Pope Francis

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Parts of pope's new book may be woke, but news coverage hasn't told the whole story

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While most of you were either shopping for your Thanksgiving meal or preparing it, Pope Francis was busy promoting his new book.

To be fair, the pontiff wasn’t doing exactly that in the same way as other authors, who typically make TV appearances and do book signings at your local bookstore.

Instead, the pope was getting the word out in other ways. The book, titled Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future, was excerpted in the Italian daily La Repubblica, a left-wing newspaper not shy about highlighting the pope’s more woke leanings over the past few years.

The excerpt earned widespread media coverage and praise. The Associated Press, in its Nov. 23 news account after attaining an advance copy, ran with the headline: “Pope book backs George Floyd protests, blasts virus skeptic.”

The key to this story is that this book comes at a time when the Catholic church is deeply divided along doctrinal and political lines. How was this issue handled? Here’s how the story opens:

Pope Francis is supporting demands for racial justice in the wake of the U.S. police killing of George Floyd and is blasting COVID-19 skeptics and media organizations that spread their conspiracies in a new book penned during the Vatican’s coronavirus lockdown.

In “Let Us Dream,” Francis also criticizes populist politicians who whip up rallies in ways reminiscent of the 1930s, and the hypocrisy of “rigid” conservative Catholics who support them. But he also criticizes the forceful downing of historic statues during protests for racial equality this year as a misguided attempt to “purify the past.”

The 150-page book, due out Dec. 1, was ghost-written by Francis’ English-language biographer, Austen Ivereigh, and at times the prose and emphasis seems almost more Ivereigh’s than Francis.’ That’s somewhat intentional — Ivereigh said Monday he hopes a more colloquial English-speaking pope will resonate with English-speaking readers and believers.

At its core, “Let Us Dream” aims to outline Francis’ vision of a more economically and environmentally just post-coronavirus world where the poor, the elderly and weak aren’t left on the margins and the wealthy aren’t consumed only with profits.

It should be noted that the news story deals mostly with Floyd and the pandemic because the press release issued by Simon & Schuster to go with the book that was made available to reporters and reviewers highlighted those sections.

In other words, the press office there knew how to preach to the choir.


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Biden and the US bishops: Compromise crafted by 'Uncle Ted' McCarrick still in place

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Biden and the US bishops: Compromise crafted by 'Uncle Ted' McCarrick still in place

While doing groundwork for the pivotal South Carolina primary, Democrat Joe Biden went to a local church to do what he does on Sundays -- go to Mass.

What happened next made headlines, raising an issue that looms over the president-elect's personal and political lives. The priest at St. Anthony's Catholic Church in Florence declined to give Biden communion.

"Holy Communion signifies we are one with God, each other and the Church. Our actions should reflect that," said Father Rev. Robert E. Morey, in a press statement. "Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of Church teaching. As a priest, it is my responsibility to minister to those souls entrusted to my care."

The priest, a former attorney with the Environmental Protection Agency, ended by saying: "I will keep Mr. Biden in my prayers."

Biden told MSNBC: "That's just my personal life and I am not going to get into that at all."

Nevertheless, Biden continued to make his faith -- he is a "devout" Catholic in news reports -- a key element of the campaign, as he has throughout his career. He also pledged to defend Roe v. Wade, to the point of codifying the decision into national law.

Catholic conservatives and liberals remain divided on how the church should respond, a tension demonstrated in a carefully worded statement by Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"The president-elect has given us reason to believe that his faith commitments will move him to support some good policies. This includes policies of immigration reform, refugees and the poor, and against racism, the death penalty and climate change," said Gomez, after the recent online USCCB meeting.

However, it is obvious that Biden's actions have clashed with "fundamental values that we hold dear as Catholics," the archbishop added. This includes supporting the federal funding of abortions, the return of the Health and Human Services contraceptive mandate and passage of the Equality Act, a sweeping LGBTQ rights bill that could lead to "unequal treatment of Catholic schools," said Gomez.

"We have long opposed these policies strongly. … When politicians who profess the Catholic faith support them, there are additional problems. Among other things, it creates confusion among the faithful about what the Church actually teaches on these questions."


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Who's to blame for 'Uncle Ted' McCarrick? That depends on the news sources you follow

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A week after the Vatican released its much-anticipated investigation of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, there remain many unanswered questions. Whether journalists will delve deeply into these unanswered questions remains to be seen.

