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'Uncle Ted' McCarrick is on the move again: Is this a major Catholic news story or not?

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So, let’s say that there is a major piece of news that breaks concerning the life and times of the man previously known as Cardinal Theodore “Uncle Ted” McCarrick.

This is something that happens quite frequently, even though the disgraced former cardinal moved into the wide open spaces of West Kansas, living as a guest in a Capuchin friary.

Ah, but is he still there?

That leads us to this simple, but important, headline at the Catholic News Agency: “Theodore McCarrick has moved from Kansas friary.” As I write this, I am not seeing follow-up coverage of this development at any mainstream media websites. Here’s some of the key CNA material:

A spokesman for the Capuchin Franciscan Province of St. Conrad told CNA Jan. 7 that McCarrick left St. Fidelis Friary in Victoria, Kansas, just days ago. He has moved to a residential community of priests who have been removed from ministry, senior Church officials told CNA.

The former cardinal made the decision to leave the Kansas friary himself over the Christmas period, sources say, adding that his continued presence in the friary had become a strain on the Franciscan community that was hosting him.

The story notes that McCarrick’s new home remains unknown or a secret and that he is paying his own rent. So why move now?

Sources familiar with McCarrick’s situation told CNA that both the Kansas friary and McCarrick had been concerned that a forthcoming report on the former cardinal’s career, due to be released by the Vatican in the near future, would bring disruptive media attention to the friary.

McCarrick apparently hopes the new “secluded” location will limit media attempts to contact him in the event of renewed interest in his case, a Church official told CNA.

So here is the question that some Catholics — repeat “some,” mainly on the left — would raise: Can this report be trusted since this story was broken by an “alternative” Catholic news source, a theologically conservative news operation linked to EWTN and the legacy of Mother Angelica?


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Tick, tick, tick: Days leading up to Jan. 1 (and beyond) will be extra strange for GetReligion

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The Christmas and New Year’s season is always a bit of a strange time here at GetReligion, with people coming and going and getting their work done when they can. We do strive to take a few days off, of course. Sort of.

Frankly, this year is going to be extra strange.

Regular readers may have noticed the recent post in which I explained that, as of Jan. 1, GetReligion will have a new home base. Let me repeat some of that information, in case some people missed it. This will help explain some of the extra strangeness in the next few weeks:

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 Jan. 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. … 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. …

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

As of Jan. 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. The chairman of the center is Charles L. Overby, for 22 years the CEO of the Freedom Forum, a non-partisan foundation focusing on the press, religious freedom and the First Amendment.

Or, as I summed things up at the end, we are talking “journalism, the First Amendment, good friends and barbecue.”

However, a big question remains — because of the role that fundraising now plays in our future. That question: What will GetReligion look like after Jan. 1?


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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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Greek Orthodox leader arrested: Reporters who follow the money will hear all kinds of questions

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This is the kind of New York Times headline that tends to inspire emails that show up in my computer inbox: “Ex-Director of Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America Charged.”

In this case, we are dealing with an Associated Press report that has run all over the place — covering the latest installment in a long-simmering scandal that has created a major embarrassment for Eastern Orthodox Christians here in North America.

On one level, this is a Greek Orthodox story. However, I think that reporters need to understand that many Orthodox believers — in America and around the world — are intensely interested in what happens in this case.

Why is that? You see this scandal is linked to a highly symbolic 9/11 memorial project at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. Check out the images and emotional language used in the video at the top of this post, back when work finally started moving on the long-delayed project to rebuild St. Nicholas Orthodox Church.

Let’s start with the top of the AP report:

NEW YORK — The former head administrator of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America was arrested Monday on charges he embezzled over half a million dollars from the organization even as the church ran out of money trying to build a shrine to replace a church crushed in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Jerry Dimitriou, 55, of Greenlawn, New York, was freed on $150,000 bail after he was charged with two counts of wire fraud, accused of pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars illegally while serving as the administrator from 2000 until late 2017.

Dimitriou oversaw construction of a new church and Sept. 11 shrine at the World Trade Center until the project ran out of money in 2017. The St. Nicholas National Shrine, designed by renowned architect Santiago Calatrava and estimated to cost $50 million, was supposed to replace a tiny church that was crushed by the trade center’s south tower.

That $50 million price tag?

If you dig around you will find all kinds of other numbers for that, starting at $80 million and heading way, way higher. The funds for the project came from donors all over the place, with gifts both large and small.

So what went wrong? Here is some language in the new AP story. Read carefully:


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Rolling Stone skips Marianne Williamson's ideas and focuses on money, money, money

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The headline and deck of Tess Stuart’s report on Marianne Williamson — “That Marianne Mind$et: Obeying the Law of Divine Compensation” — tell you nearly everything you need to know about this one-trick pony of a profile in Rolling Stone. Stuart has latched onto one of the easiest clichés of politics (They’re all in it for the money) and turned it into a unified theory of everything, or at least of everything about Williamson.

