”

As you would expect, Galli — who is retiring as CT editor — has been in a hot spotlight.

So who is this guy? The Los Angeles Times offered a short profile (yes, the original headline called Galli an “evangelist” editor) that included this:

Galli was born in San Francisco and grew up in Santa Cruz — liberal hotspots and somewhat unlikely cities in which to develop strong evangelical influences. And yet Galli has spent much of his career at Christianity Today, which Billy Graham founded in the 1950s.

“When I was a teenager ... my mother had a conversion experience actually watching Billy Graham on TV,” Galli said.

During a difficult emotional time, Galli’s mother got on her knees in their home, in front of the the television, and accepted Jesus Christ, he said. A few months later, on Dec. 19, 1965 — 54 years, to the day, before Galli published this editorial — he too accepted Christ during an altar call. …

Like those evangelicals who support Trump, Galli shares their anti-abortion stance and support for religious freedom. But he said he doesn’t understand why Trump’s supporters seem to dig in their heels when defending what he considers the president’s immoral behavior. 

This sounds like a rather ordinary, West Coast version of an “evangelical” biography — but one that contains zero specific information about the editor’s denominational or theological background.


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This weekend 'think piece' is not about l'affaire Christianity Today: Please read it anyway

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Believe it or not, I had already selected a Dallas Morning News essay by Baylor University historian Thomas about evangelicals and politics as this weekend’s “think piece” before l’affaire Christianity Today rocked the chattering classes that live on Twitter.

The double-decker headline proclaims, “When political pollsters talk about ‘evangelicals,’ they aren’t talking about all of us: The evangelical leaders whom the president cites are actually a small group.”

Kidd has been everywhere in recent weeks, with due cause, because of his new Yale University Press book: “Who Is an Evangelical?: The History of a Movement in Crisis.”

Somebody, somewhere, really needs to buy a truckload this book and distribute copies to every journalist in America (and maybe the world) who plans to cover the 2020 White House race. And not just because of Trump! There are crucial “evangelical” plot lines unfolding linked to African-American evangelicals (ask Mayor Pete Buttigieg) and the growing number of evangelical Latinos (think suburban voters in Florida).

But, wait, is the word “evangelical” a political term? Here is a bite from a recent column I did on Kidd’s work:

Some journalists and pollsters are now operating on the assumption that white evangelicals are the only evangelicals that matter, noted Kidd. … A few have, however, started to realize that many Americans who self-identify as "evangelicals" are not walking the talk. 

That has been common knowledge since the late 1970s, when Gallup researchers began asking hard questions about religious beliefs and the practice of those beliefs in daily life. Gallup cut its estimate that "evangelicals" were 34% of America's population to 18% – a number that would shock many journalists, as well as GOP activists.

"Evangelicals are covered, they are important, when they are a factor in politics — period," said Kidd.


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Attention reporters: New poll examines trends among 'Catholic voters' heading into '20 elections

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With less than a year before the 2020 presidential election, a new poll of U.S. Catholics found that they largely favor a host of Democratic challengers to President Donald Trump.

But the survey also found that 58% of devout Catholics, those who say they accept all church teaching, were “sure to vote” for Trump next year — compared to 34% of all Catholics and 32% of respondents overall who were asked the same question.

The survey — conducted in cooperation between the Eternal World Television Network and RealClear Opinion Research — offers updated insights into the minds of American Catholics ahead of the upcoming Democratic primaries and the November general election. 

“With few exceptions, for generations, tracking the preferences of the Catholic vote has proven to be a shortcut to predicting the winner of the popular vote — and I expect 2020 to be no different,” said John Della Volpe, director of the poll. “Like the rest of America, the 22% of the electorate comprising the Catholic vote is nuanced and diverse. And like America, the diverse viewpoints based on generation, race, and ethnicity are significant and prove that no longer are Catholic voters a monolith.”

There’ s also the notion of who exactly are these Catholic voters who support Trump? Here at GetReligion, tmatt has argued — quoting a veteran priest in Washington, D.C. — that there are actually four types of Catholic voters in America: Ex-Catholics, Cultural Catholics, Sunday-morning Catholics and “sweats the details and goes to Confession” Catholics. The poll doesn’t dig into any of these factors.

Since the days of John F. Kennedy, Democrats who are also Catholic have tried to reconcile the church’s teachings with their party’s politics.


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Washington Post and ReligionUnplugged both land stories on Mormon $100 billion slush fund

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Well, it was a race to the finish as to who’d land the story Monday night about a secret –- and possibly illegal - -$100 billion fund made up of Mormon tithes

We think the Washington Post made it to the finish line first, but it was neck-in-neck with Paul Glader, the former Wall Street Journal reporter who now oversees Religion Unplugged. It should be noted that GetReligion and Religion UnPlugged do share some content, but I’m not privy to how Glader got the story other than his note atop his piece that says a source called him in November.

Glader was working solo for the past month or so; the Post had three people on this story plus another two helping out, not to mention the former IRS official they pulled in for advice. I am glad that the Post didn’t just rely on its business reporters but pulled Michelle Boorstein, its senior religion-beat writer, onto the story.

I am curious why the two Salt Lake newpapers totally missed this story as did the Journal, which is usually on top of financial scandals but has continues to lag way behind on breaking religion news.

We will start with ReligionUnplugged:

NEW YORK — A whistleblower complaint filed at the Internal Revenue Service in November by a knowledgeable church member alleges that a non-profit supporting organization controlled by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints used member tithes to amass more than $100 billion in a set of investment funds and the Church misled members about uses of the money.

The complaint may be the most important look at LDS finances in decades, a window into one of the wealthiest religious organizations in the United States and the world. Details of the IRS filing reveal financial assets largely hidden from the church’s membership (often known as “Mormons”) and the public view.