The point of any report, after all, is to uncover the culprits and hopefully detail how sins and crimes of this nature can be prevented in the future. For the Vatican, the report’s release appears to mean “case closed” on the decades-long history of sexual misconduct of McCarrick.

But is it?

Not at all. If anything, the open questions are great leads for journalists who may be interested in pursuing this story further. Depending on which publications one gets their news from these days, the two biggest takeaways were divergent.

If you read secular mainstream media, like The New York Times, Associated Press and USA Today, and Catholic media on the doctrinal left, then the fault was primarily with former Pope John Paul II, now a saint, accused of ignoring abuse allegations in the 1980s and promoting McCarrick to archbishop (and eventually cardinal) of Washington, D.C. That would pave the way for the man known as “Uncle Ted” to ascend up the Vatican hierarchy and become one of the most powerful cardinals on both sides of the Atlantic. Also, these reports tended to say that McCarrick was a very effective liar who, acting alone, fooled everyone.

However, if you read Catholic publications on the doctrinal right, the takeaway was that the report was a whitewash, aimed at protecting Vatican higher-ups and primarily aimed at exonerating Pope Francis from any wrongdoing. Also, it’s crucial that McCarrick was a leader who had colleagues and disciples at all levels of the church (see tmatt’s GetReligion post and podcast on ‘team Ted’).

Conservative Catholics have a point when they say there’s more missing in the report then what it actually tries to detail. It’s obvious that the report’s omissions and unanswered questions need further examination. Here are a few that stick out:


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Podcast: Was there more than one 'Team Ted' that helped McCarrick stay in power?

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“Team Ted.”

You may be familiar with this term, if you are a longtime follower (several decades, perhaps) of the hellish soap opera surrounding the life and career of fallen cardinal Theodore “Uncle Ted” McCarrick.

But if you followed the McCarrick story in the mainstream press, this is not a term that you would know — for logical reasons. The same is true if you read media reports about the Vatican’s long-awaited investigation of the sins and crimes of McCarrick (click here for a .pdf file of the 450-page report).

“Team Ted,” you see, was a nickname give to a circle of journalists who depended on McCarrick as one of their prime doors into life in the American Catholic church and Vatican affairs, in general. Especially during his heady years as the archbishop of Washington, D.C., McCarrick was the unappointed voice of the U.S. Catholic establishment.

One of the key themes in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in) is that this journalistic “Team Ted” concept could also be used in an ecclesiastical context. According to McCarrick, he was a team captain, bridge-builder and kingmaker among his brother bishops, archbishops and cardinals. That leads to some big unanswered questions that loom over the Vatican report and the press coverage it has received, so far.

But first, let’s back up to 2004 and a fawning profile of McCarrick that ran in The Washingtonian under this dramatic double-decker headline:

The Man In The Red Hat

With a Controversial Catholic in the Presidential Race, the Cardinal Is Seen by Many as the Vatican's Man in Washington -- and He May Play a Big Role in the Selection of the Next Pope

The controversial Catholic, of course, was Sen. John Kerry and, behind the scenes, McCarrick worked to protect the candidate’s Catholic bona fides from attacks by conservative Catholics. The issue, as always, was whether this pro-abortion-rights champion could continue to receive Holy Communion. That’s a long, complicated story that may — soon — be relevant once again with President-elect Joe Biden heading into the White House.

Journalists played a crucial role in that dance between McCarrick and Kerry, which raises this question: Which member of the Catholic establishment will play the McCarrick role for Biden? We will see.

Here is the original “Team Ted” reference, at the end of a long, crucial passage in the Washingtonian:


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2020 was an election year in which many Christians felt torn and politically homeless

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2020 was an election year in which many Christians felt torn and politically homeless

Conservative patriarch Edmund Burke died in 1797 in Beaconsfield, England.

This didn't prevent columnist Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal, a Catholic conservative, from making Burke her write-in choice in the 2020 White House race. She wasn't the only voter who felt politically homeless, due to religious and moral convictions that clashed with the political and personal choices of President Donald Trump and, the odds appear good, president-elect Joe Biden.

