Coronavirus

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With all due respect, reports about Biden, the 'McCarrick doctrine' and Mass are not stupid

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With all due respect, reports about Biden, the 'McCarrick doctrine' and Mass are not stupid

“The Biden Communion stories are stupid,” proclaims the headline atop a Religion News Service column by Father Thomas J. Reese.

The opinion by Reese, a Jesuit priest and RNS senior analyst, follows a flurry of news reports — which we first mentioned last week — about whether the nation’s second Catholic president might be denied Communion because of his support for abortion rights.

“This is a stupid story for canonical, theological and political reasons,” Reese writes. “First, and foremost, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops does not have the canonical authority to tell (President Joe) Biden that he cannot go to Communion.”

For insight on the canonical, theological and political issues, I’d highly recommend Reese’s column. As for his claim that the news stories are stupid, I’d respectfully disagree. From a journalistic perspective, they are, in fact, highly newsworthy.

Even if much of the coverage could be better, as Clemente Lisi explained here at GetReligion, with the essay then appearing at Religion Unplugged. A key topic being avoided? The role of fallen cardinal Theodore “Uncle Ted” McCarrick in developing the awkward compromise currently in effect here in America.

Another helpful read at Religion Unplugged: Stephen P. Millies, an associate professor of public theology at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, dissects the power struggle behind the U.S. bishops’ move.

Among this week’s related headlines:

• Pelosi’s archbishop says prominent Catholics who support abortion rights should be denied Communion (by Reis Thebault, Washington Post)

• How faith groups feel after Biden’s first 100 days (by Kelsey Dallas, Deseret News)

• New bishop of Biden’s hometown mum on Communion question (by Nicole Winfield and Luis Andres Henao, Associated Press)

• Catholic bishops who want to deny Biden Communion may have to reckon with the pope (by Jack Jenkins and Claire Giangravé, RNS)


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Thinking about evangelicals and COVID-19 vaccines: Wait! The numbers show WHAT?!?!

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Thinking about evangelicals and COVID-19 vaccines: Wait! The numbers show WHAT?!?!

The last 14 months have given the world a series of public health challenges that it has never had to grapple with before.

Will people willingly disrupt their lives in order to contain the spread of a potentially lethal virus? Can drug manufacturers develop and test a vaccine in a very short period of time that is effective against COVID-19? Will those same pharmaceutical companies be able to ramp up manufacturing capabilities quickly enough to satisfy the demand for those vaccines?

In terms of vaccine creation and distribution, there’s no doubt that it’s been an unqualified success. Every estimate indicates that the United States will be awash in vaccines by May. However, the question that is looming on the very near horizon is the most important and difficult to answer: will the United States be able to vaccinate enough of the population to get to a state of herd immunity and finally put an end to this year long nightmare?

It’s not the hard sciences that are under the microscope, it’s the social sciences. To reach herd immunity, most experts believe that a country needs to get at least 75% of the population fully vaccinated as a minimum threshold. Will that even be possible? Are societal factors like religion actually making the goal of herd immunity even more difficult?

The organization Data for Progress has been putting a poll into the field since the very beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020 as a way to get a sense of what percentage of the public is engaging in risky behaviors and how they feel the government is handling the crisis. Since January they have begun to ask respondents questions about their receptiveness to the vaccine. What these results indicate is that there are some reasons for hope, but there is also ample evidence that getting shots into arms may prove to be a lot more difficult in the very near future.

The survey asked respondents if they had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. As can be quickly inferred, those shots were in short supply in January. Just about 6% of the entire sample indicated that they had gotten the vaccine at that point. However, things improved rapidly from there and the share of Americans who had been inoculated essentially doubled every month from January through early April, when 44% of the population had gotten a dose of the vaccine.

However, when the sample is broken down into the three of the largest religious groups: White evangelicals, White Catholics and the religiously unaffiliated, some disparities begin to emerge.


