Social Media

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Autism and Communion: Textbook social-media clash between parents, press and church

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Every now and then I get an email from a GetReligion reader who has, for all practical purposes, researched and written a perfect news-critique post for this blog.

It’s especially interesting when the email comes from someone who — in a perfect world — would make an ideal source for mainstream coverage of the very issue that he or she is concerned about.

So that’s what happened the other day when I received a note from Father Matthew Schneider, who writes at a blog called Through Catholic Lenses. He is also known, on Twitter, as @AutisticPriest — a fact that is relevant, in this case.

That is, the fact that Father Schneider is autistic is relevant because he has a natural concern for people facing autism and related challenges, which has led him to dig into church law and teachings on that topic.

This matters when facing a USA Today headline such as this one: “Boy with autism denied First Communion at Catholic church: 'That is discrimination,' mom says.”

What we have here is a perfect, 5-star example of a clash between parents — backed with press reports — and church officials who seem to think they have lots of time (In the social-media age? #DUH!) to figure out faithful responses to complex liturgical issues. It also helps, of course, when reporters fail to use search engines and plug into logical sources about Catholic teachings and even Canon Law.

Anyway, here is the overture to this story, which is long, but essential:

MANALAPAN, N.J. — Nicole and Jimmy LaCugna both grew up with a strong Catholic faith. Each attended religious education as children, married in a Catholic church and sent their first son, Nicholas, through a faith-based pre-K program.

So when their second son, 8-year-old Anthony, reached second grade last fall, he was on track to receive his first Holy Communion in April.

But just days ago, the couple learned Anthony would not be allowed to receive the sacrament at St. Aloysius in Jackson, New Jersey, the church the family has attended for years.


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Podcast: Ashes make nice photos: but there is always news linked to Lent

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Sarah Pulliam Bailey of the Washington Post did a logical thing early this week as the Coronavirus headlines jumped into stun mode. She put out a message on Twitter asking readers and other journalists for input on some logical story ideas linking the arrival of Great Lent during what some are saying could turn into a plague season.

We are, of course, talking about story angles other than that Ash Wednesday statement that is so familiar to Catholics and others in Western rites: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Bailey produced a story that includes several of the major themes discussed in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). Here’s that headline: “Sip from the common cup? On Ash Wednesday, coronavirus and the flu have religious leaders tweaking rituals.” And here’s a crucial chunk of material from that story:

The outbreak that began in China has since spread to other countries. In the Philippines, Catholic priests were urged to sprinkle ashes on parishioners instead of marking their foreheads through direct contact. In Italy, several churches closed for Ash Wednesday. …

Spokespeople for many of the largest Christian denominations in the United States said this week that they have not issued special directives for their churches but are closely monitoring guidance from government officials. The Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey told clergy and lay leaders Tuesday that anyone administering Communion should wash their hands, preferably with an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, and keep their distance during the greeting ritual known as the “passing of the peace.” …

Houses of worship are one of the few places in American life where people of all ages and backgrounds intermingle on a regular basis. And many churches are on the front lines of assisting people who are sick, hosting clinics to provide flu shots or other health services and posting signs encouraging hand-washing.

Year after year, the penitential season of Lent — which leads to Holy Week and Easter (Pascha in the Christian East) -- does receive some attention from the press. After all, Ash Wednesday offers poignant images and it’s always easy to cover a religious event with a feature photo (and often little more). Editors seem to have a special fondness for images of Democrats with ashes on their foreheads (Hello Joe Biden).


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UPDATE: CNN sort of repents on 'fetus' language in story about Senate born-alive bill

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Year after year, debates about abortion continue to raise questions about ethics, politics, morality and science — as well as arguments about language and style in journalism.

The latest, of course, focuses on the legal status of a baby that is born accidentally — perhaps during a botched abortion — as opposed to being delivered intentionally. If you think that is a relatively black-and-white issue, then talk to Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. Meanwhile, what role should the beliefs of doctors and parents, secular or religious, play in this discussion?

Some readers may flinch because I used the term “baby” in that previous paragraph. However, in this case we are discussing the status of a human being who has already been born. Meanwhile, the Merriam-Webster online dictionary continues to define “fetus” as:

[Click to the next page for update on this post.]


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More Ryan Burge charts: Is there a 'cradle gap' that leads to a 'pew gap' in politics?

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Here is one of those #DUH statements about religion in America: Journalists and political activists have been talking about the “God gap” (also known as the “pew gap”) between the two major political parties for several decades now.

Here’s another obvious statement: There is no sign that this debate will end anytime soon.

