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Podcast: Was there more than one 'Team Ted' that helped McCarrick stay in power?

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“Team Ted.”

You may be familiar with this term, if you are a longtime follower (several decades, perhaps) of the hellish soap opera surrounding the life and career of fallen cardinal Theodore “Uncle Ted” McCarrick.

But if you followed the McCarrick story in the mainstream press, this is not a term that you would know — for logical reasons. The same is true if you read media reports about the Vatican’s long-awaited investigation of the sins and crimes of McCarrick (click here for a .pdf file of the 450-page report).

“Team Ted,” you see, was a nickname give to a circle of journalists who depended on McCarrick as one of their prime doors into life in the American Catholic church and Vatican affairs, in general. Especially during his heady years as the archbishop of Washington, D.C., McCarrick was the unappointed voice of the U.S. Catholic establishment.

One of the key themes in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in) is that this journalistic “Team Ted” concept could also be used in an ecclesiastical context. According to McCarrick, he was a team captain, bridge-builder and kingmaker among his brother bishops, archbishops and cardinals. That leads to some big unanswered questions that loom over the Vatican report and the press coverage it has received, so far.

But first, let’s back up to 2004 and a fawning profile of McCarrick that ran in The Washingtonian under this dramatic double-decker headline:

The Man In The Red Hat

With a Controversial Catholic in the Presidential Race, the Cardinal Is Seen by Many as the Vatican's Man in Washington -- and He May Play a Big Role in the Selection of the Next Pope

The controversial Catholic, of course, was Sen. John Kerry and, behind the scenes, McCarrick worked to protect the candidate’s Catholic bona fides from attacks by conservative Catholics. The issue, as always, was whether this pro-abortion-rights champion could continue to receive Holy Communion. That’s a long, complicated story that may — soon — be relevant once again with President-elect Joe Biden heading into the White House.

Journalists played a crucial role in that dance between McCarrick and Kerry, which raises this question: Which member of the Catholic establishment will play the McCarrick role for Biden? We will see.

Here is the original “Team Ted” reference, at the end of a long, crucial passage in the Washingtonian:


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Here's a very fluid take on evangelicalism: New York Times obituary of a progressive pioneer

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Penelope Green’s recent New York Times obituary of Virginia Ramey Mollenkott is noteworthy to anyone who has followed churches’ long 20th-century debates about same-sex relationships and marriage. Mollenkott was far ahead of the curve in bringing a progressive, liberationist perspective to the evangelical Christian subculture.

The book “Is the Homosexual My Neighbor: Another Christian View”, which she wrote with Letha Scanzoni, was one of the central texts cited by The Other Side magazine and others on the sexual-revolution left.

As a video of Mollenkott’s address at Harvard Divinity School in 2002 shows, she was a captivating speaker, combining a native Philadelphian’s self-assurance with pleas to her sister feminists not simply to dismiss the Bible in their efforts to root out all traces of patriarchy.

Mollenkott stressed that wrestling with the contents of the Bible was key, along with the writing of John Milton, in her stepping away from the Plymouth Brethren theology in which she grew up.

If a reader leaves it there, it becomes easier to take the Times at its word that Mollenkott remained an “evangelical,” but in this case that would be to treat an adjective as a noun.

The Times links to a page on Mollenkott’s website in which the longtime professor and activist gave her own explanation of what she was “evangelical” about:

John Milton was a 17th century Puritan who loved Scripture. From studying his interpretive method, being challenged by feminist thinkers, and interpreting my dreams, I gradually began to trust my own experience. And I began to read the Bible with attention to literary formats, historical context, what words meant at the time the text was written, the use of imagery, analogy, symbol, and so forth. The text was transformed by these standard interpretive methods, and I in turn was radicalized by the Bible. I am now a member of the evangelical left, working with other Christian feminists toward a world in which all people are respected and cherished as made in God’s image, and in which the natural environment is respected and cherished as being created and sustained by one Great Spirit. I guess you could call me and Evangelical Universalist.


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2020 vote again: Various religion factors still baffle news-media pros and the Democrats

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Against all odds -- and against the information in polls -- Donald Trump-era Republicans had a pretty good year in ballot boxes.

