Vatican

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Catholic left seeks (and finds?) signs of hope after Vatican ruling on same-sex unions

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Catholic left seeks (and finds?) signs of hope after Vatican ruling on same-sex unions

After a media firestorm ignited by a Vatican condemnation of same-sex unions -- because God "cannot bless sin" -- Catholic progressives immediately looked for hope in the words of bishops, President Joe Biden and even Pope Francis.

In his Sunday Angelus address after the March 15 ruling, the pope stressed that modern seekers want to "see Jesus" in acts of love, not persecution.

Catholics must promote "a life that takes upon itself the style of God -- closeness, compassion and tenderness," said the pope. "It means sowing seeds of love, not with fleeting words but through concrete, simple and courageous examples, not with theoretical condemnations, but with gestures of love. Then the Lord, with his grace, makes us bear fruit, even when the soil is dry due to misunderstandings, difficulty or persecution, or claims of legalism or clerical moralism."

While Pope Francis gave "his assent" to this ruling, the Jesuit publication America cited anonymous Vatican sources saying the Angelus remarks suggested that he was "distancing himself" from the work of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

That document said God "does not and cannot bless sin: He blesses sinful man, so that he may recognize that he is part of his plan of love and allow himself to be changed." As for same-sex unions, it added: "The presence in such relationships of positive elements … cannot justify these relationships and render them legitimate objects of an ecclesial blessing, since the positive elements exist within the context of a union not ordered to the Creator's plan."

Bishop Johan Bonny of Antwerp -- who represented Belgium at the 2015 Vatican Synod on Marriage and the Family -- said those words left him "ashamed on behalf of my Church. … I want to apologize to all those for whom this 'responsum' is painful and incomprehensible: faithful and committed Catholic homosexual couples, the parents and grandparents of homosexual couples and their children, pastoral workers and counsellors of homosexual couples," he wrote on Facebook.

"I know homosexual couples who are legally married, have children, form a warm and stable family, and moreover, actively participate in parish life. A number of them are employed full-time in pastoral work or ecclesial organizations." Why, he added, deny the "similarity or analogy with heterosexual marriage here?"


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3D chess in Rome? Pope Francis approves Vatican decree affirming doctrines on marriage

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3D chess in Rome? Pope Francis approves Vatican decree affirming doctrines on marriage

All together now: Is the pope Catholic?

Actually, in this age of conspiracy theories — on right and left — the question of the day appears to be: Is THIS pope Catholic? I am referring, of course, to the Vatican’s decision to affirm centuries of Christian doctrine stating that sex outside of marriage is (trigger warning) “sin” and that the sacrament of marriage is limited to the union of a man and a woman.

But, but, but, clearly Pope Francis must be playing some kind of three-dimensional chess with this action, moving the doctrinal pieces in some subtle way that will become clear in “reforms” at a later date? This was a case in which one could catch whiffs of disappointment and even conspiracy thinking on both the Catholic left and right (and in the press).

To see this in print, check out the overture in this Washington Post report: “Pope Francis says priests cannot bless same-sex unions, dashing hopes of gay Catholics.” The headline assumes, of course, that all gay Catholics oppose the church’s teachings on this matter but, well, nevermind.

ROME — Pope Francis has invited LGBT advocates to the Vatican. He has spoken warmly about the place of gay people in the church. He has called for national laws for same-sex civil unions.

But Monday, Francis definitively signaled the limits to his reformist intentions, signing off on a Vatican decree that reaffirms old church teaching and bars priests from blessing same-sex unions.

The pronouncement, issued at a time when some clerics were interested in performing such blessings, leans on the kind of language that LGBT Catholics have long found alienating — and that they had hoped Francis might change. It says that same-sex unions are “not ordered to the Creator’s plan.” It says acknowledging those unions is “illicit.” It says that God “cannot bless sin.”

The decree shows how Francis, rather than revolutionizing the church’s stance toward gays, has taken a far more complicated approach, speaking in welcoming terms while maintaining the official teaching. That leaves gay Catholics wondering about their place within the faith, when the catechism calls homosexual acts “disordered” but the pontiff says, “Who am I to judge?”

Let’s see. We have the standard use of the word “reform” to prejudge this matter. We have a sense of yearning that Pope Francis is taking a “more complicated approach” to this doctrinal issue.


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Does President Joe Biden need 'Catholic safe spaces' in order to receive Communion?

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Does President Joe Biden need 'Catholic safe spaces' in order to receive Communion?

