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Conservative Catholic media set the journalism agenda on Latin Mass and Burrill resignation

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Conservative Catholic media set the journalism agenda on Latin Mass and Burrill resignation

It’s been a busy month on the Catholic beat. There’s rarely a dull moment, especially in the Pope Francis era, as debates over the past few weeks focused on the Latin Mass and Grindr-clicking gay clergy in high places.

These are two different issues, of course, but ones where conservative Catholic media outlets have excelled. I’d even go as far as to say that the coverage in various corners of the Catholic press has set the agenda on these two raging issues — for everyone.

I have written about the importance of the growing independent Catholic press before. At a time when mainstream media very often ignores one side on hot-button issues, a healthy alternate media that covers the church and isn’t afraid to give those voices space has helped readers fully understand the broader spectrum of U.S. and global Catholicism.

The health scare that Pope Francis recently went through has seemingly inflamed the culture wars within Roman Catholicism. There is a feeling that this pope’s time may be coming to an end and that reformers need to move quickly before conservative bishops and priests embark on a takeover.

I have lauded The Pillar in this space for their ability to explain complicated issues as well as break stories and embark on investigations. This has been a wonderful month for them, even as they have been catching flak from the Catholic left (and, thus, from key mainstream news outlets).

The story they broke on July 20 is what we in the journalism business call “a bombshell.” The story revealed that Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, former general secretary of the U.S. bishops’ conference, had resigned after The Pillar “found evidence the priest engaged in serial sexual misconduct, while he held a critical oversight role in the Catholic Church’s response to the recent spate of sexual abuse and misconduct scandals.”

This is what The Pillar’s reporting found (this is long, but essential):


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Catholic worship wars rage on: Pope Francis decides Latin Mass is too divisive to embrace

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Catholic worship wars rage on: Pope Francis decides Latin Mass is too divisive to embrace

The message to Catholic traditionalists in Southwest England was blunt, yet pointed.

Because of the new Traditionis Custodes ("Guardians of the tradition") document from Pope Francis, and the wishes of Bishop Declan Lang of the Diocese of Clifton, the upcoming "Latin Mass at Glastonbury will be the final Latin Mass here."

The message delivered to another circle of believers there was quite different. As a "Clifton Diocese Initiative," the "LGBT+ Mass" series at a Bristol church would continue because the bishop "wishes to express pastoral care and concern for our Catholic LGBT+ community."

Thus, the Catholic worship wars rage on.

This bolt of liturgical lightning from Pope Francis struck one of his predecessor's signature achievements. In his 2007 apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum ("Of the Supreme Pontiffs"), the now retired Pope Benedict XVI declared that the post-Vatican II rite was the "ordinary form" for the church, but that the older Latin Mass was an "extraordinary form" and could be encouraged when requested by the faithful.

While Benedict said these rites could coexist, Pope Francis argued -- in a letter accompanying Traditionis Custodes -- that the old Latin Mass has become too divisive.

Benedict was "comforted" by his belief that the "two forms of the … Roman Rite would enrich one another," wrote Pope Francis, but some bishops now believe the Latin Mass has been "exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church."

Thus, Francis declared, bishops must guarantee that any priests and laity they allow to celebrate the old rite have accepted the validity of Vatican II and its "Novus Ordo" Mass. Bishops may "designate one or more locations where the faithful adherents of these groups may gather" for approved Latin Masses, but these services may not be held in "parochial churches" and there should be no new parishes created for the extraordinary rite.


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Does this ancient document have authority in modern debates about moral theology?

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Does this ancient document have authority in modern debates about moral theology?

THE QUESTION:

What was the ancient Didache and what is its to moral controversies relevance today?

THE RELIGION GUY'S ANSWER:

Except for the Bible or Quran, ancient writings rarely pop up in 21st Century public disputes. So it was rather interesting to see that happen with the Didache, whose importance rests on its likely status as the oldest surviving text from Christianity's earliest days other than the New Testament itself. Certain scholars think it was written even before the Gospels, between A.D. 50 and 70, but more common dating puts it in the early 2nd Century A.D.