A norm-bashing president won 47.6% of the popular vote, came fairly close in the Electoral College, and apparently carried 24 of the 50 states. The GOP has a good shot at a Senate majority, with the two Georgia runoffs on Jan. 5. Gains in the U.S. House give it 48% of the seats. The party added to its majority among governors and its crucial grass-roots advantage in chambers and seats in state legislatures.

Pondering such results, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni confessed that mainstream media colleagues "keep being blinded by our own arrogance" while "extrapolating from our own perceptions."

You think? Among the varied factors shaping U.S. politics, Democrats and the media often muff religion's influence in the flyover turf between the Delaware River and Sierra Nevada mountains and reaching south to the border.

Job One for pundits and political consultants will be figuring why Joe Biden carried 63% of Hispanics as a whole, but Trumpublicans ate into their Democratic margins in Florida and Texas.

A Washington Post 1,800-worder depicted the remarkable red shift along the Texas border with Mexico — but merely hinted at the impact of religious networking and such issues as abortion, including Protestants as well as Catholics. GetReligion has been covering that trend for four years of more. Here’s two sample posts: “Concerning Hispanic evangelicals, secret Trump voters and white evangelical women in Georgia” and “New podcast: Whoa! An old religion-beat story heated up the politics of Florida in 2020.”

One MSM figure who gets it is Richard Just, editor of the Washington Post Magazine, who has been exploring his Reform Judaism more seriously in recent years. He wrote Oct. 28 that "religion is fundamentally a mystery" and a profound source of "existential uncertainty" that can "value, even celebrate, contradictions" and thereby overcome the nasty divisiveness that imperils American democracy.


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USA Today: Americans are more divided than ever, but religion plays no role in this split

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While lawyers and pundits (and Donald Trump) keep fighting, it has been pretty easy for news consumers to see the big picture after the 2020 elections: America is as divided in 2020 as it was in 2016.

After four years of apocalyptic rhetoric on both sides, a few thousand votes in several key zip codes could have swung the White House race. Republicans — strong in down-ballot races — gained ground in the U.S. House and held the high ground in most state races. The fact that control of the U.S. Senate will come down to a two-seat election in Georgia was a new wrinkle, but the divisions there there are oh so familiar.

How many op-ed words have a read, in the past week, trying to describe the nature of this divide? I’m scared to make a guess.

Most people can spot the blue urban coasts vs. red heartland divide. Then again, there are blotches of red in most blue states and bright-blue cities in the reddest of red states (hello friends in the People’s Republic of Austin, Texas). Location, location, location.

However, it’s easy to see evidence of America’s battles over religious liberty and sexual liberation, along with the many specific political battles linked to that divide. Joe Biden rode a surge of votes from the growing ranks of the religiously unaffiliated and urban singles, while Republicans (including Trump) were the choice of Americans (keep your eye on Hispanics) who most frequently attend worship services. The “pew gap” remains a reality in American politics.

Everyone can see that, right?

Maybe not. Out of all of the news coverage and analysis that I read, one specific USA Today feature stood out as a perfect summary of the tone-deaf state of far too many members of the American chattering classes. The headline on this news piece, which was not labeled “analysis,” stated: “A close presidential election deepens the nation's divide. How do we live together now?”

The word “soul” made it into the lede — #HURRAH) — but that was that, in terms of attention to the role that religious faith plays in American life. The divide, you seem, has something to do with “morality,” but not religion. Here’s the overture:

During the presidential campaign, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden referred to the 2020 election as a fight for the “soul” of America. If this week has showed anything, it's that the country is still painfully divided on what America is and what it should become.


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Pay attention to this sect-run news source. It's a growing force in pro-Trump media universe

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Up for a brief journalism quiz? Of course you are — or so I will assume. Let’s begin.

Name a news outlet that publishes separate English-language additions for the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe, and also offers its product in 21 other languages spoken around the globe. That’s even more than offered by Reuters, the most widely translated international wire service, which offers 16.

Need more hints? OK.

This mystery outlet is run by a faith group that claims tens of thousands of adherents in more than 70 nations. The group burst on the scene in the late 20th century and has been harshly persecuted by its homeland’s ruthlessly authoritarian government.

Additionally, the same faith group sponsors a traveling cultural dance extravaganza (no peeking until the quiz is over, please) that, until the coronavirus epidemic largely shut down live performances, advertised widely on American television and at local malls.

