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How the Rupnik scandal and elite news coverage are shaping the legacy of Pope Francis

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How the Rupnik scandal and elite news coverage are shaping the legacy of Pope Francis

The more I read about Pope Francis and President Joe Biden, the more I realize that they are similar.

I mean, both are Catholic, and that’s where the similarities end, right?

That may be the case for most, but they are quite similar in how they are covered by the mainstream press.

Let me explain.

Without getting too much into the weeds here, Biden has been dogged by multiple scandals involving his troubled son Hunter. You wouldn’t know that, however, from much of the mainstream press coverage of this presidency. Journalists remain too concerned with former President Donald Trump — how could they not? — and the recently-averted government shutdown.

Conservative media have covered Hunter Biden’s alleged wrongdoings and shady business practices since the 2020 presidential election. That was when the public was were told by the mainstream press that Hunter’s woes were based on Russian misinformation. Here we are nearly three years later and, yes, it turns out that there is a there there.

This brings us to Pope Francis and scandals swirling around him.

Wait! What scandals, you ask? Hold that thought.

The mainstream press has been fond of this pope and media consumers can see that whenever he says something that matches progressive left-wing political ideology. When it comes to scandal, however, there’s little to no coverage. Case in point: The Rupnik case.

Like Hunter Biden’s laptop, you may not have heard of the Rupnik case. Most mainstream news organizations chose not to cover the latest developments to come out of Rome just last month.

Thus, here’s a recap: Marko Rupnik, a Jesuit priest, became the focus of an investigation late last year when multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against him were reported in the Italian press. They mostly concerned sexual abuse of nuns who were part of Rupnik’s religious community and artistic studio in Rome.

When the extent of the allegations, over a period of many years, became evident, suspicions were raised that one of the most famous Jesuit priest in the world might have been given lenient treatment from the three most powerful Jesuits in the church.


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News hooks? Gender, sexual orientation and religion among American college students

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News hooks? Gender, sexual orientation and religion among American college students

I know people will be surprised to hear this, but it’s rare for me to get my hands on some new data. I basically use two or three surveys for everything you see on this Substack and my social media.

But last week was a very good one because I got data that is a bit different, but very interesting, and quite newsworthy.

It comes from FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), which is an organization that fights for the ability of individuals (students and faculty) to be able to freely exercise their First Amendment right to free speech. If someone on a college campus is punished for nothing more than their speech, FIRE often steps in and sues the university. You can read several examples of this on their Wikipedia page.

One of the major research projects that FIRE undertakes is an annual survey of college students to gauge how they think about the issue of free speech and if they feel like they have to stifle their speech because of hostility on campus. Often, this includes speech connected to religious beliefs.

This is a real treasure trove of data about how the next generation thinks about all kinds of topics. Their full report of their results (which runs to 85 pages) is here. The survey that they collected contains a total sample size of 55,102 respondents who had to be currently enrolled at an institution of higher learning in the United States. A thorough description of the methodology used is here and here.

I am making one adjustment to this data — I restricted my sample to just those who are between the ages of 18 and 25 years old. While I do think the views of 40-year-old graduate students are important, I wanted to just focus on college aged folks for this bit of data analysis. That means my sample is a bit smaller — 39,178. That’s still more than enough to analyze, though.

I am going to write a series of posts with this data, especially topics related to free speech and allowing speakers on campus that generate controversy, but I gleaned so much from just the demographic variables that I had to write about them specifically.

The theme here is simply three variables: sexual orientation, gender identity and religion among college-aged folks.

What really kicked this off was a report from Brown University that indicated that 38% of their student body identifies as homosexual, bisexual, queer, asexual, pansexual, questioning or other. When that same poll was conducted ten years earlier, that share was just 14%. Is Brown an outlier here? Or are huge percentages of college students not straight and/or not cisgender? Are these issues linked to religious beliefs, or the lack thereof?


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New take on culture wars? American Muslims clash with the Sexual Revolution

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New take on culture wars? American Muslims clash with the Sexual Revolution

In terms of Islamic doctrine, alcohol is "haram," or forbidden, and the Quran is blunt: "O ye who believe! Strong drink and games of chance and idols and divining arrows are only an infamy of Satan's handiwork."

But it isn't hard to find Muslims that never boarded that bandwagon.