Most of the time, people argue about (all together now) white evangelical Protestants — when the real swing voters in American life are ordinary Sunday-morning Catholics (see this GetReligion post related to this subject).

However, GetReligion contributor Ryan Burge has — on Twitter and in his Religion in Public blog posts — been doing a bang-up job that today’s Republican Party is packed with all kinds of white churchgoers, not just evangelicals. While we think of Mainline Protestant denominations as culturally “liberal,” that is more true about the ordained folks in the pulpits and the professionals in the ecclesiastical bureaucracies than in the pews.

This brings me to two Burge charts that are really interesting when studied together.

First, consider this statement with the first chart:

A Republican was twice as likely to be raised a evangelical than a Democrat. And much more likely to be raised a mainline Protestant.

In other words, is there some kind of “cradle gap” the precedes the “pew gap”?

Also, how important are these trends anyway, for journalists who are trying to understand the various cultural camps inside today’s Republican and Democratic parties?


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National Prayer Breakfast wars: Did President Trump mean to reject words of Jesus?

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National Prayer Breakfast wars: Did President Trump mean to reject words of Jesus?

Few politicos at the National Prayer Breakfast were shocked when President Donald Trump brandished copies of The Washington Post and USA Today to celebrate their "ACQUITTED" headlines.

But it was a Harvard University professor who did something even more provocative -- quoting strong words from Jesus of Nazareth -- during an event known for its meek Godtalk and vague calls for unity.

America's "biggest crisis," said Arthur Brooks of the Kennedy School of Government, is a culture of contempt that is "tearing our society apart."

"I want to turn to the words of the ultimate original thinker, history's greatest social entrepreneur, and as a Catholic, my personal Lord and Savior, Jesus," said Brooks, author of books such as "The Conservative Heart" and "Love Your Enemies." He is the former leader of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

The key passage for this era, he said, is found in Gospel of Saint Matthew, chapter 5, verses 43-45: "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven."

Brooks added: "Love your enemies! Now that is thinking differently. It changed the world starting 2,000 years ago, and it is as subversive and counterintuitive today as it was then. But the devil's in the details. How do we do it in a country and world roiled by political hatred and differences that we can't seem to bridge?"

Trump declined to take part when Brooks challenged prayer-breakfast participants to raise their hand if they loved someone who disagreed with them about politics.

As the next speaker, the president responded to Brook's remarks with words that unleashed a week of online debate among conservative religious believers -- early Trump supporters and reluctant Trump supporters alike -- who have debated the degree to which they can embrace his take-no-prisoners approach to national leadership.


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LDS church leaders enact a major breakthrough on secrecy next Wednesday

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Mitt Romney’s explanation that he voted to expel President Donald Trump as a duty to God, followed by the president’s religious scorn, renews interest in the senator’s well-known devotion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Journalists also need to know that the nation’s fourth-largest religious body will also be in the news on February 19 for a very different reason. For the first time it will grant members (and thus the media and the public) full access to its governing rulebook.

This is a major breakthrough. The General Handbook prescribes the exercise of powers, procedures, and policies that define the church. The quasi-official Encyclopedia of Mormonism says it is “pre-eminent among Church publications” as “an authoritative guide.” But the contents were long kept secret except for those appointed to church offices.

Religion News Service’s “Flunking Sainthood” columnist Jana Riess, author of the 2019 book The Next Mormons (Oxford), noted that since only males hold office, as a woman she’s been denied access to policies “that potentially affect my life” and open access “helps to empower the general membership” of both genders.

We’re dealing here with the most secretive of America’s major religions.

Its strictly-held financial information is the stuff of legend. The texts of the sacred rituals in temples are kept confidential, and non-members and church members who lack their bishop’s approval cannot attend. (There’s special angst when non-LDS family members cannot witness temple weddings.)

Likewise, the Handbook was carefully distributed with numbered copies that were to be destroyed when no longer in use.


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Trying to embrace friendships at church, in the tense age of #MeToo headlines

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Trying to embrace friendships at church, in the tense age of #MeToo headlines

The email was signed "Worried Wife" and contained a blunt version of a question Bronwyn Lea has heard many times while working with women in and around churches.

The writer said her husband had become friends with another woman his own age. There were no signs of trouble, but they traded messages about all kinds of things. This was creating a "jealous-wife space" in her mind.

"Worried Wife" concluded: "I need a biblical perspective. What is a godly view of cross-gender friendships, and how should they be approached within the context of marriage?"