Still in the dark?

It’s motto is “Truth and Tradition” and, as of this writing (this past Monday) it’s declined to join the preponderance of other news media — including Fox, heretofore among the staunchest of pro-Trump media platforms — that have called former Vice President Joseph Biden the 2020 presidential-election winner.

As of this date, our mystery news source has even declined to place Michigan or Wisconsin in the Biden win column — not to mention Pennsylvania, Arizona or Nevada — maintaining that it will not do so until all of President Donald Trump’s legal ballot challenges have been resolved.

Have you guessed the platform in question?

The answer is The Epoch Times, published by the spiritual, and fervently anti-Beijing, movement known primarily in the West as Falun Gong. The movement, while a relatively new formulation, draws its philosophical roots from ancient Chinese Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian and folk traditions.

Over the years, GetReligion writers have mentioned Falun Gong — along with underground Christian churches, Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims, and others — in dozens of posts focused on the persecution of religious minority groups in China.

So why mention Falun Gong, also know as Falun Dafna, yet again?


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Who's covering this? Are charismatics and Pentecostals behind Trump's refusal to concede?

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On Saturday night, while Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were acknowledging the cheers of a nation, a spiritual battle was going on in Apopka, Fla.

The crowd gathered at Paula White-Cain’s City of Destiny Church was clearly dispirited at the events of the day; a day that various segments of the Pentecostal/charismatic world had declared would never happen because God would make sure that His chosen instrument, President Donald Trump, would get a second term.

“Keep on believing,” White told the crowd. “There are processes at work. …Don’t get distracted by the voices of the media. Prayer brings the will of God to pass. This is a day of rejoicing. Whenever God is moving, it’s a day of rejoicing.

“We break every spirit of mockery right now. What matters is not what man says, but what God says.”

It was her fourth day of prayer meetings since Election Day to “decree” Trump’s coming victory. At one point, her son, Bradley Knight, said he will quit the ministry if Trump is not elected.

White, as many of you know, is Trump’s highest profile pastor, so we’re not talking about a minor personality here. She is arguably America’s most powerful female religious figure. She is — acting as the spiritual force behind Trump — a key figure who is refusing to concede the election to Biden.

In social media, people are talking about this like crazy. In the news?

Her first stab at praying Trump into a second term got treated as a joke by media who hadn’t a clue of what she was trying to do. They did listen to her words, which is why she’s quoted as accusing demons of rigging the election.

Yep, she did say that.

It all started when RightWingWatch posted a video of White shouting “the Lord says it is done” on Nov. 5 about Trump’s reelection. A sample of her prayers, which read like battle orders asking God to take down Biden votes, are as follows. She prayed that:

“… every demonic confederacy against the election…against who You have declared to be in the White House … we come against people working in high levels right now.

Let your hand establish the outcome of this income … for I hear the sound of victory, I hear the sound of victory. I hear the sound of victory. I hear the sound of victory. I hear the sound of victory.


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Thinking about Georgia, while looking at some 2020 religion numbers from Ryan Burge

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Did you enjoy a day or two away from political Twitter? Me neither.

So let’s move on to Georgia, where voters in greater Atlanta and then the rest of Georgia are going to be hearing the voice of Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) quite a bit in the next few weeks.

All together now, here is that Schumer quote from a celebratory street party in New York City: “Now we take Georgia, then we change America!”

Because of its unique election rules requiring a 50% win in key contests, Georgia currently has two open U.S. Senate seats — which means that Schumer and his colleagues can control the next U.S. Senate (with the tie-breaking vote of soon-to-be Vice President Kamala Harris) by taking both of them. Thus, Georgia is suddenly on everyone’s mind.

That includes folks at the New York Times political desk, who are asking the obvious question: What is causing Georgia to move from the forces of darkness to the world of love and light? Trust me, that’s pretty much the tone of this analysis feature that is not labeled an analysis feature. The overture is spot-on perfect, from a New York-centric point of view:

MARIETTA, Ga. — It took a lifetime for Angie Jones to become a Democrat.

