Vatican

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Familiar, but newsworthy, trends: Catholicism grows in Africa and Asia, while Europe fades

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Familiar, but newsworthy, trends: Catholicism grows in Africa and Asia, while Europe fades

The number of Roman Catholics across Africa and Asia continues to grow, according to a new report highlighted by the Vatican.

That’s one news hook for coverage. Here is another: the number of Catholic believers in Europe continues to implode.

“If we keep the faith to ourselves, we will become weak, and if we keep the faith to a small group, it might become an elite group,” Cardinal Luis Tagle of the Philippines warned on Oct. 21 during a news conference held at the Vatican.

This new report, compiled by Fides News Service, serves as a statistical snapshot of the church’s global population and institutions. It compared 2019 with the prior year and was based on the latest available statistics.

The findings, akin to a Vatican census, did not take into account the pandemic and the impact COVID-19 had on faith and church attendance as a result of shutdown orders across much of the world. The report was released to coincide with World Mission Day, which is celebrated on the third Sunday of October each year.

Pope Francis, in a message posted to the Holy See’s official website, highlighted the day’s purpose.

“We recall with gratitude all those men and women who by their testimony of life help us to renew our baptismal commitment to be generous and joyful apostles of the gospel,” he wrote. “Let us remember especially all those who resolutely set out, leaving home and family behind, to bring the gospel to all those places and people athirst for its saving message.”

Overall, the total number of Catholics throughout the world grew by 15.4 million people.


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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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Thinking about covering news about exorcisms? Journalists need this kind of book

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Thinking about covering news about exorcisms? Journalists need this kind of book

This is typically the time of year when book publicists love to send out press releases about new books that have something to do with Oct. 31.

Halloween has become one of those festivities that have grown in popularity over the last few decades. Once relegated to just being a night for children to dress up and go trick-or-treating, Halloween has grown into a commercial holiday right up there with Christmas. For many, it is the centerpiece of the fall season.

For publishers, it’s also the chance to push books that have to do with evil, demons, witches, witchcraft, ghosts and the supernatural in general. Even Roman Catholic publishers have gotten into this game. Thus, see this book: “Diary of an American Exorcist” (Sophia Institute Press) by Father Stephen Rossetti, a priest and well-known exorcist.

Yes, exorcism. This is frequently a subject that shows up in news coverage, as well as popular culture. Every few years, it seems like we see another wave of headlines about the Roman Catholic Rite of Exorcism. Here’s a recent example — an Associated Press report on exorcism rites after civic violence.

Reporters who want to cover this topic need some basic facts, prayers and scriptures. Thus, it would help to have a reference book or two. It’s not enough to have seen the 1973 horror film “The Exorcist,” one of the scariest movies ever made.

Back in April 2020, I reviewed the fascinating book “The Devil is Afraid of Me: The Life and Works of the World’s Most Famous Exorcist” by Gabrielle Amorth, a famous Catholic priest who performed scores of exorcisms over his lifetime.

In this new book, Rossetti details his experiences after having taken part in hundreds of exorcisms. As a press release with the book noted, “The point of this book isn’t to entertain. No: It’s to inform the American people — Catholic and non-Catholic alike — about the reality of the preternatural, and the tangible dangers posed by the evil beings that populate our world just outside our sensory perception.”

I know what some of you might be thinking. Exorcism? In 2021? Come on.


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Crucial question in all those newsworthy abortion debates: When does life begin?

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Crucial question in all those newsworthy abortion debates: When does life begin?

THE QUESTION:

When does life begin?

THE RELIGION GUY'S ANSWER:

Those four words are regularly posed in the current abortion debate, so let's scan the lines in pregnancy that have been drawn by experts — religious and secular — in the past.

Pre-scientific cultures spoke of "quickening," typically between 16 and 18 weeks, when the mother first feels the unborn child moving in her womb. A famous example involves the unborn John the Baptist in biblical Luke 1:41. Some ancient Jewish authorities in the Talmud, and Roman and Greek philosophers, supposed that the unborn child "formed" earlier, at 40 days.

Then there's "viability," when a fetus can live on its own outside the womb, typically reached around 23 or 24 weeks, or somewhat earlier or later in individual cases. The U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion before that point in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, and after viability when there are risks to the mother's health, broadly defined.

The high Court on December 1 hears a case from Mississippi, which defied the Roe ruling and bars abortions after 15 weeks on grounds that the fetus experiences pain by then. A Missouri law, also under court challenge, puts a ban at eight weeks when "everything that is present in an adult human is now present in your baby," according to the American Pregnancy Association. The Court temporarily left in place a ban in Texas (likewise in 13 other states) after six weeks, when pulsations can be diagnosed at what eventually becomes the fully formed heart.

Many modern Christians believe that life begins at conception (sperm first meets egg) or implantation (fertilized egg attaches to the mother's womb) while some put the line a bit later at twinning (after which multiple pregnancies do not occur).

Note the brief filed last month in the Mississippi case by pro-choice religions including "mainline" Protestant churches, non-Orthodox Judaism, Unitarian Universalists and others. It says "numerous religious traditions posit that life begins at some point during pregnancy or even after a child is born."