Whether some Catholic politicians can receive Holy Communion has been a matter of debate for decades.

The election of Joe Biden — a man constantly identified as as a “devout Catholic” by his staff and, thus, the mainstream press — has put a hot spotlight on this familiar issues. The key is whether his Catholic piety is compatible with his statements and actions that are rooted in progressive politics.

This issue has come into greater focus during Biden’s first 100 days in office. The Atlantic, in a piece written by Emma Green, detailed how some key U.S. bishops — and “many conservative laypeople” — think the president should be denied access to Holy Communion.

Green’s well-reported feature detailed the ongoing battle between Catholics across this country and the current occupant of the Oval Office, a fight that’s expected to worsen over the next four years. Here’s the thesis:

If some Catholic leaders had their way, Biden wouldn’t be able to take Communion at all. A committee of bishops recently gathered to examine the “difficult and complex situation” of a Catholic president who publicly supports expanding abortion rights, contrary to the faith’s teachings. Later this year, a representative of that group will likely offer guidance on Biden’s future ability to take Communion. For now, the cardinal who oversees Washington, D.C., Wilton Gregory, has said the president is welcome to attend any Mass in his archdiocese. “I don’t want to go to the table with a gun,” Gregory told Religion News Service.

Biden, the second Catholic president in American history, is a man of faith who cites Saint Augustine and hymns in his speeches and carries a rosary that belonged to his son Beau. His presidency is a historic opportunity for the Catholic Church. But he’s also a symbol of a Church at political war with itself; Catholic voters are nearly evenly divided between the parties, and the bishops have been squabbling in public over how to deal with his administration. Sinners abound in politics. The question facing the Catholic hierarchy is whether to offer the most famous Catholic sinner in America an invitation to closeness with God, or to withhold Communion until the president falls fully in line with his Church’s teachings.

The story opened with Biden’s arrival at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Washington, D.C. to attend Mass, the same place he attended when vice president.

A key detail: Father Kevin Gillespie “checked with Gregory” to make sure he had the cardinal’s backing.


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Papal splash: Persecuted Iraqi Christians get long-awaited spotlight with Francis visit

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Papal splash: Persecuted Iraqi Christians get long-awaited spotlight with Francis visit

By the time this runs, the pope will have flown home from Iraq after a historic trip that apparently went without a hitch. Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI both wanted to go to Iraq; Francis actually went and did it.

There were so many reasons not to go: The pandemic, the security situation and the potential for misunderstanding or disaster. But Iraq put on an impressive show, keeping the pope safe, creating venues at which he spoke (the tableau in Mosul was particularly dramatic) and accommodating a press corps of several dozen reporters.

Which leads to mentioning how difficult covering a papal trip really is. I’ve covered two U.S. papal trips (John Paul II in 1987 and Benedict XVI in 2008); one papal election in Rome (Benedict, 2005) and spent plus two weeks in northern Iraq (July 2004), so I have a feel for the conditions. Covering a pope is a succession of 18-20-hour days spent getting checked over by security, traveling to the event, covering it and then filing your story and doing the research for the next day’s story.

Even the timing was tricky. The pope had to dodge major religious holidays along with national ones such as Nowruz, the Persian new year that’s also observed in Iraq and is on the first days of spring. He also had to avoid coming much past April as that part of the world is scorching for half of the year. (When I was there in July, it was 111 degrees).

Listen here to CNN’s Vatican correspondent Delia Gallagher as she talks about waiting in Rome for the papal plane with 75 other journalists, all of whom, she said, were vaccinated. Notice the band playing the hymn “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee” when the pontiff came down the stairs to the tarmac. I’m sure that tune was a new one for the Baghdad airport.

I also caught this NBC report about reporters taking an Iraqi military plane to get to Ur. I hope to hear more about what it was like to report from Iraq.

News outlets with Baghdad and Rome bureaus understandably had the best ringside seats to the visit and it was the foreign correspondents, not these outlets’ religion beat reporters, who got to cover the trip.

Even Religion News Service’s and the Associated Press’ Vatican reporters had to cover the event from Rome, so I am very curious as to who these 75 journalists were who actually got on the plane.

Putting on such a trip was quite the production, according to a detailed 25-minute special report by alJazeera, which informed us that Iraq employed 10,000 members of its security forces to make sure nothing went wrong.

I’ll open with the Washington Post’s account of the pope’s arrival.


