Podcasts

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If you haven't profiled the Catholic apologist Scott Hahn -- now's the time to act

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If you haven't profiled the Catholic apologist Scott Hahn -- now's the time to act

The Guy cannot recall any “legacy media” coverage of Scott Hahn, the influential U.S. Catholic lay theologian. If you haven’t done a feature on this fascinating Ohioan, here’s the ideal news peg -- Pope Francis’s Synod of Bishops that begins at the Vatican October 4.

There’s Catholic dynamite here. Hahn, who has a huge parish-level following, stated via Facebook August 24 that he’s “grateful for Bishop [Joseph] Strickland’s inspiring words,” and posted a link to a new pastoral letter from the outspoken Texas conservative who is attacking the synod (and under increasingly fierce Vatican pressure to cease his dissent or be forced to resign).

Strickland warned that “schismatics” are promoting “evils that threaten” the church, and implied that Pope Francis himself (though unnamed) is facilitating their nefarious cause through his Synod on Synodality process.  See GetReligion backgrounder on the Synod dispute here.

Among reactions, founder Mike Lewis at WherePeterIs.com said he’s long admired Hahn’s contributions to the faith so it’s “deeply disappointing” that he is now embracing a “toxic” and “reactionary” movement that Catholics loyal to the papacy worry could produce a “schism coming from the far-right of the U.S. Church.”

Hahn, 65, is the longtime professor of Biblical Theology and the New Evangelization at Franciscan University, a growing liberal-arts stronghold devoted to “the authentic teachings of the Church.” Journalists who scan the websites for Hahn’s off-campus activities and his Saint Paul Center for Biblical Theology will find he’s a popular speaker in person and via religious TV and radio, and a prolific producer of his own and others’ books, articles, DVDs, CDs, podcasts, online courses and conferences.

His organization, in its Catholic conservatism and independence from official church agencies, resembles the EWTN organization that grew from TV talks by the late Mother Mary Angelica beginning in 1981.

Hahn holds a Ph.D. from the Jesuits’ Marquette University in Milwaukee, but it’s significant that his divinity degree is from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a Northeast anchor of evangelical Protestant thought.


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Podcast: Attention Gray Lady folks! Latter-day Saints are not the only skilled fantasy scribes

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Podcast: Attention Gray Lady folks! Latter-day Saints are not the only skilled fantasy scribes

Two decades ago, I attended Nimbus 2003, the first global Harry Potter studies convention.

This colorful event, at a Disney hotel in Orlando, drew a capacity crowd of about 600 participants — about 90% of which were female — from the United States, England and Australia.

What kinds of people showed up and what does this flashback have to do with this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in)? Hold that thought. Here’s a bite of the “On Religion” column that I wrote about that event, one of many Harry Potter-related columns I have written over the years.

In hotel hallways, witch wannabes raised their expensive, professionally carved wands and fought imaginary duels with tickling spells and other incantations. In the lecture halls, others heard papers on everything from Harry Potter and the First Amendment to "Greenhouses are for Girls, Beasts are for Boys? Gender Characterizations in Harry Potter." …

Organizers also dedicated an entire track of lectures and panels to spiritual issues, addressing topics such as "Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Heavenly Virtues: Moral Development in Harry Potter" and "Can Any Wisdom Come From Wizardry?"

I was not surprised that a large number of the participants mentioned, in registration, that they were Wiccans or interested in other forms of neo-paganism. However, it was clear that at least half of the crowd of readers with marked-up Harry Potter books were mothers — often homeschool enthusiasts — who were Catholics, evangelical Protestants or members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

It was important, some said, that author J.K. Rowling had outed herself, early on, as a communicant in the progressive Scottish Episcopal Church. She told a Canadian newspaper: "Every time I've been asked if I believe in God, I've said, 'yes,' because I do. … If I talk too freely about that, I think the intelligent reader — whether 10 or 60 — will be able to guess what is coming in the books."

Now, this brings us to that fascinating New York Times feature that ran with this double-decker headline:

An Unexpected Hotbed of Y.A. Authors: Utah

A tight-knit community of young-adult writers who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has yielded smashes like “Twilight.” But religious doctrine can clash with creative freedoms

Yes, it’s interesting that Mormons play a major role in the world of fantasy fiction for children, teenagers and family-reading circles. I also thought it was interesting that editors at the world’s most prestigious newspaper have never heard of some other religious believers who have excelled as fantasy stars.

