Church & State

New podcast: Why is the 'handmaid' image so important in Amy Coney Barrett coverage?

The question for the week appears to be: Are you now, or have you ever been, a charismatic Catholic?

In a land in which citizens are divided just as much by entertainment as they are by their religious and political choices, that question leads directly to cable television and a certain blue-zip-code hit focusing on, to quote IMDB, this story hook: “Set in a dystopian future, a woman is forced to live as a concubine under a fundamentalist theocratic dictatorship.”

This leads us to the word “handmaid” and strained efforts by some — repeat “some” — journalists to attach it to the life and faith of Judge Amy Coney Barrett. This topic was, of course, discussed at length during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). How could we avoid it?

It’s crucial to know that the word “handmaid” has radically different meanings for members of two radically different flocks of Americans.

For Catholics and other traditional Christians, this term is defined by its use in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke, during this encounter between Mary and the Angel Gabriel. This is long, but essential:

… The angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?

And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. …For with God nothing shall be impossible.

And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

In this context, the word refers to a “female servant.” However, its use in Christian tradition has, for 2,000 years, been linked directly to St. Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Now, let’s move to mass media, where the Urban Dictionary defines the term as:


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Conservative Catholics could be energized if Trump picks Amy Coney Barrett for SCOTUS

It was back in January — eons ago in the context of 2020 news — that Donald Trump became the first U.S. president to appear at the annual March for Life. At last month’s Republican National Convention, a conservative nun named Sister Deirdre “Dede” Byrne called Trump “the most pro-life president that this nation has ever had.”

This brings us to now and the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The expectation is that Trump will put forth a nominee — a shortlist that sees Judge Amy Coney Barrett as the frontrunner — that has a record of being opposed to America’s post-Roe v. Wade abortion laws. That will inflame activists on the cultural left and exacerbate tensions in this country following the pandemic and protests surrounding racial injustice.

The focus on abortion will, once again, challenge journalists to produce balanced, accurate, on-the-record material describing the religious beliefs of the potential nominees.

How will this affect the final weeks of the 2020 campaign? Attacks from some Democrats on Barrett during the confirmation process, should she be the nominee, could very well help Trump with some Catholic voters. In turn, attacks on Barrett would hurt Biden, a Catholic trying to get Catholic swing voters in Pennsylvania and Ohio to vote for him. If anything, anti-Catholic attacks against Barrett could both galvanize GOP voters and tip some undecided Catholic voters across the Rust Belt toward Trump.

The 48-year-old Barrett, a native of New Orleans, and her husband Jesse Barrett, a former prosecutor, have seven children, including two adopted from Haiti and one with Down syndrome. Barrett learned of her son’s diagnosis during a prenatal test, but decided to have the baby. Aside from being a federal judge, Barrett teaches law at Notre Dame. She is a former law clerk to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, with The New York Times reporting that her fellow clerks saying she was his favorite. She graduated from Notre Dame Law School and joined the faculty in 2002.

If nominated and confirmed, Barrett would be the youngest member of the Supreme Court in history and, thus, could help shape many future decisions.


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Speaking of people being praised: New York Times offered solid, old-school story about Barrett

Guess what? Judge Amy Coney Barrett is being considered, once again, for an open chair at the Supreme Court, the only branch of the United States government that seems to matter in this tense and divided land.

The odds are good that you have read about this development in the national press or even in the few remaining pages of your local newspaper.

We all know what this means, in terms of press coverage. Many of the same reporters who are perfectly comfortable calling Joe Biden a “devout” Catholic — while his actions clash with church doctrines on marriage and sex — are going to spill oceans of digital ink warning readers about the dangerous dogmas that dwell loudly in the heart and mind of Barrett. I am following all of that in social media and elsewhere.

However, let me start these discussions with a post that might surprise many readers. I would like to praise the recent New York Times story that ran with this headline: “To Conservatives, Barrett Has ‘Perfect Combination’ of Attributes for Supreme Court.” Also, I think it was wise to have a religion-beat professional take part in reporting and writing this story.

I am sure that combatants on both sides of this debate will find some sections in this story rather troubling. But here is the key point I want to make: Unlike many Times stories in recent years, almost all of this material comes from qualified sources (left and right) whose names are attached to their opinions and the information they provided. There are attribution clauses all over the place, just like in Times of old.

Near the top there is this short summary:

“She is the perfect combination of brilliant jurist and a woman who brings the argument to the court that is potentially the contrary to the views of the sitting women justices,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion political group, who has praised Mr. Trump’s entire shortlist.

The nomination of a judge whom Mr. Trump was quoted last year as “saving” to be Justice Ginsburg’s replacement would almost surely plunge the nation into a bitter and divisive debate over the future of abortion rights, made even more pointed because Judge Barrett would replace a justice who was an unequivocal supporter of those rights. That is a debate Mr. Trump has not shied away from as president, as his judicial appointments and efforts to court conservatives have repeatedly shown.