Once again, there was no way to ignore issues linked to faith, morality and, yes, character. This was especially true with Catholic voters who frequent church pews.

Considering Trump, Noonan stressed the coronavirus crisis, where the president finally "met a problem he couldn't talk his way out of. I believe that's what happened: He played down the pandemic, lied, made uninformed claims at briefings that serious people were struggling to keep useful. He produced chaos. The country can't afford any of that in a crisis that is sudden and severe."

What about the Democrat, a lifelong Catholic? Noonan predicted Biden would be a "hapless and reluctant conductor" on a "runaway train," especially on moral and cultural issues.

"The progressive left," she argued, "endorses and pushes for the identity politics that is killing us, an abortion regime way beyond anything that could be called reasonable or civilized and on which it will make no compromise; it opposes charter schools and other forms of public school liberation; it sees the police as the enemy, it demonstrates no distinct fidelity to freedom of speech and, most recently, its declared hopes range from court packing to doing away with the Electoral College and adding states to the union.”

The bottom line: The political realities of 2020 left many Catholics and other active religious believers torn between political options that no longer seemed acceptable.


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Pope Francis' same-sex union media storm opens another front in a Catholic civil war

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If you think about it, journalism is about conflict. A news story is generally about an issue and how two sides (or more) view said issue. The top of the story, known as the lede, is about something someone said or did. The rest is information to support that new information.

In 2020, of course, all that is easier said than done. The fast-paced nature of news in the Internet age, the concept of objectivity being questioned by some mainstream journalists and this desperate need by some to highlight one side over another has made for some murky waters in the news.

Case in point: Pope Francis’ bold proclamation released on October 21 that he endorsed civil same-sex unions. Clearly, this announcement represented some kind of turning point for the Roman Catholic church, a change in tradition on LGBTQ rights and the dawn of a new, more loving era.

Well, that’s what the mainstream press said. Here’s how The New York Times opened its report:

Pope Francis expressed support for same-sex civil unions in remarks revealed in a documentary film that premiered on Wednesday, a significant break from his predecessors that staked out new ground for the church in its recognition of gay people.

The remarks, coming from the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, had the potential to shift debates about the legal status of same-sex couples in nations around the globe and unsettle bishops worried that the unions threaten what the church considers traditional marriage — between one man and one woman.

“What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered,” Francis said in the documentary, “Francesco,” which debuted at the Rome Film Festival, reiterating his view that gay people are children of God. “I stood up for that.”

Clearly, the pope — as head of the church — had in three sentences changed Catholicism forever.

Not so fast, said numerous on-the-record voices in the world of Catholicism.

This was typical Francis, who is known for his off-the-cuff comments (as the Times story noted) that often come into direct conflict with doctrine or they appear to do so. The key is that they produce a tsunami of headlines and news reports.

I have found that the news media isn’t so great at parsing Francis’ statements on deadline. Whenever they do, it is often to highlight Francis as a progressive who heads an evolving church.

It is also crucial that some major Catholic voices tend to be overlooked in the coverage. For example, did you hear what the Archdiocese of New York said, in response to these Pope Francis comments?


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Today's Associated Press: Why cover both sides of an important Amy Coney Barrett story?

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Dear editors at the Associated Press:

Let’s discuss a few issues behind your recent feature that was sent to newspapers everywhere with this headline: “Barrett was trustee at private school with anti-gay policies.”

The key, of course, is “policies” — a vague term that way too many mainstream journalists consistently use in place of the simple word “doctrines.”

Yes, of course, traditional Catholic schools have “policies” that affect students, faculty and staff. However, these policies are almost always attempts to teach and defend the doctrines of the church. It’s significant that the word “doctrine” does not appear anywhere in this long AP piece and the same goes for the word “catechism.” Also, “scripture” is used once — by a progressive Catholic stressing that conservative Catholics are “literalists” when reading the Bible.

Anyone who has covered Catholic education for a decade or two knows what is going on here. Yes, Democrats are furious about Amy Coney Barrett’s arrival on the high court. But this Associated Press story is built on divisions inside the American Catholic church, both on moral theology linked to LGBTQ issues and fights over the goals of Catholic education in colleges, universities, seminaries and private schools such as the ones linked to Barrett and People of Praise.

With that in mind, let’s add two other factors to this case that are ignored (or all but ignored) by AP.

