Vatican

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How AI may be able to improve journalism when it comes to reporting on Catholicism

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How AI may be able to improve journalism when it comes to reporting on Catholicism

One of the things I enjoy about the summer is catching up with people I haven’t seen all year to discuss news, politics and culture. Since so many of my friends are in the news business, inevitably the state of the mass media comes up as a topic.

The one constant subject that has arisen from these conversations is the rise (and potential threat) of artificial intelligence. Specifically, the topic of how AI can (and will) replace humans who report and write for a living.

While machines have yet to replace all writers, the threat is real. This isn’t just limited to journalists. AI has impacted Hollywood (look at the current writers strike), education (from grade school to college) and the retail industry. And yes, journalism is up there to when it comes to an industry seen as under threat, according to a poll conducted earlier this year.

AI a either a new technological monster or a friend to journalists. The industry is divided by the issue. Like the internet back in the 1990s, AI is both astonishing and perplexing.

How has AI and machine learning impacted journalism? Can it make it better or worse? These are just two valid questions people in newsrooms are asking. The question here at GetReligion is how AI could affect religion-beat work and, in this case, the state of Catholic news and publications.

For starters, consider that there will be 10 new AP Stylebook entries to caution journalists about common pitfalls in coverage of artificial intelligence. Here’s what the Associated Press said:

While AP staff may experiment with ChatGPT with caution, they do not use it to create publishable content.

Any output from a generative AI tool should be treated as unvetted source material. AP staff must apply their editorial judgment and AP’s sourcing standards when considering any information for publication.


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Questions for journalists: What would it take for Catholic church attacks to become news?

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Questions for journalists: What would it take for Catholic church attacks to become news?

I am venturing into Clemente Lisi territory with this post, and I know that. However, there are questions about the national wave of attacks on Catholic churches and sacred sites that have started to bother me. Maybe this is a test case of how the post-American Model of the Press marketplace is really going to work? Just how biased is the acceptable bias going to get?

Let’s start here: If bad people attack African-American sanctuariess, is this a news story? The answer, of course, is “Yes.” Everyone agrees, with the exception of unrepentant racists.

Now, if bad people attack Roman Catholic churches, is that a news story? The answer appears to be “No.” This is news for “Catholic,” “religious” and “conservative” newsrooms. It appears to be a minor story, zip code by zip code, in local news. This violent trend is not news for elite, national-level media.

Why is that? Possible answers include: (a) These attacks are being done by people who are “good” in the eyes of journalists because their cause is just. (b) These are bad Catholic churches (they do not fly Pride flags, etc.). (c) There are just too many of these attacks for them to be considered “news.”

Finally, (d) if these attacks were news, public officials would have to ponder whether they are “hate crimes.” This would violate the unspoken law that it’s impossible to commit a hate crime against a group that has not been declared “oppressed” by The New York Times, National Public Radio, Yale Law School and others.

Would this trend be a story if the world’s second most famous Catholic delivered an Oval Office address on the subject? Maybe we will see, if President Joe Biden sees trouble brewing in New Hampshire.

Oh well, whatever, nevermind. Here is yet another one of those “local” stories: “Cross cut down at Santiago Retreat Center in Silverado Canyon, investigators looking for suspect.” The familiar details:

A 14-foot wooden cross at the Santiago Retreat Center was sawed down this week, leaving staff and counselors shocked while Orange County sheriff’s officials try to identify a suspect, authorities said.


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Elite press skips doctrine at World Youth Day in favor of (#surprise) scandal and politics

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Elite press skips doctrine at World Youth Day in favor of (#surprise) scandal and politics

This summer has been a very busy one for Pope Francis and the church. Adding to all this news was World Youth Day held in Lisbon, Portugal. Last held in 2019, the event — often nicknamed the “Catholic Woodstock” — was initiated by Saint Pope John Paul II in 1985.