As a young woman, she was the proud daughter of a conservative family active in Republican politics. Ten years ago, after a friend’s son came out as gay, Ms. Jones became an independent, though one who watched Fox News. After the 2016 election, Ms. Jones, a stay-at-home mother in Johns Creek, a pristine wealthy suburb north of Atlanta, became frustrated with her conservative friends defending President Trump through scandal after scandal.

And this year, she voted for Joseph R. Biden Jr., after spending months phone banking, canvassing and organizing for Democratic candidates with a group of suburban women across Atlanta.

“I feel like the Republican Party left me,” said Ms. Jones, 54. “It very much created an existential crisis for me.”

I have family in Georgia and I’ve paid close attention to politics there since the mid-1970s (and almost moved there, from Illinois, in the early 1980s). The bottom line: Georgia may be turning into Illinois, a rural state dominated by a super-city and its suburbs (and the corporations and media therein).

Now, there is a crucial question missing from that Times overture, a question that millions of Georgians — Black and White — would spot instantly. The anecdote doesn’t tell us (a) where this woman goes to church, (b) where her conservative family went to church in the past or (c) where she is now refusing to go to church. If she has changed churches, that would be crucial.


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Religious liberty and foster care: five key numbers as SCOTUS weighs dogma and LGBTQ rights

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We voted.

Then we waited. And fretted over the outcome. And waited some more.

While we did, perhaps some of us missed Wednesday’s arguments in the latest U.S. Supreme Court case pitting religious freedom vs. gay rights and the Sexual Revolution.

The dispute involves the city of Philadelphia ending its foster care contract with Catholic Social Services over the faith-based agency’s refusal to place children with same-sex parents.

Here are five key numbers that stood out to me:

5,000 CHILDREN IN CUSTODY

NPR’s Nina Totenberg’s reported:

On one side is the city of Philadelphia, which has custody of about 5,000 abused and neglected children, and contracts with 30 private agencies to provide foster care in group homes and for the certification, placement, and care of children in individual private foster care homes.

Reuters’ Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung asked a city official about the potential impact if the Supreme Court rules in favor of Catholic Society Services:

A ruling against Philadelphia could make it easier for people to cite religious beliefs when seeking exemptions from widely applicable laws such as anti-discrimination statutes.

“If individual organizations can begin to choose to discriminate against whom they want to serve, then it does begin to set an unfortunate precedent,” said Cynthia Figueroa, Philadelphia’s deputy mayor for children and families.

ZERO SAME-SEX PARENTS DENIED

Robert Barnes of The Washington Post quoted Lori Windham:

“Zero” was the answer from Windham, a lawyer for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, when asked how many same-sex couples had been denied the opportunity to be foster parents because of CSS policy. She said if ever approached, the agency would refer the couple to one of the more than two dozen agencies that have no issue with same-sex marriage.


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2020 was an election year in which many Christians felt torn and politically homeless

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2020 was an election year in which many Christians felt torn and politically homeless

Conservative patriarch Edmund Burke died in 1797 in Beaconsfield, England.

This didn't prevent columnist Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal, a Catholic conservative, from making Burke her write-in choice in the 2020 White House race. She wasn't the only voter who felt politically homeless, due to religious and moral convictions that clashed with the political and personal choices of President Donald Trump and, the odds appear good, president-elect Joe Biden.

Once again, there was no way to ignore issues linked to faith, morality and, yes, character. This was especially true with Catholic voters who frequent church pews.

Considering Trump, Noonan stressed the coronavirus crisis, where the president finally "met a problem he couldn't talk his way out of. I believe that's what happened: He played down the pandemic, lied, made uninformed claims at briefings that serious people were struggling to keep useful. He produced chaos. The country can't afford any of that in a crisis that is sudden and severe."

What about the Democrat, a lifelong Catholic? Noonan predicted Biden would be a "hapless and reluctant conductor" on a "runaway train," especially on moral and cultural issues.

"The progressive left," she argued, "endorses and pushes for the identity politics that is killing us, an abortion regime way beyond anything that could be called reasonable or civilized and on which it will make no compromise; it opposes charter schools and other forms of public school liberation; it sees the police as the enemy, it demonstrates no distinct fidelity to freedom of speech and, most recently, its declared hopes range from court packing to doing away with the Electoral College and adding states to the union.”

The bottom line: The political realities of 2020 left many Catholics and other active religious believers torn between political options that no longer seemed acceptable.


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