First of all, once upon a time there was a man named St. Pope John Paul II. In 1990, this pope issued a document entitled “Ex Corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the Church)” focusing on issues in Catholic education. You could tell that it was a controversial document (a) because it said Catholic doctrines should be taught and defended in Catholic schools, (b) progressive Catholics, speaking through the press, went ballistic and (c) it took almost a decade of fighting for American Catholic church leaders to act (sort of) on the pope’s guidelines.

This fight was primarily about colleges and universities, but the principals in Ex Corde are relevant to fights, these days, about classroom and student-life issues in Catholic schools at all levels. So what was John Paul II saying?


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Covering Pope Francis and civil unions: The devil is in legal and doctrinal details

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Last week’s biggest religion news item budged from Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s religious beliefs to another part of the Roman Catholic world: A film that had actual quotes from the pontiff about same-sex civil unions.

Being that Pope Francis hasn’t made a lot of pronouncements on the topic during his seven years in the pontificate, his suddenly firm stance lent some clarity — if not agreement — on one of the most culturally divisive issues of our time.

Oh, but wait a minute. There’s some confusion out there. Folks are posting signs in St. Peter’s Square asking the pope to clarify church doctrine on marriage and sexuality.

For instance, on Saturday, America magazine reported that the papal quotes were actually remarks from a 2019 television interview that hasn’t been made public until now. And that they were spliced in weird ways to say something the pope might not have meant to say.

And on Sunday, the New Yorker came out with a very decent analysis that told the pope to get serious about sending out a clear message. It’s a confusing tangle out there.

The result is total confusion over at the Vatican, surrounded by a blitz of celebratory tweets and headlines from the Catholic left. Again.

Did Francis really say anything different than what he’s said all along? First, the basics from the Catholic News Agency:

In a documentary that premiered Wednesday in Rome, Pope Francis called for the passage of civil union laws for same-sex couples, departing from the position of the Vatican’s doctrinal office and the pope’s predecessors on the issue.

The remarks came amid a portion of the documentary that reflected on pastoral care for those who identify as LGBT.

“Homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family. They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it,” Pope Francis said in the film, of his approach to pastoral care.

The above was partial quotes from two different questions, but the movie doesn’t tell us that.

“What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered,” the pope said. “I stood up for that.”


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Where does the Catholic Church stand on the death penalty and war?

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THE QUESTION:

Where does the Catholic Church stand on the death penalty and war?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

Pope Francis’s encyclical letter Fratelli Tutti (“Brothers All”), issued October 3, reinforces his profile as a socio-political liberal and idealist. Employing this the highest vehicle for authoritative papal teaching, he addresses racism and rampant nationalism (which some say especially targets the current U.S. situation), and yokes concern for the poor with a semi-socialistic view of private property. His views perhaps reflect the culture of economically troubled Argentina as much as teaching by previous popes.

In terms of church history, Francis’s most important innovations here are total opposition to the death penalty and, regarding warfare, nudging of the church toward full-blown pacifism. We can predict many lay parishioners will dissent, as with papal decrees on such matters as birth control. Francis wants the church to upend centuries of teaching by pontiffs and theologians. It seems probable that pressure for abortion and mercy-killing in secular culture has strengthened “pro-life” zeal on these other matters of life and death.

With the death penalty, biblical tradition reaches back to primeval times. God protects the life of the first murderer, Cain, but later gives this commandment: “Anyone who sheds the blood of a human being, by a human being shall that one’s blood be shed, for in the image of God have human beings been made”(Genesis 9:6).

This is interpreted to say that, paradoxically, death by execution upholds respect for life by making murder so abhorrent. At face value, the statement seems not only to allow but to require the death penalty. However, the Jewish Publication Society’s Genesis commentary says ancient rabbis shied away from execution and sought “every mitigating factor in the laws of evidence” to avoid imposing it for killing or other misdeeds.

Most Christians endorsed the practice across the centuries. As recently as 2018, the Catholic Catechism was still saying that though government should avoid the death penalty if “bloodless means are sufficient,” a society can claim legitimacy when execution is necessary to “defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons.”

However, Pope John Paul II had stated in a 1995 encyclical that though the death penalty seems a “legitimate defense” of society, we can effectively suppress crime without killing criminals.


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