The concept of World Youth Day has been influenced by the Light-Life Movement that has existed in Poland since the 1960s, where Catholic teens celebrated a “day of community” during youth camp retreats. This has morphed into the five-day event that ended yesterday.

The journalists in the mainstream press have never known what to do with this event. This is, after all, a positive gathering that brings together millions of people, mostly young Catholics. This is not an everyday thing. It shows young Catholics happy to embrace the church, while celebrating its teachings — a stark contrast to the secular world and the messages of hopelessness and sin we get each day.

As a result, the mainstream press covers World Youth Day and the pope’s appearances through a lens of scandal and (#ShockedShocked) politics.

Doctrine, as is often the case, is simply swept aside. Anything positive that can be gleaned from the gathering of so many young people is tossed aside. World Youth Day is a snapshot of the church’s future — but you wouldn’t know it from much of the coverage of the last week. For example, going to confession (with the pope helping out) is a major part of the World Youth Day experience. Valid story?

For great — and complete — World Youth Day coverage, the Catholic press did its job, once again. Places such as Crux, The Pillar on Substack and Catholic News Agency created pages where all their stories could be found. In other words, a one-stop-shop for all things World Youth Day.

How did the mainstream media do?

Take a guess.

I understand there are different audiences to satisfy, but ignoring what’s in front of their eyes — large masses of young Catholics excited about their faith — in favor of what I saw as negative coverage isn’t a snapshot of reality. It is, instead, a focus on what editors and journalists think their own loyal niche audiences want to read about the modern church.


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Catholic press, and Ross Douthat, remain must-reads during a busy Vatican summer

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Catholic press, and Ross Douthat, remain must-reads during a busy Vatican summer

It should come to no surprise to any reader that we live in a polarized nation. We are separated along political partisan lines and in our own media universes.

There are those who watch and/or read Fox News on the web and consume copious amounts of information regarding President Joe Biden and his son’s alleged ties to corruption.

On the other side, the Hunter Biden is ignored. Instead, we get investigative journalism from The New York Times looking into the dealings and relationships of conservatives such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

This is why tmatt keeps quoting, here at GetReligion and in his national column, the opening lines of the David French book "Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.”

"It's time for Americans to wake up to a fundamental reality: the continued unity of the United States cannot be guaranteed," wrote French. Right now, "there is not a single important cultural, religious, political, or social force that is pulling Americans together more than it is pulling us apart."

Confession: I have found it healthy and important to watch both Fox News and read The New York Times. Both are highly influential in their respective partisan bubbles. Both impact the world around us, for better or worse, and that’s of great importance in a world were journalistic objectivity is a relic of a pre-internet world.

I also like to read columnists. I like a few. Longtime Vatican observer John L. Allen, Jr., is one. J.D. Flynn over at The Pillar is another.

Yet another must-read is New York Times columnist, blogger and author Ross Douthat.

Douthat is a convert to Catholicism and often writes about the church. He is openly pro-Catholic Catechism. Thus, it is often refreshing to read Douthat because he tackles issues his own newspaper often fails to cover. I don’t know Douthat’s reading habits but I have to think he reads guys like the aforementioned Allen and Flynn.

Douthat was the target of recent criticism in the Jesuit magazine America.


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Who is Archbishop Fernandez? What is his theology? That depends on who you read in the press

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Who is Archbishop Fernandez? What is his theology? That depends on who you read in the press

The doctrines that govern Catholicism have been very much in the news this summer.

This isn’t normal with the mainstream press. So, why is this the case?

This question has several answers. The Synod of Synodality, a multi-year process involving bishops and parishioners, could very well change church doctrine on a number of key issues. (See this recent tmatt post and podcast for more background.)

The second involves the pope’s recent appointment of Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernandez as Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Both are connected in that they have to do with the future direction of the church and Pope Francis’ legacy. This pontiff very much wants to leave a lasting impression on the global church, in part acting through the synod, and Cardinal-elect Fernandez could very well help shape it. Let’s face it, it has been a very busy news cycle since my last post on the media coverage (and non-coverage) of the synod.

