Pope Francis

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New podcast: When popes and presidents meet, headlines may not tell the private stories

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New podcast: When popes and presidents meet, headlines may not tell the private stories

Sometimes, the calendar isn’t friendly to columnists and podcasters.

This week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in) was recorded before the lengthy, closed-door chat (with photo ops before and after) between Pope Francis and the “devout” Catholic President Joe Biden. Thus, host Todd Wilken and I took a kind of “tomorrow’s headlines” approach, surveying the advance coverage of the meeting and some fascinating features that looked at images and the realities of some previous pope-president meetings.

In this podcast I predicted that the headlines and public pronouncements would focus on their agreements about the environment, immigration, poverty and COVID-19 strategies.

Why? Well, the mainstream press believes that these meetings are, first and foremost, political events and these are political topics, even though they clearly have doctrinal content for those with the eyes to see that.

Biden and the pope agree on these subjects and, at this point, the progressive Pope Francis has little or no motivation to hurt a Catholic progressive in the White House. They have many of the same goals and they, to be blunt, have all the same enemies — especially among American Catholics who wear the red hats that mark them as cardinals (and those who have not received red hats).

Would anything significant happen in the private discussions?

That’s the kind of question that Catholic publications will probe and, here at GetReligion, I’ll leave commentary on that topic to Clemente Lisi (it helps that he is fluent in Italian).

If you are looking for a perfect summary of the elite press template for coverage of this meeting, and the ties that bind these two modern Catholics, this block of Washington Post material — from a political-desk story, of course — is pitch perfect:

… The resonance is also personal, given the similarities between the 84-year-old pope and the 78-year-old president, who have in a sense become allies. Both attained ultimate leadership late in their lives and quickly moved in a liberal direction. They have faced internal resistance. Both are treated warily by conservative American bishops.


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Fallout from Pelosi's Roman holiday continues: More proof journalistic objectivity is dead?

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Fallout from Pelosi's Roman holiday continues: More proof journalistic objectivity is dead?

Debates about the concept of objectivity in news coverage have been around for a long time — but now they are heating up to shockingly intense levels.

Objectivity, as it pertains to reporting, refers to fairness and nonpartisanship on the part of journalists and news organizations in the way they cover stories. An emphasis on objectivity is also linked to journalistic standards for balance, accuracy and showing respect for citizens on all sides of public debates.

This so-called “American model of the press” (click here for background) first evolved in the post-Civil War era and in the early 20th century as a way for U.S. newspapers to report and disseminate information to a wide, diverse body of readers. It allowed for a consistent method of testing that information so that personal and cultural biases would not undermine accuracy.

In a polarized digital age, the practice has been criticized and objectivity is all but dead as news outlets test new business models for struggling newsrooms. As a result, alternatives have emerged, most notably, in the form of a more partisan press that preaches to choirs of digital subscribers.

That brings us — no surprise — to the latest news story to inflame U.S. Catholics.

Despite it being almost two weeks since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Pope Francis at the Vatican, the fallout and reaction from that October 9 private audience continues to reverberate across the American political landscape, especially among Catholics across the doctrinal spectrum. Naturally, some are concerned about how the news media we consume has covered it all.

If facts are what matters here, it’s obvious that San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordelione should play a major role in these debates — since he is Pelosi’s bishop. Thus, he plays a crucial role in determining her sacramental status in the church. Who included his voice in this discussion and who didn’t?


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Progressive Catholic cardinal of Washington, D.C., pours praise on America's embattled press

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Progressive Catholic cardinal of Washington, D.C., pours praise on America's embattled press

With a controversial Catholic in the White House, there was no way for Cardinal Wilton Gregory to face a pack of Beltway journalists without fielding political questions.

Job 1 was addressing President Joe Biden's statement: "I respect them -- those who believe life begins at the moment of conception and all -- I respect that. Don't agree, but I respect that."

The leader of the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., has made it clear that Biden can receive Holy Communion. However, Gregory also noted: "The Catholic Church teaches, and has taught, that life -- human life -- begins at conception. So, the president is not demonstrating Catholic teaching."