Can you say “Narnia”? How about “The Hobbit”? How about “A Wrinkle in Time”?


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Podcast: Let's play, 'Name that pope!' The Pope Francis vs. St. Pope John Paul II edition

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Podcast: Let's play, 'Name that pope!' The Pope Francis vs. St. Pope John Paul II edition

Nearly a decade ago, I wrote my “On Religion” anniversary column (No. 26 at that time) about a game that Catholics seemed to be playing in cyberspace.

Some called this game, “Name that pope!” At this stage of Catholic life, early in the Pope Francis era, quite a few Catholics were frustrated with the many journalists who claimed there were striking differences — on social justice, poverty, the environment and peace — between the new pope and the previous two occupants of the Throne of St. Peter.

Pope Benedict XVI and St. Pope John Paul II were, you see, stern conservatives obsessed with clashes between centuries of Catholic moral theology and the Sexual Revolution. Pope Francis offered a kinder, more compassion vision focusing (all together now) on social justice, poverty, the environment and peace.

That old “Name that pope!” game played a pivotal role in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in). We were talking about a new Associated Press story that ran with this headline: “Pope says some ‘backward’ conservatives in US Catholic Church have replaced faith with ideology.”

Hold that thought, as we return to the earlier edition of “Name that pope!” Let’s run through this unedited chunk of that column:

Start with this quotation: "The reservation of the priesthood to males, as a sign of Christ the Spouse who gives himself in the Eucharist, is not a question open to discussion."

Name that pope: That's Pope Francis, believe it or not.

Round two: "It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the church's pastors wherever it occurs."

Name that pope: That's Pope Benedict XVI.

Round three: "If we refuse to share what we have with the hungry and the poor, we make of our possessions a false god. How many voices in our materialist society tell us that happiness is to be found by acquiring as many possessions and luxuries as we can! ... Instead of bringing life, they bring death."


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Podcast: 'Young men are puttin' themselves six feet in the ground' and other suicide news

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Podcast: 'Young men are puttin' themselves six feet in the ground' and other suicide news

Here’s a sad question for the day: How many opioid overdoses could be classified as suicides?

There’s no way to know, is there? If people are trying to bury their pain, depression and anxiety in pills or needles, how would public officials know — without a suicide note — that an overdose was intentional? What if victims are on a path suggesting that they simply don’t care whether they live or die?

Suicides involving guns are much more definitive.

This brings us to some of the issues discussed during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to to tune that in), which focused on a totally religion-free Associated Press story that ran with this headline: “US suicides hit an all-time high last year.”

As you would expect, this report featured lots of tragic numbers and then tried to answer the “why” question in the classic journalism mantra “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why” and “how.” In this case, the “why” and the “how” factors were one and the same.

GetReligion readers will not be surprised that I suggested there were cultural, moral and religious questions looming over this topic. Since I live in Southern Appalachia, I offered some research tips for how religion-beat journalists — if editors were to give them a chance — could find ways to broaden this topic to include trends (such as opioid overdoses) linked to the suicide numbers. Hold that thought.

First, here is the AP overture:

NEW YORK (AP) — About 49,500 people took their own lives last year in the U.S., the highest number ever, according to new government data posted Thursday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which posted the numbers, has not yet calculated a suicide rate for the year, but available data suggests suicides are more common in the U.S. than at any time since the dawn of World War II.


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Today's complicated politics: Are evangelical pews 'red' while more pulpits are 'blue'?

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Today's complicated politics: Are evangelical pews 'red' while more pulpits are 'blue'?

Like everybody else, American religion writers are caught in a politics-drenched environment that for Republicans gets hot with the first debates August 23 and September 27 and presumably wraps up with the Ohio primary March 19, if not before.

Given the pertinence of the religion factor in U.S. politics, kudos to Yonat Shimron of Religion News Service for her piece last week spotlighting a significant article — “Clergy-lay political (mis)alignment in 2019–2020” — in the September issue of the international academic journal Politics and Religion.