The other major question reporters need to ask themselves is this one: Who is Archbishop Fernandez and why does any of this matter?

It depends on who you read in the Catholic press. Like a Supreme Court nominee, the man now tasked with overseeing church doctrine — and possibly making changes going forward — is seen as a controversial choice. This is especially true in contrast to the most famous recent theologian who held this post, as in Cardinal Ratzinger Joseph Ratzinger, who became the very orthodox Pope Benedict XVI.

Like Francis, Fernandez is an Argentine and soon-to-be cardinal after the pontiff announced a new consistory this past Sunday where 21 men will be given red hats on Sept. 30.

Again, why does this matter?

It matters because the cardinal who heads the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith — an office dating back to the 1500s — wields much power and is automatically considered what Italian press calls papabile (which translates into “popeable), meaning a candidate who can be pope someday.


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Yes, Protestants disagree with the ancient churches on the status of the siblings of Jesus

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Yes, Protestants disagree with the ancient churches on the status of the siblings of Jesus

QUESTION:

“Did Jesus Have Brothers & Sisters?”

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The quote above is the headline for an article this month by Ginny Baxter, the “Woman to Woman” blogger on Patheos.com. She figures “the answer is a definite ‘maybe.’ “

On this age-old but ever-debated topic, The Guy would answer that — as is often the case — it depends on what church is fielding the question.

From ancient times, Catholicism and Orthodoxy have said “No.” They believe in Mary’s “perpetual virginity,” meaning that she and husband Joseph never had sexual relations and Jesus was the only child she ever gave birth to.

(This issue should not be confused with Christianity’s belief in the “virginal conception” or “virgin birth,” that Mary conceived Jesus miraculously without a biological human father, as recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.)

In the early Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther broke from Catholicism on numerous matters, including mandatory celibacy for priests, but continued to believe that Mary was “ever-virgin,” although he believed that personally and did not state it as a required doctrine. Virtually all Protestants since his time have answered, “Yes, Jesus did have siblings.”

The New Testament does not mention that Mary was “ever-virgin.” Jesus’ (adoptive) father Joseph was present with Mary when Jesus taught in the Temple at age 12 (see Luke 2:41-50). But then Joseph disappears from the Gospels’ narratives, so interpreters assume he died at some point before Jesus began his public ministry around age 30.

The ”Proto-Gospel of James,” probably composed in the late 2nd Century A.D., may have been the first writing to depict an ever-virgin Mary.


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Add to newsroom calendars? Millions of Christians marked the Feast Of Sts. Peter and Paul

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Add to newsroom calendars? Millions of Christians marked the Feast Of Sts. Peter and Paul

The feast day of St. Peter and St. Paul is a significant celebration on the Christian calendar, especially in the ancient churches of the East and West, because it commemorates the lives of two of the most important martyrs and leaders in all of Christian history.

However, this is not a holy day that shows up on the “must cover” list in many newsroom calendars. A quick Google News search for the past few days will demonstrate that reality.

Should that change? The annual feast is observed on June 29 and holds deep religious and historical significance for Christians around the world.

The date commemorates the death of the two saints. They are believed to be buried at the two basilicas that bear their names — St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s Outside the Walls in Rome. Through their tireless efforts and unwavering faith, Peter and Paul left an indelible mark on Christianity, shaping the faith’s foundations and spreading the message of Jesus in the world.

The feast day serves as a reminder of the enduring power of faith and the transformative impact of Christ’s message. It calls believers to emulate the courage and commitment displayed by these apostles. Their lives serve as a testament to the transformative power of encountering Christ and the call to proclaim His message of love and salvation to the world.

In recent years, it has also become — more than once — the hook for major ecumenical events involving Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy.