That was the big headline after this event, but this wasn't the topic Gregory came to the National Press club to discuss. In his recent address, he poured praise on America's mainstream press, especially journalists who -- during this "anxious time" -- have openly pushed for change on issues linked to racism and social justice.

"You are the ones we rely on to keep us informed, updated and connected as a global community of various faith traditions," said Gregory, America's first Black cardinal. "Like all industries, journalism has certainly changed over the years. Technology has expanded your reach and abilities to share our life stories, our dreams and our hopes.

"You are the professionals with just the right words, who immerse yourselves in a community, a situation or even a crisis -- to bring us the facts, the people and the takeaways that can help us work toward living in true peace and equality for all, without the threat of violence or harm."

According to a sobering blast of data from Gallup, the cardinal's critique of the national press would ring true for Democrats and political progressives -- but not for Republicans and cultural conservatives. Catholics can be found in both of those camps, of course.

In their Sept. 1-17 poll, Gallup researchers asked: "In general, how much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media -- such as newspapers, TV and radio -- when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately and fairly -- a great deal, a fair amount, not very much or none at all?"


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Pope's preferred airline goes bust: Alitalia's demise way more than a business story

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Pope's preferred airline goes bust: Alitalia's demise way more than a business story

I have many fond memories of family trips to Italy that took place each summer during my childhood. Those summer pilgrimages to visit family and friends also included connecting with the place of my parents’ birth as well as seeing some of the country’s stories sites.

Visiting Vatican City for the first time in 1990 (when I was 14) remains one of the best memories. I would visit there again numerous times — including as a news reporter — in the decades that ensued.

Those New York-Rome trips involved flying with Alitalia, Italy’s national carrier. The airline — known for its nearly-impeccable safety record and sometimes appalling customer service — will officially close on Oct. 15. The announcement, made this past summer, marks the end of an era for an airline founded in 1946. it also marked the end of an era for my family, who were loyal to this brand to a fault.

Why is this a topic for GetReligion?

The airline’s demise and the start of a new one named ITA is a business story with a religion angle that too many news organizations ignored over the past few weeks. There was plenty of coverage regarding ITA buying new planes, potential layoffs and Italian government subsidies that kept the airline afloat for decades.

That religion angle? You see, my family and I weren’t the only loyal Alitalia customers over the years. The most famous has been the pope. It was in 1964, when Pope Paul VI traveled to Israel, when Alitalia became the pontiff’s official airline.

Alitalia put on plenty of miles under the papacy of now-St. Pope John Paul II, who visited 129 countries during his 27 years as head of the Roman Catholic church. The plane used by the pope — known in the press as “Shepherd One” as a way to compare it to the president’s “Air Force One” — continued to be used by Pope Benedict XVI and now Pope Francis. It’s also aboard these flights that the pope holds a news conference and always makes news.

Alitalia and the papacy will forever be intertwined.


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Push comes to shove on climate change. What more can clergy and religion reporters do?

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Push comes to shove on climate change. What more can clergy and religion reporters do?

Imagine, if you dare, being forcibly parachuted into Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, the world’s current hell-hole du jour.

Suddenly you’re forced to shelter and feed your family and you’re at a loss as to how to do this.

Now consider how the increasingly dramatic consequences of human-accelerated climate change might make your already dire situation worse.

A recent New York Times piece attempted to paint this picture.

It was not pretty. Here’s its opening graphs.

Parts of Afghanistan have warmed twice as much as the global average. Spring rains have declined, most worryingly in some of the country’s most important farmland. Droughts are more frequent in vast swaths of the country, including a punishing dry spell now in the north and west, the second in three years.

Afghanistan embodies a new breed of international crisis, where the hazards of war collide with the hazards of climate change, creating a nightmarish feedback loop that punishes some of the world’s most vulnerable people and destroys their countries’ ability to cope.

And while it would be facile to attribute the conflict in Afghanistan to climate change, the effects of warming act as what military analysts call threat multipliers, amplifying conflicts over water, putting people out of work in a nation whose people largely live off agriculture, while the conflict itself consumes attention and resources.

Just like that, a regional hell hole turns into a global tragedy that should be generating global headlines. Powerful nations half-a-world away scramble to deal with the situation — or should I say scramble to look like they’re dealing with it.