As you would expect, Barrett’s critics are given plenty of space to respond — which is totally appropriate. It is also good that these voices are clearly identified, along with information about their organizations.

In other words, the story contains evidence of debate on a serious topic in the news.


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Podcast-blitz: RBG black swan, global fertility, decades of Catholic sin, religious liberty and more

Where were you when the Ruth Bader Ginsburg news hit the screen of your smartphone?

When I saw the news, the first thing I thought about was that recent Jess Fields podcast in which political scientist and data-chart-maestro Ryan Burge was working through some key points about the 2020 White House race and last-minute factors that could come into play.

This brought him to his “black swan” prediction. If you didn’t check out that podcast several weeks ago, you are going to want to flash back to it now. It’s the one with this headline, “Jess Fields meets Ryan Burge: As you would image, they're talking 'nones,' 'evangelicals,' etc.” If you prefer audio only, click here.

So what is a “black swan”? Here is that online definition from the previous post:

A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. Black swan events are characterized by their extreme rarity, their severe impact, and the widespread insistence they were obvious in hindsight.

So do I need to tell you what Burge picked as his ultimate 2020 black swan?

He dropped me this note last night:

I was actually in the middle of taping a podcast and switched over to Twitter during the middle of the conversation and saw it. And I had to interrupt the host and tell them. I don't have the video of it, but I bet the color drained out of my face.

I think this is the most precarious position our country has been in since I was born (1982). The government of the United States runs on norms more than it does on laws. And both parties seem ready and willing to violate norms in a tit for tat fashion in ways that only do damage to the future of our country.

So that’s one podcast you need to check out this morning. Before that political earthquake, I had already written a post centering on a blitz of podcasts that I knew would interest GetReligion readers-listeners.

That’s not your normal newsy Monday GetReligion, of course. However, I had a medical reason for getting something ready to go in advance.

On Friday, I headed into the hospital for one of those “minor surgery” operations. But you know the old saying: Minor surgery is surgery on somebody else.


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Where are reporters supposed to turn for a balanced list of 2020 religious pundits?

Where are reporters supposed to turn for a balanced list of 2020 religious pundits?

In a time of intense anxiety across America, an influential clergyman brands a president he opposes for re-election as “essentially” the same as a foreign “dictator,” and even calls him the “Fuhrer.”

When? Who? Though opponents of Donald Trump have applied an alternative N-word— “Nazi” — during the equally tense 2020 campaign, The Guy is talking about some harsh words aimed at Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was seeking his controversial third term.

The president’s accuser was the Rev. Charles Clayton Morrison, who served 39 years as editor of the “mainline” Protestant Christian Century magazine, who despised Roosevelt’s military preparedness and the draft. As an anti-war socialist, he thought Adolph Hitler’s conquests, though displeasing, could create “a united Europe governed from the German center, with a unified planned economy” that would supplant “perverted” capitalist influences.

Journalists of that era would have been well advised to also seek out contrasting religious views from a trio of eminent Roosevelt friends in the New York City clergy establishment, Protestant Professor Reinhold Niebuhr at Union Theological Seminary, Jewish Reform Rabbi Stephen Wise and the recently appointed Catholic Archbishop Francis Spellman. Reporters always need to know who to call for diverse points of view.

The Guy’s musings about matters 80 years ago are provoked by a list of 20 campaign sources suggested to the media by the Religion News Association’s handy ReligionLink website.

Journalists can reflect on how times have changed. A 2020 listing can offer no divines with the public stature of those 1940 leaders. ReligionLink cites no thinkers from religious periodicals like the Century, or Christianity Toda, or the Catholic America, Commonweal,or conservative EWTN media cluster, or the Jewish upstarts at www.tabletmag.com.

For some reason, the list bypasses religion analysts at the Washington think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, Ethics & Public Policy Center, Brookings Institution or Center for American Progress. With legal conflicts raging, the listing proposes calls to Rachel Laser at Americans United for Separation of Church and State but no attorney backing contrary religious liberty claims from the Becket Fund or the Alliance Defending Freedom — groups active in arguing cases at the U.S. Supreme Court.

On a list heavy with academics, it’s surprising not to see John C. Green of the University of Akron, the poli sci patriarch on the religion factor since the 1980s, or any specialist on the vast Southern Baptist Convention and white southern evangelicalism.


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Global COVID-19 parables: What responsibility do faith groups have to the larger society?

I’m a great fan of a magical sense of awe, that heightened state of awareness during which the transcendent feels most palpable. However, I am decidedly not a fan of magical thinking that denies the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic.

I consider the latter delusional at best. The pandemic will not end because some — particularly those in positions of authority — wish it away. It can only be tamed, I believe, by limiting its spread until medical researchers develop a dependable vaccine or cure.