The authors, Duke University sociology Professor Mark Chaves and post-doctoral researcher Joseph Roso, set out to decide whether there’s a significant gap on politics between clergy leading local congregations and the lay members in each of U.S. religion’s four largest Christian niches — “Evangelical” Protestant, “Mainline” Protestant, Black Protestant and Catholic.

The conclusions are based upon reliable and representative sets of data (see the article for particulars), The Guy perpetually chides political reporters for neglecting Catholics, who are almost always the pivotal swing voters. But reporters, who must assess hyper-newsmaker Donald Trump’s prospects for nomination and election, will be especially interested in whether there’s a significant gap between the loyally Republican white evangelical clergy and laity.

Answer: No. Their pastors and lay members are overwhelmingly the same politically, and that’s also the case with Black preachers and parishioners. However, unity on conservative politics may or may not be the same thing as unity on a particular candidate.

Meanwhile, “misaligned” differences occur with Catholics and especially with Mainline Protestants, whose pulpits vs. pews gap has been a topic of lively conversation for a half-century.

Check out the article for the full numbers and analysis. All the findings are important, but here are some key ones.


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Podcast: David Brooks is still trying to describe the 'flexidoxy' DNA in American elites

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Podcast: David Brooks is still trying to describe the 'flexidoxy' DNA in American elites

People who spend years riding commuter trains — Baltimore to Washington, D.C., for me — learn that there are community rules. For example: Don’t crack up laughing and make a lot of noise.

I violated that written law several times while reading a snarky, hilarious 2000 book by David Brooks called, “Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There.” The term “Bobo” was short for “Bourgeois Bohemians.”

But what is a religion writer supposed to do while reading its “spirituality” chapter, which ended with a vision of "Bobo Heaven.” Brooks offers a tweedy angel of death sentencing an urban lawyer to spend eternity in her chic, “green” summer house, with National Public Radio on every channel. Heaven or hell?

Readers who have been online lately will know where this is going, because of the multi-media firestorm ignited by his New York Times column: “On Anti-Trumpers and the Modern Meritocracy.” That Brooks essay provided the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). Here’s a sample:

The meritocracy isn’t only a system of exclusion; it’s an ethos. During his presidency, Barack Obama used the word “smart” in the context of his policies over 900 times. The implication was that anybody who disagreed with his policies (and perhaps didn’t go to Harvard Law) must be stupid.

Over the last decades, we’ve taken over whole professions and locked everybody else out. When I began my journalism career in Chicago in the 1980s, there were still some old crusty working-class guys around the newsroom. Now we’re not only a college-dominated profession; we’re an elite-college-dominated profession. Only 0.8 percent of college students graduate from the super-elite 12 schools (the Ivy League colleges, plus Stanford, M.I.T., Duke and the University of Chicago). A 2018 study found that more than 50 percent of the staff writers at the beloved New York Times and The Wall Street Journal attended one of the 29 most elite universities in the nation.

Now, let’s leave Orange Man Bad out of this. I’d like to focus on the fact that Brooks has been writing about this phenomenon for several decades now.

As you would expect, I appreciated that Brooks dared to mention the ice-blue trends in elite journalism. I started paying attention to that in the late 1970s (hold that thought). However, I have to admit that I wondered why Brooks defined his meritocracy in terms of class (correct), zip codes (correct), resume credentials (correct), but — in this case — ignored the obvious religion themes in this drama.


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Podcast: Struggles to control the Covenant School 'manifesto' are getting more complex

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Podcast: Struggles to control the Covenant School 'manifesto' are getting more complex

If you follow social-media hashtags involving these words — “Nashville,” “Covenant” and “manifesto” — you know that nothing major has happened that would allow news consumers to read on-the-record facts about the motives of shooter Audrey Hale.

Of course, under current Associated Press style that name would be “Aiden,” since this troubled individual had claimed that identity in social media as part of a gender transition.

The mysteries — in terms of journalism, law and politics — surrounding this mass shooting in a small Christian school have only grown more complex. What kind of mysteries? That was the subject of this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

There have been minor developments that I didn’t know about at the time we recorded, such as the New York Post story noting:

Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the 28-year-old trans artist killed by police after opening fire on a private Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, covered her clothes in handwritten messages before her deadly assault in late March, according to an autopsy report.

The report acknowledges that Hale identified as a trans male but officially lists her as female. 