Nor is Afghanistan the only failed state suffering from ongoing political violence complicated by climate change’s frightening uncertainties. “Of the world’s 25 nations most vulnerable to climate change, more than a dozen are affected by conflict or civil unrest, according to an index developed by the University of Notre Dame,” The Times article reported.


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Francis tacks again: Did press catch pope's whole message on abortion and Eucharist?

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Francis tacks again: Did press catch pope's whole message on abortion and Eucharist?

How does a ship’s captain sail against a headwind?

The maneuver is called “tacking” and it consists of steering the ship back and forth, at roughly 45 degree angles across the chosen course. The question — with all the left and right turns — is this: What is the course that runs through the middle? Where is the captain trying to go?

It’s impossible to figure that out by studying only the turns to the left or to the right. Dare I say that this task is even more difficult if the captain of the ship is a modern Jesuit?

So what was the course Pope Francis was trying to sail the other day during his in-flight Shepherd One press conference about abortion, Communion and the pastoral needs of Catholics (including, perhaps, powerful politicians)? In the mainstream press, the big turns were all to the left, with the pope warning U.S. bishops not to meddle in the state of President Joe Biden’s soul. Readers had to turn to Catholic publications to find any hint that Pope Francis was, perhaps, seeking a middle course.

This was best seen in the piece that ran in the “Politics Section” (#DUH) of the New York Times. The headline stated the basics:

Pope Weighs In on Calls to Deny Communion to Biden Over Abortion

“What must the pastor do?” Francis said when a reporter asked him about the subject. “Be a pastor, don’t go condemning.”

Everything readers needed to know, from the doctrinal point of view of the Times, was right up top:

ROME — Pope Francis weighed in on Wednesday on a debate roiling the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, where conservative bishops are pushing for guidelines that would deny communion to politicians, like President Biden, who support abortion rights.

“I have never refused the eucharist to anyone,” Francis said, though he added that he did not know of any instance when such a politician had come to him for communion.

Later, there was this:

“What must the pastor do?” he asked. “Be a pastor, don’t go condemning. Be a pastor, because he is a pastor also for the excommunicated.”


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What's next in Afghanistan? Press will have to face issues of religion, culture and gender

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What's next in Afghanistan? Press will have to face issues of religion, culture and gender

The headline on the National Catholic Register story is simple and timely: “Trapped by the Taliban, Praying for Escape from Afghanistan.”

The reporting is simple, as well, as long as the journalists involved have established contacts with people inside Kabul who have smartphones and there are functioning cell towers and satellites. The story is built on people describing what they claim is going on around them, especially events affecting their families and friends.

These people are U.S. citizens, Afghans with U.S. “green cards” and others who cooperated with Western governments and agencies, including religious groups, during the 20 years of “nation building” in the war-torn land of Afghanistan.

The question is whether the contents of this story remain newsworthy, since Afghanistan has, for now, moved off the front burner in elite newsrooms. What happened? Clearly, Republicans and centrist Democrats had “pounced” on the topic while blasting President Joe Biden and his White House team.

But is this NCR piece news? Yes, it is. Also, this is a story journalists can study while looking for clues about realities, and news, at ground level in the Taliban’s new-old Afghanistan. Here is the overture:

For two decades, Sher Shah had worked alongside U.S. and Afghans to build a democratic country free from the Taliban and war. He had established a new life with his family in the U.S. with the help of Catholic Charities and a Catholic sponsor family, but briefly returned to Afghanistan this summer to attend his father’s funeral.

Now, he’s a man trying to escape the Taliban and get back home to the U.S.

More? Here is a claim — let me stress this is a CLAIM — coming from this source. But the Register report has other anonymous voices making similar statements in what appear to be telephone interviews or contacts via email.

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has stated approximately 100 U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents remain in Afghanistan. …

But Sher Shah said he has heard nothing from the State Department since Aug. 26 — and he made use of the State Department’s information posted on its website for U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents stuck in Afghanistan.

“There are thousands of Americans still in Afghanistan,” he said. “And I’m one of them.”