This text's sudden media appearance involved the unending abortion debate, which is hotter than ever in the U.S. with the Supreme Court set to re-examine the law next term in the Dobbs case and the Catholic bishops' conference considering whether to endorse denial of Communion to "pro-choice" office-holders, President Biden included.

Garry Wills, the Northwestern University historian and renegade Catholic, recently sought to convince New York Times readers that "the cult of the fetus" embraced by Catholic bishops (also evangelical Protestants) is off-base because, among other things, Jesus and the New Testament authors never condemn abortion as sinful.

A blistering response by National Review's Michael Brendan Dougherty cited the Didache as prime evidence in contending that Christianity from its earliest phase opposed abortion. The document's second chapter forbids "grave sins," listed as follows:

"You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born. You shall not covet the things of your neighbor, you shall not swear, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not speak evil, you shall bear no grudge . . . (Roberts-Donaldson translation).

A later section targets "murderers of children, destroyers of the handiwork of God" in a catalogue of people who are living out "the way of death."


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Ties that bind? Concerning journalism, Grindr, secrecy, homophobia and the Latin Mass

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Ties that bind? Concerning journalism, Grindr, secrecy, homophobia and the Latin Mass

Early in my religion-beat career, a veteran Catholic leader gave me wise advice about the challenges reporters would face covering the emerging national scandals about sexual abuse by bishops and priests.

Never forget, he said, that these scandals are not about “left vs. right.” Plenty of people, across the whole spectrum of Catholic life, have secrets in the past and some in the present.

Soon after that, I heard almost exactly the same take from the late A.W. Richard Sipe, the former Benedictine monk, priest and psychotherapist who spent more than a half-century studying the sexual secrets of Catholic clergy. A strong voice for progressive Catholic causes, he served as a witness or consultant in at least 250 civil legal actions. As I wrote in an “On Religion” column, soon after Sipe’s death:

"Sooner or later it will become broadly obvious that there is a systemic connection between the sexual activity by, among and between clerics in positions of authority and control, and the abuse of children," he wrote, in a 2016 letter to his local shepherd, San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy.

"When men in authority — cardinals, bishops, rectors, abbots, confessors, professors — are having or have had an unacknowledged secret-active-sex-life under the guise of celibacy an atmosphere of tolerance of behaviors within the system is made operative."

Once again, the key is secrecy, because a fog of secrecy, sin and shame can be use to hide all kinds of painful issues.

I bring this up, of course, because of the firestorm that has greeted an investigative report from The Pillar that ran with this headline: “USCCB gen sec Burrill resigns after sexual misconduct allegations.” Here is the overture:

Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, former general secretary of the U.S. bishops’ conference, announced his resignation Tuesday, after The Pillar found evidence the priest engaged in serial sexual misconduct, while he held a critical oversight role in the Catholic Church’s response to the recent spate of sexual abuse and misconduct scandals.

“It is with sadness that I inform you that Msgr. Jeffrey Burrill has resigned as General Secretary of the Conference,” Archbishop Jose Gomez wrote July 20 in a memo to U.S. bishops.

The key evidence was information drawn from signals on the hookup app Grindr, which a Vanity Fair feature once called “The World’s Biggest, Scariest Gay Bar.”


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'Where there is incense there is fire.' True, but reporters can seek voices in middle of that war

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'Where there is incense there is fire.' True, but reporters can seek voices in middle of that war

Raise your hand if you are old enough to remember the Vietnam era.

That may sound like a strange question to ask after a weekend of reading the tsunami of online reactions to the decision by Pope Francis to all but crush the 2007 Summorum Pontificum apostolic letter by the now retired Pope Benedict XVI, the document defending the use of the old Latin Mass, now called the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

Now the fighting — another sign of real divisions between Catholic bishops almost everywhere — will almost certainly be turned up to 11. As Father Raymond J. de Souza of the National Catholic Register put it: “Where there is incense there is fire.”