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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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Elephant in sanctuary: Spot the news hooks in shocking changes facing Cincinnati Catholics

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Elephant in sanctuary: Spot the news hooks in shocking changes facing Cincinnati Catholics

Let’s do the math. When discussing the future of the American Catholic Church, Joe Biden isn’t the biggest issue on the table. Biden’s liberal Catholicism may be a symptom of larger issues — and since it’s political, it’s easier to cover — but it isn’t the issue that’s going to lock the doors of many parishes from coast to coast, but especially in blue culture zones.

The big issue? Actually, it’s several connected issues — and the elephant in the living room (or sanctuary) is that links them. Hold that thought.

The obvious issues? The priest shortage. Declining enrollment rates in Catholic schools. Closed parishes. You can also add declining Mass attendance numbers in many, but clearly not all, parishes. I would add the collapse in the number of Catholics going to Confession.

This brings us to a very important Cincinnati Enquirer story with this headline: “'Change is difficult': Cincinnati Archdiocese launches shakeup that reaches almost every parish.” Here’s the overture:

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati … launched one of the most ambitious reorganizations in its 200-year history, potentially changing when and where almost a half-million Catholics attend Mass, school and other activities connected to their faith.

Known as Beacons of Light, the restructuring process will combine the archdiocese’s 208 parishes into 60 “families of parishes,” which will begin sharing priests and resources as early as next year.

Unlike past attempts to remake the archdiocese, which rarely got out of the planning stages, Beacons of Light is backed by Archbishop Dennis Schnurr and will in some way touch almost every Catholic and priest in the archdiocese’s 19 counties.

The goal, church officials say, is to eventually unite the 60 new parish families into single parishes.

So, the goal is 60 parishes instead of 208?


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Pope Francis lashes out at conservative Catholic press, calls its criticism 'work of the Devil'

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Pope Francis lashes out at conservative Catholic press, calls its criticism 'work of the Devil'

Pope Francis is no fan of press criticism — especially when it comes from Roman Catholic news outlets on the doctrinal right.

So here we go again, with another round of tensions in the growing world of Catholic media.

The 84-year-old Argentinian-born pontiff was caught in a candid moment during his recent trip to Slovakia when he was asked about his health after a recent operation.

“Still alive,” the pope replied, “even though some people wanted me to die.”

The shocking statement came in a meeting the pope had with 53 Jesuits from Slovakia on Sept. 12 in Bratislava. Antonio Spadaro, a priest and editor-in-chief of the Rome-based Jesuit magazine La Civiltà Cattolica, was present at the meeting and on Sept. 21 published the full transcript of the conversation.

The comments immediately sparked a Catholic media war that again highlighted how polarized Catholics have become during Francis’ papacy, as have the official and independent church media that a large swarth of parishioners choose to read.

Asked by another Jesuit at the same gathering how he felt by those who view him with suspicion, Francis replied:

There is, for example, a large Catholic television channel that has no hesitation in continually speaking ill of the pope. I personally deserve attacks and insults because I am a sinner, but the church does not deserve them. They are the work of the devil. I have also said this to some of them.

The TV channel to which he referred is EWTN, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

The Eternal World Television Network was founded in 1980 by a nun named Mother Angelica and began broadcasting a year later from a garage at the Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Irondale, Alabama. Since then, it has grown to become one of the largest and most influential Catholic news organizations in North America and around the world.


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Big question right now: What religious groups oppose vaccination, even during epidemics?

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Big question right now: What religious groups oppose vaccination, even during epidemics?

THE QUESTION:

What religious groups oppose vaccination -- even during epidemics?

THE RELIGION GUY'S ANSWER:

Judges and public officials will be coping with the issue of vaccination mandates that President Joe Biden, states and employers are imposing to counter spread of the stubbornly contagious and virulent COVID-19 virus. This again raises the issue of religious-liberty claims for exemption from required vaccination.

Pastor Greg Locke of the independent Global Vision Bible Church in suburban Nashville has just been permanently banned from social media postings on Twitter after demanding that Christians shun vaccination (as well as preaching that Biden is a usurper and not a legitimately elected president).

Also, the Washington Post highlighted Pastor Jackson Lahmeyer of Tulsa, Oklahoma (who's running against devoutly evangelical U.S. Senator James Lankford in next year's Republican primary). Lahmeyer offers exemption letters for anyone who donates at least $1 to become an online member of his charismatic Sheridan Church. So far 30,000 supplicants have downloaded his exemption letter.

The president's new policy has already sparked a significant upswing in religious exemption requests. So, what are the facts on religious groups and opposition to vaccination?

A bit of history: Major religious objections arose with the first vaccination experiments in the American Colonies. But influential Congregationalist Cotton Mather championed scientific progress and defended smallpox experiments using adult volunteers. Eminent theologian Jonathan Edwards agreed and set an example as a vaccination volunteer when president of the school we know as Princeton University. He died as a result in 1758. Edward Jenner only achieved vaccination safety 38 years later.

Since then, official Christian or Jewish protests have generally been rare to non-existent as vaccinations are required to enter U.S. public schools, military service or particular jobs, or for foreign travel.


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