The reality that emerges, in this stories and others, is that the United States and other Western forces were not engaged in 20 years of “nation building,” as in building an Afghanistan government that looked to the nation’s past — its monarchy, for example. It would be more accurate to say the goal was building a new culture, one that incorporated elements of modernity and even postmodernity in America and Europe.


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Pope Francis isn't resigning this summer: Here's a case study on media speculation

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Pope Francis isn't resigning this summer: Here's a case study on media speculation

The U.S. mainstream press covers the Vatican very much like it does Washington, D.C. The parallels are similar, but there is a pope instead of a president, a College of Cardinals rather than Congress and believers, not voters.

The three — pope, cardinals and believers — are not political entities. Although there is overlap with politics, there is a lot more nuance to the Catholic church that many reporters often miss. As we say here at GetReligion, politics is the true faith in most newsrooms. Politics is real. Religion? Not really.

The press also gets very, very, very excited when it comes to the election of a new pope. It is, after all, a global news event and a type of power struggle the press thinks that it can cover like it does a political election. That’s something the press understands better than complicated things such as doctrine, tradition and history.

The big difference is that you never know when a pope will either die or, as of late, resign. In 2013, Benedict XVI did just that and gave up his post. It was a surprise, but not one that caught everyone off guard.

For example, U.S. newspapers and TV networks plan years ahead for a papal election. I wrote a feature that ran in the New York Post in 2001 on just that topic. Here’s how that story opened:

Ghoulish as it may sound, TV is already making elaborate – and expensive – plans for covering the funeral of Pope John Paul II and the selection of his successor.

The pontiff’s frail health was apparent during Easter Sunday services eight days ago – and it has pushed news organizations around the world to renew preparations for the inevitable.

Apartment-building roofs and hotel terraces surrounding the Holy See are suddenly a battle ground as dozens of news organizations try to outbid each other for places where they can be first to capture on camera the historic puff of white smoke from the Sistine Chapel – signaling the election of a new pope.

Italians are calling the jockeying for space the “War of the Terraces.”

Pope Francis’ colon surgery in July fueled speculation that he could be near death or contemplating to resign. Much of this speculation — indeed most of it when it comes to the papacy — comes from Italian newspapers.


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Afghanistan's Catholic 'hidden believers' and the underreported work of the church

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Afghanistan's Catholic 'hidden believers' and the underreported work of the church

The news cycle in recent weeks has been dominated by the pullout in Afghanistan and the fallout that has taken place as a result of such a decision — especially the choice to remove most U.S. troops before evacuating American citizens and Afghans who worked with Western groups.

Much of the coverage has centered around the Taliban’s takeover and the tragic events unfolding at the Kabul airport. Meanwhile, others who are in danger — including Christians and members of other religious minorities — are in hiding.

I covered the 9/11 attacks in New York City that day. I can’t help but recall that morning with the 20th anniversary of those attacks approaching. The desperate actions of those stuck in the World Trade Center that day resulted in people jumping off those burning buildings. The very same thing happened just last week when Afghans looking to flee the Taliban grabbed onto military planes as they took off, only to fall out of the sky.

Those images served as a bookend to the U.S.’s involvement in Afghanistan. Rod Dreher, who covered the 9/11 attacks and was my colleague at the New York Post at the time, recently noted the following regarding the U.S.’s time in Afghanistan and the nation-building fiasco that took place:

We are such an unserious nation. I am a practicing Christian who hates the way Christians are treated in many Islamic countries. But I have enough common sense to know that it does not advance America’s national interest to give host countries the finger by displaying a symbol of Christianity to defy their local norms.

This isn’t a post about the culture wars or what the U.S. did right and wrong in Afghanistan since 2002. I will let others do that. Instead, I want to place a spotlight on the important work of Christian groups across Afghanistan over the years, the little mention they have received by the secular press and how one recent story illustrates both the plight of Afghan refugees and how those who converted to Catholicism who now live outside the country have been crucial in helping people get out.

What has largely been viewed as a military operation until now is quickly turning into a humanitarian mission, one that may yet require some military support. Nonetheless, the major newspapers and cable channels in this country still largely cover the Afghan crisis through a political lens — like they do most subjects — and have largely underreported the work of the church.


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