This brings me back to Vietnam. Here’s the phrase that jumped into my mind, about an hour or two into watching the firestorm on Catholic Twitter: “We had to burn the village in order to save it,” the popular paraphrase of a line in an Associated Press report from that era stating, “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”

There appear to be people on both side of the Latin Mass war who are ready to do something like that. Pope Francis has clearly stated that he believes the “ordinary” modern form of the Vatican II Mass cannot live peacefully with rules allowing many Catholics to embrace the faith’s earlier liturgical traditions.

This is an unbelievably complex story and I feel only compassion for the wire-service reporters who had to write short hard-news stories about this action by Pope Francis.

Why? At one point, I started listing some basic facts built into the foundations of this story.

Truth be told, there are:

* Latin Mass activists who reject Vatican II and, from time to time, refer to this pope simply as “Bergoglio,” meaning they still consider him to be Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina — not the real pope. They reject Vatican II, period. Pope Benedict XVI has never been in this camp.

* Progressive Catholics whose hatred of the traditional Mass and its proponents is so fierce that they are willing to roll the dice on schism. They believe the “spirit,” not the actual teachings, of Vatican II must be defended at all costs. Some of these liberal Catholics are openly sympathetic to the doctrinal “reforms” sought by German bishops, which could lead to schism in some form.


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Concerning prayers and penalty kicks: Inside the official Vatican soccer tournament

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Concerning prayers and penalty kicks: Inside the official Vatican soccer tournament

Beyond the Vatican’s walls and its soaring columns lies a not-so-secret passion. It is this passion, one that envelopes much of the planet, that takes over the lives of a select group of Catholic priests and seminarians.

This passion is especially relevant with the Italian national team playing in the finals of EURO 2020.

What is this passion? It’s soccer, of course. In particular, it’s the annual Clericus Cup, a soccer tournament contested by teams from various seminaries located throughout Rome. Founded in 2007, the competition features 66 different nationalities and is the brainchild of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the former Vatican secretary of state and rabid soccer fan.

The tournament pits against one another different religious orders and schools where seminarians are studying and training to become ordained priests. Think of it as March Madness for priests-in-training who play the world’s most popular sport. In fact, the tournament has received regular press from the Italian media and even the subject last year of a feature story on FIFA.com, soccer’s world governing body.

This unique sporting event is the focus of a new 69-minute documentary called “The Holy Game” by filmmakers Brent Hodge and Chris Kelly. The film, distributed by Gravitas Ventures, details what’s often called the “World Cup of the Church” — but also takes a behind-the-scenes look at these seminarians who love both playing the game and the challenges that come with dedicated their lives to God.

Soccer aside, the film follows several seminarians all with a seemingly similar backstory: self-doubt and anxiety over what awaits them once they are ordained.


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Catholic bishops, politicos and Holy Communion: Little has changed in this old debate

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Catholic bishops, politicos and Holy Communion: Little has changed in this old debate

The questions that haunted the Pontifical Academy for Life conference were familiar, controversial and exhausting, since Catholics and their bishops had been arguing about them for years.

The year was 2006, but little has changed in 2021.

What should bishops do when prominent Catholics -- even presidential candidates -- defended and promoted abortion rights? What if they said they accepted churched teachings on the sanctity of human life, while their actions suggested otherwise?

Would it violate the "separation of church and state" if bishops denied them access to Holy Communion? What if bishops asked these politicos to go to Confession?

"This is silly," said scholar Robert P. George, addressing that Vatican gathering. A Catholic shepherd "acting on his authority as a bishop to discipline members of his flock, who commit what the Church teaches are grave injustices against innocent human beings" would be "exercising his own constitutional right to the free exercise of religion. …

"Freedom is a two-way street. No one is compelled by law to accept ecclesiastical authority," stressed George, an outspoken Catholic layman and professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University. Thus, a bishop has "every right to exercise spiritual authority over anyone who chooses to accept it. There is a name for people who do accept the authority of Catholic bishops. They are called 'Catholics.' "

At that time, most debates centered on Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic Party's presidential nominee in 2004.