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After Brexit, will United Kingdom become an untied kingdom? If so, what about its churches?

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The British election December 12 was as dramatic as America’s in 2016. Some claim the smashing triumph of Boris Johnson’s Conservatives over Jeremy Corbyn and Labour means Donald Trump will be re-elected if U.S. Democrats likewise go hard left. Or not.

Whatever the U.S. ripples, the inevitable “Brexit” from the European Union is epochal for the U.K. 

Journalists should be pondering an equally historic possibility. Philip Jenkins, a Baylor University historian of religion whose Christian Century columns about overseas trends are always worth reading, posed the following on Patheos.com days before the Brits balloted.

What if Brexit turns the United Kingdom into an untied kingdom? What if the nation with the world’s fifth largest economy dissolves? What happens to ties between some of the churches that are involved?

In terms of history, not long ago we saw the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia break into assorted nation-states, and before that the Czechs and Slovaks split up.

England dominates the four segments of the nation officially named The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Jenkins contends that today’s supposed “British” government sees itself "only in terms of England” and he predicts in coming years “the nation of Great Britain will have ceased to exist.”

A crackup’s first stage would be the departure of Scotland after 312 years. In a 2014 referendum, an impressive 45 percent of Scots voted to quit the U.K. The potential break was further demonstrated in the Britain-wide referendum that backed Brexit when a lopsided 62 percent of Scots voted to remain in the European Union. The pro-independence Scottish National Party surged in last week’s voting. Jenkins claims Scotland’s breakaway is now “just a matter of time.”  

Northern Ireland likewise voted to remain in the European Union, by 56 percent.


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Thinking about St. Benedict: Emma Green looks at one extreme option in Kansas

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Several years ago, I took a copy of The Atlantic Monthly with me on a non-stop flight from Baltimore to the Los Angeles area. I was still reading it when the plane landed on the West Coast. And that was before Emma Green arrived.

As I have stated before here at GetReligion, Green’s work is magazine-style analysis, yet she is also doing hard reporting as part of that mix — reporting that often drives hard-news beat reporters to have to consider expanding their sources and the points of view included in their work. At times, it seems like we could feature Green in this “think piece” slot every weekend.

This time around, she headed to a state that I am beginning to frequent for family reasons. Kansas is not for everyone, but it is an interesting and unique culture — a real place. It’s as far south and west as you can go and still be in the Midwest, with it’s strong emphasis on family and community. How many public parks are there in Wichita? (The answer is 144.)

Here is the headline on Green’s new piece:

The Christian Withdrawal Experiment

Feeling out of step with the mores of contemporary life, members of a conservative-Catholic group have built a thriving community in rural Kansas. Could their flight from mainstream society be a harbinger for the nation?

The big idea, of course, is that these believers are withdrawing, as much as is possible in this hyperlinked world, from one culture in order to defend another. At the heart of it all is faith and family.

But is this specific community the emerging norm? Here is the overture:


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Religion news, the First Amendment and BBQ: GetReligion will soon have a new home base

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All together now, let’s sing: “Turn, Turn, Turn.”

GetReligion. org has been around since February 1, 2004, and in Internet years that is a long, long time. Some of us — certainly me — have gained more than a few gray hairs in the process.

For several years now, I have known that I would retire from full-time work here at GetReligion when the clock struck midnight and we reached January 1, 2020. The question — logically enough — was whether this weblog would shut down or evolve back into something that I could do part-time, which was how things started out long ago.

The good news is that, well, we ain’t dead yet. The bad news is that we will have to do some major downsizing, which means we’ll have to make changes in the amount of content that we offer here. After nearly a decade, Bobby Ross Jr., has already put out the word that he is leaving GetReligion and will now be writing a weekly religion-news roundup for Religion UnPlugged that will also run elsewhere (including here, we hope).

Readers will not be surprised to know that — a sign of the times in which we live — the work we will be doing here in the future will require some fundraising. Visitors to the website will see more information about that sooner, rather than later.

But the big news today is that GetReligion will soon have a new home base, one linked directly to the First Amendment, which means work tied to freedom of the press and freedom of religion.

As of January 1, we will be based at the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics, which is next door to the School of Journalism and New Media at the University of Mississippi.


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Big story: How to properly cover laws regarding sex abuse and Catholic church bankruptcy

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It’s been 17 years since The Boston Globe published its groundbreaking series on clergy sex abuse.

Some two decades later, a political shift in state legislative bodies and fallout from the #MeToo movement have all collided to bring what many warn is a financial reckoning that could cripple the Catholic church in America.

It was more than a year ago — on November 28 to be exact — that I warned in a GetReligion post about how the church would be hit with a blizzard of lawsuits in 2019 and what a massive story it would be.

Here’s an excerpt from that post:

As the scandals — that mostly took place in past — continue to trickle out in the form of grand jury reports and other investigations, look for lawmakers to try and remedy the situation for victims through legislation on the state level.

With very blue New York State voting to put Democrats in control of both the state Assembly and Senate (the GOP had maintained a slight majority), look for lawmakers to pass (and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Catholic, to sign) the Child Victims Act. The Empire State isn’t alone. Other legislatures in Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey and New Mexico are considering similar measures.

The New York legislation would allow victims of abuse suffered under the age of 18 to seek justice years later as adults. Removing the statute of limitations on cases involving private institutions, like the Boy Scouts and Jewish yeshivas, is at the heart of the battle.

New York did indeed pass the law — and may other states followed in its footsteps. In all, 15 states and the District of Columbia have changed their statute of limitations over the past two years in order to allow for lawsuits regarding rape and sexual assault allegations dating back many decades to be brought to court. In many cases, the offender is long dead.


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