Until then, our responsibility as members of a highly interdependent society is to protect ourselves and each other via responsible social distancing and by always wearing a mask when adequate distancing is impossible. Anything less, in my book — speaking as someone who due to age and preexisting medical conditions is at great risk — is selfish and irresponsible.

Nor do I care whether the deniers are bikers in South Dakota, frat boys on any number of university campuses who can’t resist a keg or political libertarians who insist that their individual choices are at least as, if not more, important than the communal good in a national health emergency.

Ditto for the most sincerely devout of fatalistic religious believers who think their faith will protect them and their co-religionists. Or who insist that government — any secular government — lacks the authority to limit their religious expression in any way.

My news feeds have been replete with such examples. Here are three that have particularly aroused my pique. I consider each a clear example of self-aggrandizing, potentially deadly religious entitlement.

One story is from Israel and concerns a group of ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews who have insisted on making their annual Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to a Ukrainian city where their deceased spiritual leader is buried. This, despite the probability that they’re likely to bring the pandemic with them.

A second from, South Korea, tells the tale of a megachurch that found itself at the center of a coronavirus cluster, which it blames on misleading figures released by government opponents.

The third involves the Rev. John MacArthur of Los Angeles’ Grace Community Church, who recently claimed that the number of American COVID-19 deaths is way below the generally accepted figures reported by mainstream news outlets. MacArthur claimed that there is no pandemic.


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Words or deeds? Catholics will be discussing Joe Biden's actions during fall campaign

Words or deeds? Catholics will be discussing Joe Biden's actions during fall campaign

In the summer of 2016, two White House staffers -- Brian Mosteller and Joe Mahshie -- tied the knot in a rite led by one of America's most prominent Catholics.

The officiant was Vice President Joe Biden, who later proclaimed on Twitter: "Proud to marry Brian and Joe at my house. Couldn't be happier … two great guys."

Leaders of familiar Catholic armies then debated whether Biden's actions attacked this Catholic Catechism teaching: "The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman form with each other an intimate communion of life and love, has been founded and endowed with its own special laws by the Creator. … Christ the Lord raised marriage between the baptized to the dignity of a sacrament."

Conflicts between bishops, clergy and laity will loom in the background as Biden seeks to become America's second Catholic president. Combatants will be returning to territory explored in a famous 1984 address by the late Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York, entitled "Religious Belief and Public Morality."

Speaking at the University of Notre Dame, he said: "As a Catholic, I have accepted certain answers as the right ones for myself and my family, and because I have, they have influenced me in special ways, as Matilda's husband, as a father of five children, as a son who stood next to his own father's death bed trying to decide if the tubes and needles no longer served a purpose.

"As a governor, however, I am involved in defining policies that determine other people's rights in these same areas of life and death. Abortion is one of these issues, and while it is one issue among many, it is one of the most controversial and affects me in a special way as a Catholic public official."

It would be wrong to make abortion policies the "exclusive litmus test of Catholic loyalty," he said. After all, the "Catholic church has come of age in America" and it's time for bishops to recognize that Catholic politicians have to be realistic negotiators in a pluralistic land.

Cuomo also noted polls indicating that American Catholics "support the right to abortion in equal proportion to the rest of the population. … We Catholics apparently believe -- and perhaps act -- little differently from those who don't share our commitment. Are we asking government to make criminal what we believe to be sinful because we ourselves can't stop committing the sin?"


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Washington Post ponders the future of Sen. Tim Scott (all but avoiding the word 'Christian')

Let’s see, am I at liberty — after a week of big-time PTL scandal flashbacks — to discuss a completely different kind of religion story?

I have not been watching the major-party political conventions (for mental-health reasons, let’s say), but I have been spending a few moments watching reactions on Twitter. I tend to prefer baseball over the live visuals of advocacy media slugfests.

I saved a few links to materials about the interfaith strategies of the Democrats. I also looked for signs of the role that issues of religion and culture could play in the post-Donald Trump GOP. And in that context, I looked at some of the quotes from the short speech by U.S. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.

It’s obvious why this man once considered going to seminary. He’s a fine orator and has a knack for making references to Christianity in ways that are more graceful than, well, posing with a Bible for news cameras. It’s impossible to dig into Scott’s career without paying serious attention to his faith.

However, a recent lengthy Washington Post Magazine profile of Scott came close to doing just that. Here’s the epic double-decker headline:

The Burden of Tim Scott

As the only Black GOP senator, he has walked a delicate line between schooling his colleagues — and the president — on matters of race and remaining silent. Has that helped his political future?

I understand that this was a political piece and that Scott is tiptoeing through the Trump-Twitter era. The long opening anecdote in about Scott asking the president to take down the infamous “white power” tweet is totally justified.

However, to be blunt, I think that the word “Christian” should have been just as important in this long, long story as the word “token.” Read it all and see what you think. I think this story would have been completely different, if a religion-beat pro had been asked to take part in the reporting or editing.

So here is the political angle that is at the heart of this story:


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