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New podcast: Religious wars over vaccines? They're more complex than those headlines

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New podcast: Religious wars over vaccines? They're more complex than those headlines

Once again, it’s time for some time travel on the religion beat — as we ponder the current state of news coverage about the COVID-19 mask-and-vaccine wars.

Think back to Easter a year ago. Church leaders were wrestling with the real possibility that they would not be able to worship during Holy Week and on the holiest day on the Christian calendar. This was got lots of ink from the press, with good cause. There appeared to be two camps: (1) Crazy right-wingers (many journalists saw Donald Trump looming in the background) who wanted face-to-face worship at any cost and then (2) sensible, sane clergy willing to move to online worship and leave it at that.

The reality was more complex, especially since some (not all) government leaders seemed to think that worship was more dangerous than other forms of public life. During this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in), host Todd Wilken and I discussed how it’s easy to see the same patterns in news reports on bitter battles over COVID-19 vaccines. For some on the left — see this fascinating Emma Green piece at The Atlantic — super-strict coronavirus rules have evolved into faith-based dogma.

Now for that early COVID-19 flashback. In a post and podcast a year ago, I argued that this wasn’t really a simplistic story about two groups (good churches vs. bad churches), but one in which there were at least five camps to cover:

Those five camps? They are (1) the 99% of religious leaders who cooperated and took worship online, (2) some religious leaders who (think drive-in worship or drive-thru confessions) who tried to create activities that followed [government] social-distancing standards, (3) a few preachers who rebelled, period, (4) lots of government leaders who established logical laws and tried to be consistent with sacred and secular activities and (5) some politicians who seemed to think drive-in religious events were more dangerous than their secular counterparts.

Say what? … Why were drive-in worship services — with, oh, 100 cars containing people in a big space — more dangerous than businesses and food pantry efforts that produced, well, several hundred cars in a parking lot?

These five camps still exist and we can see them in the vaccine wars.


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Plug-In: COVID-19 vaccines are still creating buzz on religion beat -- pro and con

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Plug-In: COVID-19 vaccines are still creating buzz on religion beat -- pro and con

After sticking close to home for over a year, I’ve returned to in-person worship at my church in Oklahoma.

I’ve joined my sons and 2-year-old grandson in watching a game at my beloved Texas Rangers’ splashy new ballpark.

I’ve boarded an airplane and — for the first time since the pandemic hit — made a reporting trip (to Minneapolis this past weekend after Derek Chauvin’s conviction in George Floyd’s murder).

For millions, the COVID-19 vaccines have brought joy and hope, and I count myself among them after receiving my two Moderna shots.

Weekend Plug-in has covered various angles related to the vaccines and religion — from whether the shots are “morally compromised” to efforts to overcome skepticism among wary African Americans.

Still, the topic remains timely and important, as evidenced by interesting stories published just this past week:

• COVID-19 has hit the Amish community hard. Still, vaccines are a tough sell (by Anna Huntsman, NPR)

• Francis Collins urges evangelicals: ‘Love your neighbor,’ get COVID-19 vaccine (by Adelle M. Banks, Religion News Service)

• At Orange County mosques, they come for the halal tacos and stay for the vaccination (by Alejandra Molina, RNS)

• Churches, Christian universities hosting COVID-19 vaccine clinics (by Chellie Ison, Christian Chronicle)

• For evangelical leader Jamie Aten, advocating for vaccines led to a death threat (by Bob Smietana, RNS)

Also, in case you missed it last week, Ryan Burge offers fascinating analysis here at ReligionUnplugged on data showing White evangelicals and Catholics are more likely to get the vaccine than religious “nones” and the general public. Yes, you read that right.


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Ministry after 2020? The year when COVID-19 caused clergy stress to zoom to a new level

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Ministry after 2020? The year when COVID-19 caused clergy stress to zoom to a new level

When training pastors and chaplains, educators frequently stress the need for "boundaries" between work and home.