"There are Muslims who drink and get drunk. That's a fact, but that doesn't mean they can change what Islam teaches," said Yasir Qadhi, dean of the Islamic Seminary of America, near Dallas. "That's a sin. We all sin. But we cannot change our faith to fit the new norms in society."

Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't be controversial for Islamic leaders to affirm that their faith teaches absolute, unchanging truths about moral issues -- including subjects linked to sexuality, marriage and family life.

But Muslims in America never expected to be called "ignorant and intolerant" because they want public-school leaders to allow children to opt out of academic work that clashes with their faith. But that's what is happening in Montgomery County, Maryland, and a few other parts of the U.S. and Canada, where Muslim parents have been accused of cooperating with the cultural right, said Qadhi.

"That is so painful. … Truth is, we are not aligning with the political left or right," he added. "You cannot put Islam into a two-party world, where you have to choose the Democrats or the Republicans and that is that."

On the legal front, a Maryland district court recently ruled that parents do not have "a fundamental right" to avoid school activities that challenge their faith. The legal team for a coalition of Muslims, Jews, Orthodox Christians, evangelicals and others quickly asked the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider the Mahmoud v. McKnight decision.

At the same time, Muslim leaders are debating a May 23 statement -- "Navigating Differences: Clarifying Sexual and Gender Ethics in Islam" -- signed by more than 200 Muslim leaders and scholars, representing a variety of Islamic traditions.


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Religion News Service does a fine job of interviewing LGBTQ+ critics of BYU honor code

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Religion News Service does a fine job of interviewing LGBTQ+ critics of BYU honor code

First things first: Religion News Service deserves praise for publishing a story about the doctrinal code at a private religious university that actually discusses the contents of said code.

Here is the shocking part. This long news feature about Brigham Young University even mentions, near the end, that students who disagree with the school’s teachings actually have their own reasons to choose to live and study on this campus. Is free will involved? This is a mystery. Hold that thought.

However, I would note that this recent RNS report — “BYU officially restores honor code ban on ‘same-sex romantic behavior’” — leaves a crucial, related question unanswered: Do students actually SIGN the doctrinal code as part of enrollment? In other words, do they pledge to follow, or not to openly oppose, the contents of the code?

That’s a logical question, since this story makes it clear that students living in a voluntary community defined by these doctrines are still free to oppose them in public media.

In fact, the RNS story does not include material from an interview with a single student, faculty member, parent or trustee who defends the doctrinal code. This could be a statement about RNS journalism doctrines (Why quote people who are wrong?) or it may reflect the reality that it is now more controversial to openly support the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints than it is to oppose them. Here is the story’s overture:

LGBTQ students at Brigham Young University celebrated three years ago when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ flagship school quietly deleted from the honor code a ban on “homosexual behavior.” For the first time, many students began holding hands or kissing in public. Others took the moment to come out as queer.

Then, a month later, the Church Educational System administrators who oversee BYU’s campuses issued a statement clarifying that despite the deleted language, “same-sex romantic behavior” wasn’t compatible with the honor code.

Last week, the Church Educational System restored language to the code explicitly prohibiting LGBTQ affection — now called “same-sex romantic behavior.”


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True or false: Angry Muslim parents in Maryland have joined the Religious Right?

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True or false: Angry Muslim parents in Maryland have joined the Religious Right?

Faced with a throng of worried parents, Montgomery County Councilmember Kristin Mink met with a few Muslim protestors to hear their objections to the "LGBTQ+ inclusive texts" that school teachers would be using with their children.

The Maryland Democrat was not amused by what she heard.

"This issue has unfortunately put … some, not all of course, Muslim families on the same side of an issue as white supremacists and outright bigots," said Mink, in early June. "The folks I have talked with here today, I would not put in the same category as those folks, although, you know, it's … complicated."

Public-school efforts to promote equity, she added, are "not an infringement on, you know, particular religious freedoms."

This public statement stunned a coalition of Muslims, Orthodox Christians, evangelicals, Jews and others committed to a Maryland policy that allowed students to avoid some activities focusing on family life, gender change and same-sex relationships. These parents, for starters, objected to the use of books such as "Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope," "Rainbow Revolutionaries: Fifty LGBTQ+ People Who Made History" and "Pride Puppy!", an ABC book familiarizing preschool and kindergarten children with the sights and sounds encountered when attending Pride marches.

In the spring, Montgomery County officials limited use of the opt-out policy, while releasing a notice stating that "teachers will not send home letters to inform families when inclusive books are read in the future."