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Another shot of controversy: New Catholic questions about Johnson & Johnson vaccine

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Another shot of controversy: New Catholic questions about Johnson & Johnson vaccine

My wife has lupus and autoimmune diseases that make her high-risk if infected with COVID-19. Because of that, we’ve adhered strictly to masking, distancing and other safety precautions. For nearly a year, we’ve not attended an in-person worship assembly or eaten inside a restaurant.

After reporting from all 50 states and 15 nations in my career, I’ve done all my work from home since flying to Tennessee to cover deadly tornadoes last March. That was right before the coronavirus lockdown hit America in the middle of that month.

Last week, I mentioned my excitement to roll up my sleeve for the first of two Moderna shots. And on Thursday, our family got an extra dose of hope: Tamie received a Johnson & Johnson single shot, the coronavirus vaccine recommended by her rheumatologist because of her life-threatening reactions to medications last year.

Ironically, my wife was able to schedule her last-minute appointment on the same day that Religion Unplugged managing editor Meagan Clark and I moderated an online panel on the COVID-19 vaccines and religion.

A key focus of the panel: conflicting and sometimes confusing statements issued by U.S. Catholic bishops on the morality of the newly approved Johnson & Johnson shot.

“Leaders at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are discouraging Catholics from using the new Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine if given a choice, citing the use of cells with a distant link to abortion in the development of the vaccine,” reported Religion News Service national reporter Jack Jenkins, one of the panelists.

Jenkins offered excellent insight on the diversity of Catholic responses to the vaccine debate, from individual bishops to the Vatican.

Panelist Clemente Lisi, who analyzes Catholic news for Religion Unplugged, noted: “Unless you’re a scientist, this is a very difficult thing to understand. … I think most people are getting this (news) through headlines, through Twitter, and I think it may cause some misunderstanding.”

Many Americans have no choice which COVID-19 vaccine to receive, Lisi stressed. Stopping the virus’ spread, he added, could itself be construed as a pro-life act.


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Attention news editors: Are German Catholic bishops poised to become liberal Luthers?

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Attention news editors: Are German Catholic bishops poised to become liberal Luthers?

Germany’s Catholic bishops embarked on a series of conversations in 2018 aimed at reforming church teachings. It was an ambitious, if not audacious, effort addressing everything from homosexuality, priestly celibacy and the ordination of women.

As always, the word “reform” — in this context — means modernizing ancient church doctrines.

Conservative Catholics across the world decried the prospect. The tensions that arose at that time — and still simmering today — even caused some to warn that a permanent split could occur.

Indeed, the dreaded “s-word” — schism — can be used to describe the current moment. It was just last year that a high-ranking prelate argued that pushing such changes could lead to a “German national church.”

That’s a big news story — period. Over the past three years, the bishops in Germany haven’t been shy about making headlines — in Catholic-market publications. The question is when their proposals will draw major coverage by professionals in major newsrooms, including television networks.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis has elevated women at the Vatican, but he hasn’t endorsed such progressive doctrinal proposals — although his papacy has emboldened the Germans to push for such changes.

The church across the West has suffered tremendously due to secularism and the clergy sex scandal, especially in Germany. None of these German innovations, along with the alleged cover-ups, has helped matters. Still, the German bishops have continued to propose “reforms” in the past few weeks — with a series of moves that could forever change Roman Catholicism.

These latest pronouncements have received attention in the U.S. press, primarily in conservative religious publications. There are exceptions, but overall these fast-moving developments have gone unnoticed as of late.

These moves come as the church in Germany continues to lose members. In 2019, for example, over 272,000 Catholics quit the church.


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Con Don: Why some conservative Catholic news sites were duped by Donald Trump

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Con Don: Why some conservative Catholic news sites were duped by Donald Trump

Now that Donald Trump is no longer president, the discussion about his time in office and legacy is something that has become a media preoccupation despite Joe Biden being inaugurated last month.

That’s because Trump upended much of the way government worked. Add to that a media that can’t quit him (some outlets saw a huge increase in readers and viewers since 2016) and the U.S. Senate impeachment trial, and you can see why Trump remains a focal point.

The U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6 is the coda to the Trump presidency and the reason why he remains a news cycle fixture. You may no longer see the former president on Twitter, but The New York Times and CNN — to name just two mainstream news organizations — continue to give him plenty of coverage.

This brings us to another development in today’s evolving news-media marketplace: Catholic media also blossomed during the Trump years.

What has been the result of some Catholic news websites giving Trump any form of editorial support?