Cracks inside the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops widened with the election of President Joe Biden, a rosary-carrying Catholic who -- in word and deed -- has evolved into a fierce defender of abortion and LGBTQ rights. Biden quickly dropped his longstanding opposition to the federal funding of abortion, after criticism from the left in the 2019 primaries.


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Examining Joe Biden the Catholic is the story, not just what the bishops are doing

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Examining Joe Biden the Catholic is the story, not just what the bishops are doing

British singer Winston Marshall, the banjo player for Mumford & Sons, announced that he decided to leave the band. The move came months after he’d faced criticism over a tweet in which he praised journalist Andy Ngo on his recent book — “Unmasked” — about the roots and strategies of the political protest movement known as antifa.

Marshall wrote an op-ed last Thursday for Medium under the headline “Why I’m Leaving Mumford & Sons” is a commentary on the world we live in today.

This is the section of his essay that stood out most for me, in the context of how mainstream journalists are covering America’s Catholic president:

Though there’s nothing wrong with being conservative, when forced to politically label myself I flutter between “centrist,” “liberal” or the more honest “bit this, bit that.” Being labeled erroneously just goes to show how binary political discourse has become. I had criticized the “Left,” so I must be the “Right,” or so their logic goes.

Indeed, it is this “binary political discourse” that dominates our lives these days. It may be a result of social media — Marshall details how he was attacked for his initial tweet and later his apology — in a world where nameless and faceless trolls dictate the discourse.

This takes me to the ongoing fallout from the U.S. bishop’s vote to draft a document that addresses “Eucharistic coherence” continues to be debated. The proposal’s aim is to ultimately decide whether Catholic politicians, like President Joe Biden, should be denied Holy Communion.

The news coverage in secular media on this very complicated theological matter has been disappointing, sub-par even in some cases. It’s no surprise at a time when skilled religion reporters are as hard to spot as a unicorn on stories of this kind. Far too often, political desk reporters at major news organizations cover such religious/theological issues. Politics, after all, is what matters.


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U.S. Catholic bishops OK drafting Communion guidelines: Press asks about politics -- period

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U.S. Catholic bishops OK drafting Communion guidelines: Press asks about politics -- period

Any short list of classic Pope Francis remarks about abortion would have to include the 2018 speech in which he asked, using a Mafia image: “Is it just to resort to a contract killer to solve a problem?”

There was more: “Interrupting a pregnancy is like eliminating someone. Getting rid of a human being is like resorting to a contract killer to solve a problem.” While some people support abortion rights, Francis added: “How can an act that suppresses innocent and defenseless life as it blossoms be therapeutic, civil or simply human?”

Or how about this quote, drawn from a 2020 address to the United Nations?

“Unfortunately, some countries and international institutions are also promoting abortion as one of the so-called ‘essential services’ provided in the humanitarian response to the pandemic. … It is troubling to see how simple and convenient it has become for some to deny the existence of a human life as a solution to problems that can and must be solved for both the mother and her unborn child.”

While there is no question that Pope Francis is a progressive on many issues linked to economics, immigration and other political topics, he has continued — sometimes in blunt language involving evil and the demonic — to defend the basics of Catholic moral theology.

So what are readers supposed to make of the Sunday New York Times story that opens with this summary statement:

WASHINGTON — Pope Francis and President Biden, both liberals, are the two most high-profile Roman Catholics in the world.

But in the United States, neither of these men is determining the direction of the Catholic Church. It is now a conservative movement that decides how the Catholic Church asserts its power in America.

Perhaps that is a bit simplistic?

The context, of course, was the decision by U.S. Catholic bishops — after three days of contentious debate — to approve a measure on to draft a statement that could deny Holy Communion to pro-abortion-rights politicians like President Joe Biden.


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