She was carrying a knife inscribed with her chosen name, Aiden, according to the autopsy. … The report included new details about the attack — including the revelation that Hale’s clothes were covered in handwritten notes, drawings and numbers. 

The report also noted that Hale wore a plastic anklet inscribed with “508407.”

What do these mysterious message say? What do they mean? Ah, more mysteries that authorities will not discuss.

Also, police have followed up on a death threat aimed at a conservative media figure involved in efforts to release the writings that Hale left behind to explain his-her motives for the attack. A website called Just the News reported:

A Tennessee man has been charged in connection with a threat against conservative journalist and talk radio show host Michael Patrick Leahy over Leahy's lawsuit to obtain the Nashville school shooter manifesto, allegedly telling Leahy, "I'm willing to go to prison to end you." 

The emailed threat also said:


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Podcast: Culture Wars 2023 -- As it turns out, traditional Muslims have children too

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Podcast: Culture Wars 2023 -- As it turns out, traditional Muslims have children too

Gentle readers, please allow me to start with a short anecdote from about 15 years ago, during the years when I was teaching journalism a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol.

I attended a typical off-the-record think tank forum in which lawyers from church-state groups were talking about rising tensions in public, taxpayer funded, institutions. At one point, someone asked a question that sounded something like this: What should public-schools leaders do when approached by parents who want opt-out choices for their children when faced with class activities that clash with the teachings of their faith?

The question, of course, was linked to tensions between public-school leaders and evangelicals, and maybe traditional Catholics (“traditional” in the FBI meaning of the word).

One lawyer gave an answer that was way ahead of its time: School administrators should look at these people and do everything they can to pretend that these parents are Muslims. In other words, pretend these parents are part of a minority faith that public officials respect (Muslims), as opposed to part of a larger faith group that administrators distrust, fear and possibly even loathe (evangelicals).

This was one of two Beltway anecdotes I shared during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in), which focused on a Washington Post story that I have been thinking about during the past week or two. That headline: “Hundreds of Md. parents protest lessons they say offend their faiths.” The Post team appears to have worked hard to keep the main news hook out of that headline and even the lede.

Hundreds of parents demonstrated outside the Montgomery County Board of Education’s meeting … demanding that Maryland’s largest school district allow them to shield their children from books and lessons that contain LGBTQ+ characters.

Still in the dark, right? Keep reading:

The crowd was filled largely with Muslim and Ethiopian Orthodox parents, who say the school system is violating their religious rights protected under the First Amendment by not providing an opt-out. Three families have filed a lawsuit against the school system.


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Podcast: Can journalists imagine 'mirror' cases in which 303 Creative protects liberals?

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Podcast: Can journalists imagine 'mirror' cases in which 303 Creative protects liberals?

If you follow Robert P. George in social media, you probably know several things about this legal scholar.

(1) He is a political philosopher and professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University.

(2) George is a doctrinally conservative Roman Catholic.

(3) He is a skilled Americana musician (think folk, gospel and bluegrass) who plays the banjo and a 12-fret acoustic guitar (I’m a big fan of the latter).

(4) In the public square, he is relentlessly irenic, seeking ways to view issues through the lens of those with whom he disagrees. This approach has been demonstrated during years of joyful and informative pro-tolerance dialogues with his close friend Cornel West, a liberal’s liberal known for decades of provocative classroom work at Princeton, Harvard and Union Seminary.

From a GetReligion point of view, it’s also important that — based at Princeton — George lives right on the edge of what could be called the Archdiocese of The New York Times and he pays close attention to mainstream news coverage of religion and public life.

This is why George played a key role in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in), which was a follow-up to my recent post with this headline: “After 303 Creative: Can readers find Twitter voices (hello David French) that help us think?”

After the latest wave of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, George posted a Mirror of Justice commentary in which he noted that Times editors seemed remarkable unaware of the actual contents of the majority opinions. The headline on the Gray Lady’s initial 303 Creative story was, in GetReligion terms, a classic: “Web Designer Wins Right to Turn Away Gay People.”

The problem was that Justice Neil Gorsuch — author of the court’s landmark Bostock decision (.pdf here) backing trans rights — said the opposite of that in his 303 Creative majority opinion (.pdf here).


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