Catholic news sites across the doctrinal spectrum should have done a better job calling out both sides — something the mainstream press no longer does, especially on moral, cultural and religious issues. Most often, they don’t run opposing opinion pieces and it appears that the selection of news stories and their arguments are often guided by politics.

However, if we have learned anything over the past four years it is that marrying one’s faith to a political ideology can be a form of idolatry. How else would you explain the zeal of some Catholics who argued that Trump should remain in office?

Catholics have been seduced by the concept that the government can remedy the nation’s problems. They weren’t duped by Trump in as much as they tried to find a solution for what ails society, from their point of view, by supporting an imperfect man. Catholics, like many people of other Christian denominations, wanted to believe Trump. They had too much invested in him and his policy decisions.

Where right-wing Catholics news sites, in particular, go from here remains to be seen.


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Once again, AP accuses big Catholic bosses of abusing government coronavirus relief efforts

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Once again, AP accuses big Catholic bosses of abusing government coronavirus relief efforts

There they go again.

In this case, “they” refers to whoever is in charge of religion-news coverage these days at the Associated Press. Someone there needs to take a remedial course in (a) church history, (b) church-state law in the United States or (c) both.

Let’s start by flashing back about six months, when the AP rolled out an investigation of what its editors clearly thought was a scandal of epic proportions. Does anyone remember this lede, and this GetReligion dissection (“AP explains why it was wrong for local-level Catholic employees to get coronavirus relief money“), of the expose)?

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Roman Catholic Church used a special and unprecedented exemption from federal rules to amass at least $1.4 billion in taxpayer-backed coronavirus aid, with many millions going to dioceses that have paid huge settlements or sought bankruptcy protection because of clergy sexual abuse cover-ups.

That was a bizarre, but honest, opener. The entire story was built on the assumption that there is such a thing — corporately and legally speaking — as a “U.S. Roman Catholic Church.”

As I said at the time, this is “like saying that there is an ‘American Public School System,’ as opposed to complex networks of schools at the local, regional and state levels.” One could also note that there is a Planned Parenthood of America. However, government coronavirus aid in the paycheck-support program went to 37 regional and local Planned Parenthood groups.

The Associated Press has now produced a sequel, with this headline: “Sitting on billions, Catholic dioceses amassed taxpayer aid.” While the editors avoided the “U.S. Roman Catholic Church” label this time around, this lengthy story is built on a similar misunderstanding of what happened when Catholic parishes, schools, nonprofits and other ministries applied for coronavirus aid.

As readers can see in the headline, in the sequel AP leaders focused on finances at the diocesan level, as opposed to a mythical national Catholic structure. This is closer to the truth, but it still misses the mark. While many issues of church authority are linked to local bishops, in local dioceses, the crucial issue here was paycheck-relief money reaching staff members in individual parishes, schools and ministries that had been rocked by falling donations during the COVID-19 crisis. Let’s start with the overture:


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President Joe Biden's a Pope Francis fan, but does that mean the pope's a fan of Biden?

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President Joe Biden's a Pope Francis fan, but does that mean the pope's a fan of Biden?

Pope Francis appears to be a big supporter of President Joe Biden.

A majority of the U.S. Catholic bishops are not.

At least that’s a prominent narrative concerning America’s second Catholic president (after John F. Kennedy).

To wit: The headline on a Los Angeles Times news story this week declared: “Pope Francis is a Biden fan, but some U.S. Catholic leaders give president a frosty reception.”

My sincere question: Is it accurate to characterize Francis as a Biden fan?

“While Pope Francis has enjoyed a warm relationship with Biden from time spent together in both the U.S. and at the Vatican, it would be wrong to classify him as a partisan player in U.S. politics,” Christopher White, national correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, told me. “His approach to any world leader is to try to find common ground and see where there’s work to be done together.”

Clemente Lisi analyzes Catholic news for Religion Unplugged.

“I’d say the pope seems cordial to Biden, and the two have met a few times,” Lisi said in response to my question. “There seems to be a fascination in the media to lump these two men together.”

The Los Angeles Times is, of course, just the latest major news outlet to contrast the difference in tone between how the Vatican and top U.S. bishops — notably Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez — have greeted Biden’s inauguration.

The prominent West Coast paper suggests:

The rift stems from opposition by many in the church to abortion and same-sex marriage, while others see a broader interpretation of the sanctity of life, promoted by Francis, to include climate change, immigration and fighting poverty.

Biden “keeps a picture in the Oval Office of himself with Pope Francis,” the story notes. But does that picture mean as much to Francis? The paper doesn’t say.


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