Here is what journalists and readers need to know about the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul:

St. Peter, also known as Simon, was one of the 12 apostles chosen by Jesus to be one of his closest followers. Catholics consider him the first pope and the founder of the church in Rome. Peter was a humble fisherman when Jesus called him to be a “fisher of men.”


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What the Italian press is reporting about the looming Vatican Synod of Synodality

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What the Italian press is reporting about the looming Vatican Synod of Synodality

One of the biggest religion-beat stories of the year is currently playing out and most people are probably unaware of it, due to lack of mainstream-news updates. Maybe this story is too Catholic?

I say this because the three-year process that began in 2021 known as the Synod of Synodality is reaching its most contentious and potentially dramatic stage. I wrote back in March 2022 that the mainstream press had largely ignored the story.

This is what I wrote at the time:

A phrase like Synod on Synodality certainly won’t ever make it into a punchy headline, not even at The New York Post.

The secular press isn’t all that interested in doctrinal issues that don’t appeal to a larger audience or lack a political connection. It’s the reason why the pope going after the Latin Mass got little mainstream news attention while bishops batting President Joe Biden about receiving Holy Communion got tons of coverage. Then again, the synod will almost certainly contain strong LGBTQ news hooks.

Here we are 16 months later and the mainstream press is still largely ignoring the story. Our own tmatt had a very detailed podcast and post regarding one hook with the Synod of Synodality (#Vatican3) and the issues swirling around Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich’s past comments and current role, in which he will help shape synod debates about some of its most controversial issues.

Now, it’s quite interesting that the mainstream press — in the United States, at least — has largely been silent regarding a very important new synod document.

In fact, the Vatican’s release of the Instrumentum Laboris (Latin for “working document”) head of October’s Synod of Bishops makes clear that it’s “not a document of the church’s Magisterium.” The 50-page document, however, has plenty to say about the issues Pope Francis has openly discussed over the past decade regarding female deacons and gay unions.  

In Italy, mainstream-news coverage of the pope and Vatican affairs are a staple of daily coverage — akin to White House reporting in the United States.


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Podcast: Are on-the-record statements by Cardinal Hollerich relevant to his synod role?

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Podcast: Are on-the-record statements by Cardinal Hollerich relevant to his synod role?

Unless there is a papal election in the near future, the Vatican Synod on Synodality (#VATICAN3) will be one of the most important religion-beat stories of 2023 and 2024 (click here for the dates).

One of the first defining documents of this process was released the other day — “Instrumentum Laboris. A document of the whole Church.” Apparently this was a “religion” story, the kind of inside-baseball development that was covered by Catholic publications on the doctrinal left and right.

That surprised me, since — normally — anything about the Vatican, LGBTQ+rights and women’s ordination makes headlines. Thus, I was glad that Religion News Service published, well, a very typical RNS news story about this document. See if you can spot the big ideas in this double-decker headline:

Vatican confirm synod topics will address questions of LGBTQ+ and women deacons

The document addresses inclusivity toward LGBTQ+ faithful, the issue of female ordination and welcoming toward divorced, remarried or polygamous couples

This story include a massive gap, in terms of essential content (that’s my opinion, of course) and that provided the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). Before we go there, let’s look at a low-key document overview from The Pillar:

The document … acknowledges tensions in the synodal process, saying, “We should not be frightened by them, nor attempt at any cost to resolve them, but rather engage in ongoing synodal discernment. Only in this way can these tensions become sources of energy and not lapse into destructive polarizations.”

The goal of synodality, the document says, is to create “a Church of sisters and brothers in Christ who listen to one another and who, in so doing, are gradually transformed by the Spirit.”

A synodal Church, it says, is one marked by a willingness to listen, encounter, and dialogue, as well as by the humility to ask forgiveness for faults. It is a Church that celebrates unity in diversity and welcomes all people, while not shying away from speaking the truth in love.

For journalists who have covered decades of mainline Protestant life, terms such as “dialogue” and “unity in diversity” — perhaps even doctrinal diversity — will sound familiar.


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