Clergy need -- somehow -- to find "personal" time, along with face-to-face contact with loved ones. That challenge became more difficult in the age of smartphones, texting and emails, noted Marlon C. Robinson, pastoral care director at AdventHealth in Manchester, Ky., and a specialist in marriage and family therapy.

Then came the COVID-19 lockdowns and the pressures on clergy zoomed to a whole new level.

"Everything came home, all at once," said Robinson, reached by telephone. "Pastors were spending more and more time with their families -- jammed into one space. But this wasn't quality time. Everyone was at home, but they were staring at their own phones and computer screens. There was no intimacy, and all the pressures of ministry grew even more intense."

To make matters worse, the usual struggles with church leadership and finances were complicated by political warfare and conspiracy theories that, literally, began to shape how congregations handled worship, pastoral care, education and even efforts to keep sanctuaries clean and safe.

Instead of arguing -- to cite church clichés -- about the color of new carpet or outdated hymnals, the faithful were fighting about whether masks were necessary to save lives or merely "politically correct" virtue signals.

Meanwhile, people were sick, and some died, with their pastors and families on the other side of locked hospital or nursing-home doors. And it was illegal to have funerals? Attendance dropped, along with offerings. More than a few members vanished.

Ministers "are inundated with phone calls, emails, text and WhatsApp messages, and communications through a host of other platforms," wrote Robinson, in Ministry Magazine.

While it's impossible to know how many will flee the ministry, early research indicates pastors are "experiencing intensified stress levels that … put them at increased risk for developing a mental illness. …


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Stunning AP photos of mass cremations in India: But what about religious traditions?

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Stunning AP photos of mass cremations in India: But what about religious traditions?

Draw up a list of the world’s most religious nations and India (population 1.4 billion) will almost always be somewhere near the top — especially if you focus on the world’s largest nations, in terms of population.

What makes India unique, however, is its incredible religious complexity. While Hindu believers make up about 80% of the population, 15% of the population is Muslim. In terms of sheer numbers, India has the world’s second largest Muslim population (after Indonesia). India has small, but historically important, Christian communities, mostly Catholic and Anglican.

The tensions between India’s various traditions are quite stunning and complex. But so are they way that the major faith groups overlap and blend into a larger whole. The bottom line: There are very few issues in this amazing land that are not, to some degree, touched by religious traditions — even if people struggle to describe the details.

This brings me to a stunning Associated Press photo feature that ran with this headline: “Mass funeral pyres reflect India’s COVID crisis.”

Pause for a minute and ponder this question: How many story angles — some of them quite controversial — can you imagine that are linked to funeral pyres and Hindu traditions? Now, imagine the complex issues that waves of COVID-19 deaths would create in India’s faith communities, with their unique traditions linked to death and dying.

Now imagine dedicating a mere one sentence to only one of those angles. Here is the overture, describing the larger crisis:

NEW DELHI (AP) — Delhi has been cremating so many bodies of COVID-19 victims that authorities are getting requests to start cutting down trees in city parks for kindling, as a record surge of illness is collapsing India’s tattered health care system.

Outside graveyards in cities like Delhi, which currently has the highest daily cases, ambulance after ambulance waits in line to cremate the dead. Burial grounds are running out of space in many cities as glowing funeral pyres blaze through the night.


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Catholic news site proving to be a 'Pillar' when it comes to religion journalism

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Catholic news site proving to be a 'Pillar' when it comes to religion journalism

I teach journalism at The King’s College in New York City. I have for the past four years. GetReligion readers may recall that tmatt used to teach there, as well.

Among the many classes I enjoy teaching is one called “Entrepreneurial Journalism and the Future.” It is a class that teaches aspiring journalists the importance of the business side of the profession and how technology has disrupted the traditional distribution methods by which people consume news.