There was a time when a Rolling Stone writer would have made the effort to understand the worldview behind a person who speaks of miracles and transformation, but that was more than 10 years ago, back when it published Janet Reitman’s “Inside Scientology.”

It’s so much easier now to compare Williamson’s New Thought response to Hurricane Dorian to a prayer offered by a chaplain during a governor’s press conference, as though they are equally ridiculous:

Yet, at other points, it does feel like Williamson is getting something of a raw deal. A week after we met, as Hurricane Dorian was crawling across the Atlantic Ocean toward Florida, Williamson wanted to help. She tweeted, in an attempt to marshal her then-2.76 million followers, “Millions of us seeing Dorian turn away from land is not a wacky idea; it is a creative use of the power of the mind. Two minutes of prayer, visualization, meditation for those in the way of the storm.”

She was mercilessly ridiculed for the sentiment — so badly that Williamson ultimately ended up deleting the tweet.

Although it wasn’t the official end of Williamson’s campaign, it might have been the functional end: the last time she made national news. There was relatively little notice, by contrast, when Henry McMaster, the governor of South Carolina, opened a press conference about the state’s emergency preparations for Hurricane Dorian with a prayer from an Army Corps of Engineers chaplain, who said, “God, we know that you’re able to turn a storm. You’re able to say to that storm: Peace, be still. We give you glory now, and in your name we pray. Amen.” You could say that man was asking God for a miracle, but no one made fun of him for it.


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Reporters' reminders: (1) Two stories can be one story, so (2) watch religious media for ideas

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Reporters' reminders: (1) Two stories can be one story, so (2) watch religious media for ideas

The following is an example of how two separate stories can be analyzed as one story. It also demonstrates why the complete religion reporter working in the mainstream Media will continually look for material in specialized news outlets.

Story #1, which The Guy depicted April 4, is the demise of the once mighty Christian Booksellers Association, founded in 1950 at the beginning of the post-war evangelical boom and lately a victim of the woes hitting all brick-and-mortar retail. (The group was later renamed CBA: The Association for Christian Retail, to signify that members sold much more than books).

Story #2, which hit almost simultaneously, is the financial peril and potential collapse of what has been an equally prominent organization, National Religious Broadcasters, formed in 1944.

Writers can learn all the sorry details from a June 20 exploration on the website of freelance writer Julia Roys, a Nov. 6 follow-up for the watchdog group Ministry Watch by beat veteran Steve Rabey, and a rundown in the Sept. 28 issue of World magazine, which commendably has an investigative reporting team run by the author, Michael Reneau.

All three articles raise an important and related question journalists might pursue separately: In light of the NRB situation, can donors rely much on certification by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability?

Now, why does The Guy propose that the troubles of CBA and NRB be treated as a single story?

Despite their non-sectarian names, both organizations are thoroughly evangelical Protestant, and together have been key players in that U.S. movement in the same way for decades. Their two bustling trade shows each year were all-important for networking, shaping the subculture, promoting popular theologies and showcasing stars old and new.

Both were especially vital for the complex world of “parachurch” ministries, which lack the interconnections provided by denominations. The broadcasters’ group, whose meetings drew notables from U.S. presidents on down, also played a role in lobbying government on behalf of media interests.


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Oriole Chris Davis makes $3 million gift to help at-risk children, for some vague reason

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Consider this a rare GetReligion hot-stove season baseball report. The shocker is that it is not written by our resident baseball fanatic, Bobby Ross, Jr. I guess that’s because this story concerns a member of the Baltimore Orioles, a team currently in a radical-rebuild mode (that could use a miracle or two).

This is another Baltimore Sun story about the troubled slugger Chris Davis, whose struggles at the plate have made many national headlines. It doesn’t help that Davis is (a) aging, (b) holding a first-base slot that blocks younger players and (c) a few years into a massive seven-year, $161 million contract.

I have written about Davis before. At some point in time, some powerful judge in media land appears to have made a ruling that it is out of bounds to include references to his evangelical faith in stories about his life, values, family and career.

Davis recently made big news with his pen and a checkbook and, I would argue, journalists needed to ask some faith questions in this case. But first, let’s look at a hint of faith language in a different Sun story that ran the other day: “I have hope now’: Orioles’ Chris Davis carrying confidence early in offseason.” The key is that Davis is feeling better — physically and mentally — and already getting ready for 2020.

Jill Davis noted that her husband normally takes October off, but she said Davis has been ramping up his activities to the point it won’t be long before he spends his days working out, running and hitting, all while balancing the scheduling quirks their three daughters bring. The Davises have a family trip planned for early December, plus a mission trip in January.