Council on American-Islamic Relations leaders -- citing documents from an open-records request -- noted that officials also encouraged teachers to "scold, debate or 'disrupt the either/or thinking' of … students who express traditional viewpoints" on gender, family life and sexuality. Also, students should be instructed not to use "hurtful," "negative" words.

This parental rights battle has now moved to courtrooms, like so many other religious liberty cases that have recently reached the U.S. Supreme Court.


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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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Religion News Service offers the poignant story of Amarillo's few good United Methodists

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Religion News Service offers the poignant story of Amarillo's few good United Methodists

Here we go again. This time around, we are dealing with a completely valid news story linked to the local, regional, national and global divorce that’s unfolding in the United Methodist Church. While news headlines insist that this drama is about LGBTQ+ issues, alone, decades of debates show that it’s rooted in differences over core doctrines, such as biblical authority, salvation, the identity of Jesus, marriage, the Resurrection, etc.

At the local level, the divorce is causing pain in lots of pews, especially when local churches vote — either to defend the existing UMC Book of Discipline or to align with a church establishment that wants to change it — creating divided flocks.

When this happens, journalists will need to talk to people on both sides of the split to find out why they have made the decisions that they have made. Correct?

Well, apparently not, according to this Religion News Service feature: “Left behind by disaffiliations, Texas town’s United Methodists charter a new church.” In this case, it appears that there are “good,” evolving United Methodists and then there are “bad” Methodists, who want to leave church doctrines as they are.

The “good,” evolving believers are offered a chance to offer their views about the new realities in disunited Methodism — as they should. They are a crucial part of the story. However, what about those “bad” believers who disagree with efforts to change the denomination’s doctrines? Alas, there is no need to talk to the “bad” Methodists.

Let’s walk through this, starting with the overture:

AMARILLO, Texas (RNS) — Earlier this year, the seven United Methodist churches in this city in the Texas Panhandle voted to leave the country’s second-largest Protestant denomination over theological questions about homosexuality and gender identity.

This is, of course, the viewpoint of the UMC establishment here in the United States — that this divorce is about LGBTQ+ issues, period. There are millions of Methodists in America, Africa, Asia, etc., who say the tensions are more complex than that.

Oh well. Whatever. Nevermind.


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Yo, San Diego Union-Tribune editors: Is it still OK to ask religious leaders hard questions?

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Yo, San Diego Union-Tribune editors: Is it still OK to ask religious leaders hard questions?

Is it good for religion-beat journalists to ask questions that they already know specific religious leaders will not want to answer?

I would say, “Yes.” I’ve been saying that my entire journalism career.

I believe that it is appropriate to ask conservative religious leaders questions that they don’t want to answer. I also think it’s appropriate to ask liberal religious leaders questions that they don’t want to answer.

Oh, and I think it’s especially important for journalists to ask “establishment” religious leaders questions that they don’t want to answer. In my experience, the “establishment” folks are usually ecclesiastical bureaucrats who have financial reasons to avoid hard questions, because they need to keep cashing checks from people on both sides of lingering doctrinal disputes. Thus, they say, “Peace, peace!”

This brings me to a San Diego Union-Tribune article with this headline: “San Diego Nazarene pastor fired for same-sex marriage stance.” GetReligion readers will not be surprised to learn that this is a totally one-sided story, containing zero heretical small-o orthodox voices that are allowed to defend the denomination’s affirmation of two millennia of Christian teachings on marriage and sexuality.

Did the newspaper even bother to contact the heretics? I don’t know.

Did the newspaper contact mainstream Nazarene leaders? Did they decline to answer questions that they don’t want to answer, (a) because they don’t trust the newspaper or (b) they really want this issue to go away, as if there was a chance in hades that this could happen in the California media climate?

We will come back to this news story, even though there is nothing unusual about it. Like I said, there is no evidence that small-o orthodox Nazarene leaders were asked hard questions (Will you ask Nazarene college faculty members to vote on whether they support church teachings?), if they were contacted at all. And there is no evidence that progressive Nazarene leaders were asked hard questions (Who owns your campus?), since the goal of the story appears to have been to back their cause.

Before we return to the Union-Tribune press release, let’s remember some words of wisdom from the Baptist left, care of Mercer University ethicist David Gushee, who was once a small-o orthodox voice who then converted to mainline American doctrine:


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