We all know that the number of people who read a daily newspaper — in paper form that is — has dropped dramatically over the last decade as more people use iPads and smartphones to connect to information. The news ecosystem has grown to envelope legacy news organizations such as The New York Times and Washington Post to digital-only sites like Buzzfeed and Vice.

The Catholic news world has also seen its share of startups since the internet has changed the news industry. It’s these changes that have brought more issues like fake news and misinformation, but also allowed journalists to become entrepreneurs and build start-ups of their own.

Journalists have found news and innovative ways — like the growing subscription platform Substack — to tell stories and do great journalism.

One of the bright spots of 2021 so far has been The Pillar. Founded by journalists (and canon lawyers) J.D. Flynn and Ed Condon who have experience at a variety of places like Catholic News Agency, The Pillar says its “a Catholic media project focused on smart, faithful, and serious journalism, from committed and informed Catholics who love the Church.”

This is what else they claim to be:

Our focus is on investigative journalism, which is how we’ll spend most of our time. We think investigating stories that matter can help the Church to better serve its sacred mission, the salvation of souls.


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GQ's religion-focused cover story is (clickbait) worth reading -- even for non-Beliebers

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GQ's religion-focused cover story is (clickbait) worth reading -- even for non-Beliebers

Let’s open this week’s roundup with Justin Bieber — and not just for the clickbait.

“The Redemption of Justin Bieber,” GQ’s May cover story by senior writer Zach Baron, really is a fascinating read.

As Christianity Today’s Daniel Silliman put it on Twitter, “If you don't care at all about Justin Bieber, this is still a good story about someone who was young, stupid, powerful, privileged, destructive, and sad and nevertheless found grace.”

Not interested in Bieber?

Try $300 Bibles.

Religion News Service’s Emily McFarlan Miller delves into the marketing of an expensive, “modern version of God’s Holy Word.”

Miller explores not just the price tag but also the history behind so-called “premium” Bibles.

After Bieber and Bibles, I feel like I need one more “b” item to round out the set. What about ballgames?

Juggling church and football isn’t just for NFL fans anymore, writes AP sports writer Teresa M. Walker, with whom I worked during my time with The Associated Press in Nashville, Tenn.

“Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, it became the norm for college fans like the Mosleys as most Football Championship Subdivision leagues moved their schedules to the spring,” Walker explains.


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Coronavirus pandemic provided an 'acid test' for financial issues in Catholic parishes

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Coronavirus pandemic provided an 'acid test' for financial issues in Catholic parishes

Catholic leaders often whisper about "Christmas and Easter Catholics," as in people whose names are found on parish membership rolls but it's rare to see them in pews -- except during crowded Christmas and Easter rites.

Thus, any study of the COVID-19 pandemic's financial impact on America's nearly 17,000 parishes had to start with the early lockdowns that turned Easter 2020 into a virtual event, with millions of Catholics stuck at home, along with their wallets and checkbooks.

Journalists at The Pillar, an independent Catholic website, collected online materials from 100 parishes in 10 strategic church provinces and found that total offerings were 12% lower in 2020 than the previous year. It was clear when the crisis became real.

Data researcher Brendan Hodge noted donations at Christmas -- "perhaps in combination with secular notions both of making donations before the end of the tax year and of making resolutions for better tithing in the new calendar year" -- and then Easter.

"But in 2020 the normal Easter surge in giving was reversed: the very lowest weeks of tithing came during the Lent and Easter weeks when nearly all U.S. parishes were closed," he noted, in the first of two investigative reports.

After the Easter collapse tithes and offerings seemed to find a new "normal," with a consistent pattern of giving that mirrored 2019 numbers -- only about 12% lower. Clearly, many faithful Catholics stayed the course, offering their usual financial support while taking part in online services and whatever in-person rites could be held under social-distancing regulations.

This raised an old issue: Why are some Catholics -- in good times and bad -- more loyal than others? This question is part of a pattern religious leaders have seen for decades, with about 80% of the work and support in most congregations coming from 20% of their members.


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