OK, I’ll ask. What kind of “mission trip”? A generic one?

This leads me to some big news in Baltimore, $3 million worth of news that’s totally consistent with the life that the Davis family lives: “Orioles’ Chris Davis and his wife, Jill, make record donation to University of Maryland Children’s Hospital.” Here is the overture:

Chris and Jill Davis made their way from room to room at the University of Maryland Medical Center’s pediatric intensive care unit. A visit in July inspired how the Orioles’ first baseman and his wife spent their Monday morning. This trip in the afternoon was made by choice.

They stopped by rooms of little girls who, like their three daughters, love princesses. They met two boys who, like their two youngest children, were twins. They brightened the days of families who had children, like their own once had, facing congenital heart defects.


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The Atlantic profiles Jeff Bezos's 'master plan' with nary a hint as to moral and spiritual sides

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Recently, the Atlantic published a cover story on Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, with a worth anywhere between $112 billion to $137 billion (it varies). The gist wasn’t so much Bezos’ money but how his use of it has made him the most powerful man in American culture.

The scary part isn’t so much the money part but how Bezos’ Amazon.com controls so much. Although the reporter wanted to know what makes the 55-year-old behind it all tick, he didn’t talk about Bezos’ spiritual-moral-ethical side at all or whether he even has one.

In the past, Bezos has sold himself as a values kind of guy, enjoying breakfasts with his family, doing the dishes every night and never scheduling work sessions before 10 a.m. according to this 2018 Wall Street Journal report that was based on a YouTube video (see above). At the time that story ran, Bezos’ extramarital affair was in full flower and one wonders if the tech exec was simply lying when he spoke about his supposedly serene domestic life.

Back to the Atlantic piece:

Today, Bezos controls nearly 40 percent of all e-commerce in the United States. More product searches are conducted on Amazon than on Google, which has allowed Bezos to build an advertising business as valuable as the entirety of IBM. One estimate has Amazon Web Services controlling almost half of the cloud-computing industry — institutions as varied as General Electric, Unilever, and even the CIA rely on its servers.

Forty-two percent of paper book sales and a third of the market for streaming video are controlled by the company; Twitch, its video platform popular among gamers, attracts 15 million users a day. Add The Washington Post to this portfolio and Bezos is, at a minimum, a rival to the likes of Disney’s Bob Iger or the suits at AT&T, and arguably the most powerful man in American culture. …

Since that time, Bezos’s reach has only grown. To the U.S. president, he is a nemesis. To many Americans, he is a beneficent wizard of convenience and abundance.

The story then sketches out a Brave New Worldesque kind of control that the Amazon founder will soon have over us all in an era when it and Google, Facebook and Apple have become the new robber barons of our age, monopolizing vast portions of the American economy.


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Denhollander's memoir on vast gymnastics scandal is a landmark for religion as well as athletics

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Countless books have landed on The Religion Guy’s desk over decades and rarely has he cited one as a “must read” or “book of the year.”

But such descriptions are appropriate for Rachael Denhollander’s candid memoir “What Is a Girl Worth?” about exposing the vast sexual-abuse scandal at USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University. The evangelical Tyndale House issues her book on Sept. 10 alongside a four-session study guide, and the author’s non-salacious “How Much Is a Little Girl Worth?” for young readers.

Attorney Denhollander, the first person to publicly lodge accusations against MSU athletics osteopath Larry Nassar, has a unique status. She is a heroine named among Time’s 100 Most Influential People, Glamour’s Women of the Year, recipients of ESPN’s Courage Award and Sports Illustrated’s Inspiration of the Year. At the same time, she’s the wife of a doctoral student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, while raising four young children and she uses her hard-won celebrity to present Christian truth.

An account of the worst sex-abuse case in its history is obviously a landmark for U.S. sports, but this is also a vitally important story for religion writers, and most certainly for Denhollander’s fellow evangelical Protestants, who are now following Catholicism in stumbling through #MeToo crises. (Along the way, journalists will relish the inside account of her byplay with investigative reporters and the media horde.)

Denhollander alone bravely lodged public accusations against predator Nassar, a big shot in gymnastics. Eventually, he faced 332 accusers of all ages including Olympic superstars, the Feds unearthed his stash of 37,000 child pornography files and he was sent to prison for life. MSU was forced to pay $500 million in damages, but any USA Gymnastics payout is problematic because it was forced to file for bankruptcy protection.

What’s vitally important in this sordid narrative is helping readers comprehend the severe psychological damage that sexual abuse creates in the victims. “It follows you. It changes you forever.” And then why, like Denhollander, victims often raise protests long after the incidents, or never raise them at all. They feel nobody will believe them, and for good reason. And they fear the cost that will be paid by the accuser. For Denhollander, that cost was enormous.


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