That's a crucial question these days for clergy and leaders of other ministries and fellowships, said Lea, author of "Beyond Awkward Side Hugs: Living as Christian Brothers and Sisters in a Sex-Crazed World." All of those #ChurchToo reports about sexual abuse and inappropriate relationships have people on edge -- with good cause.

Lea, who has a seminary degree and law-school credentials, is convinced that it's time for churches to act more like extended families and less like companies that sort people into niches defined by age, gender and marital status.

"Many people are lonely and they truly long for some kind of connection with others," she said. "But they've also heard so many horror stories about what can go wrong that they're afraid to reach out. They think that everyone will think that they're creepy or weird if they open up. … Lots of people are giving up and checking out."

Everyone knows the church is "supposed to be a family that everyone can belong to. … That's the vision that we need to reclaim," said Lea, a staff member at the First Baptist Church in Davis, Calif. Thus, the New Testament says: "Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity."

The problem is making that work at the personal level, where pastors, teachers, parents and laypeople are trying to find realistic ways to handle social media, complex career pressures, tensions in modern families and constantly-changing gender roles.


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GetReligion isn't an entertainment blog: But entertainment and news often run together

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Your GetReligionistas received an interesting note this week (via our comments pages) that reminded me that I haven’t offered an update on how things are going one month into GetReligion 4.0.

GetReligion 4.0? Well, GetReligion 1.0 was quite small, with me and co-founder Doug LeBlanc striving to get one or two items online day after day while doing other jobs. Then, in 2.0, I did the blog part-time for a decade while leading the Washington Journalism Center — with contributions from a wonderful pack of scribes, such as Daniel Pulliam, Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans, M.Z. Hemingway, Sarah Pulliam Bailey, George Conger and others. The 3.0 version just ended, with me blogging and editing full-time with the members of the current gang contributing throughout the week.

With 4.0, I’m part-time, again and we’re part of the First Amendment work at the Overby Center at the University of Mississippi. The site has downsized a bit and we do need financial support from readers. We also share some content with the online magazine Religion UnPlugged.

Now, the following letter from reader Mark Gammon came in response to a recent piece by Catholic-news specialist Clemente Lisi that ran with this headline: “HBO's 'The New Pope' serves up lots of sinful sizzle, but no substance worth discussing.” Here is what Gammon had to say:

Oh no. Is this what this website is going to be now? I always appreciated reading about the press’ blind spots or unconscious hostility toward religion. As a theologian, I found it a valuable service.

This piece, on the other hand, is just whining about a TV show.


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Thinker from David French: Does it matter if media elites don't 'get' Pentecostalism?

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Thinker from David French: Does it matter if media elites don't 'get' Pentecostalism?

The other day I praised Religion News Service for jumping into the Twitter tornado caused by the Rev. Paula White’s wild sermon thundering about the powers of the “marine kingdom” and the miscarriage of “satanic pregnancies” and lots of other stuff.

It was just another day in America’s shattered and splintered public discourse.

Here’s the New York Times summary of what that Right Wing Watch clip unleashed:

The video shows part of a nearly three-hour-long service at the City of Destiny church in Apopka, Fla., on Jan. 5. In it, Ms. White can be seen talking about fighting witchcraft and demonic manipulation. She called for any “strange winds that have been sent to hurt the church, sent against this nation, sent against our president, sent against myself” to be broken.

“In the name of Jesus, we command all satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now,” Ms. White said. “We declare that anything that’s been conceived in satanic wombs, that it’ll miscarry. It will not be able to carry forth any plan of destruction, any plan of harm.”

As of Monday, the video had been watched more than eight million times.

It appeared that no one in this shouting match had the slightest interest in promoting understanding. Some commentators weren’t even interested in accurate, honest disagreements.

However, Adelle Banks and Bob Smietana wrote a short explainer that provided crucial information about what White was saying and, most importantly, what she was not saying. Click here to see my piece on that: “RNS pros offered crucial context for 'Satanic pregnancies' sound bite.”

Now I would like to do something that I rarely do: I want to point mainstream journalists and concerned readers to another explainer digging deeper into this topic. This one is by David French, a Harvard Law graduate and First Amendment expert who is one of the most quoted #NeverTrump conservatives in American political life.

In recent weeks, the former National Review star has been doing some brilliant religion-news analysis for his new publication — The Dispatch. His new piece (“Satanic Pregnancies, Explained”) is not an attempt — obviously — to support Paula White or her political master, President Donald Trump. However, it is an attempt to explain why White’s critics, especially scribes in the mainstream press, need to slow down and try to grasp what charismatic and Pentecostal Christians believe on the topic of fierce prayer and “spiritual warfare.”


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