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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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Purity culture questions: A friendly, but crucial, dialogue between two evangelical thinkers

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Purity culture questions: A friendly, but crucial, dialogue between two evangelical thinkers

The purity culture wars continue over on Twitter, where a crucial question — from a journalism perspective — can be seen in the following sequence.

There is no question that some church leaders went too far with purity culture themes and rites, including hellish actions by abusive men. Can anyone deny that? However, can journalists (and their academic and activist sources) assume that because evil happened in some cases means that it happened in all cases? And, to be specific, do journalists have on-the-record evidence that the alleged shooter in Atlanta was, in fact, warped by abusive people at an abusive church?

GetReligion published two posts linked to these debates. Check out Julia Duin’s post here: “Panning purity culture: What the press doesn't get about basic Christian doctrines on sex.”

Then, I raised other basic journalism questions here: “Wait a minute: How is a sermon on the Second Coming linked to shootings in Atlanta?”

Before we get to this weekend’s two “think pieces” on this topic — by religious-liberty activist David French and Crossway books executive Justin Taylor — here is a flashback to a key passage in my post, which is linked to some of Taylor’s constructive criticism of the French piece.

It’s not enough to say that this or that conservative congregation, or counseling center, or parachurch ministry is “evangelical” and, thus, the public can assume that Christian doctrines were used in manipulative ways. …

Ponder this equation: Journalists cannot assume that a specific evangelical flock advocates dangerous doctrine X, simply because there are experts (progressive evangelicals even) who insist that all evangelicals teach dangerous doctrine X and, thus, we know that dangerous doctrine X causes broken, manipulated individuals to do hellish things.

At some point, journalists need to find specific people advocating specific ideas and actions — using research methods that are deeper than second-hand reports and the convictions of hostile experts on one side of fights about the Sexual Revolution.

This brings us to French’s must-read piece:


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New podcast: Tensions with NCAA and Christian schools? That issue will not go away

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New podcast: Tensions with NCAA and Christian schools? That issue will not go away

A decade or so ago, I had a chance to speak to journalism students at Oral Roberts University. My strongest memories — other than visions of the shiny modernist architecture — center on an unusual moment during a campus chapel service.

There’s nothing unusual about a Christian university having a full-house chapel service. There’s nothing unusual about a student-led praise-rock band blasting out Contemporary Christian Music songs that inspired lots of people to do their share of swaying and dancing.

But here’s the memory. My visit to the campus took place during a meeting of ORU’s board of trustees, who sat together near the front of the auditorium during chapel. Looking down from the balcony, I was surprised to see that (a) many of the trustees were rather young, (b) a much higher than normal number of them were Black or Latino and (c) several were enthusiastically dancing with the students, including at least one in an aisle (the current board doesn’t look quite as young).

All of this was a reminder that much of the racial and cultural diversity at ORU — a major factor in campus life — was and is linked to the school’s roots in charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity, a movement that as been highly multiracial since its birth. Founder Oral Roberts was a famous, and often controversial, leader among charismatic Christians, even though, as an adult, he aligned with the United Methodist Church (which is more conservative in Oklahoma than, let’s say, parts of Illinois and other blue zip codes).

I bring this up because of a recent USA Today “For the Win” column that served as the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). Here’s the headline for that piece, which was written by the “race and inclusion editor” at USA Today sports: “Oral Roberts University isn't the feel good March Madness story we need.” Here is a crucial passage:

… As the spotlight grows on Oral Roberts and it reaps the good will, publicity and revenue of a national title run, the university’s deeply bigoted anti-LGBTQ+ polices can’t and shouldn’t be ignored.

Founded by televangelist Oral Roberts in 1963, the Christian school upholds the values and beliefs of its fundamentalist namesake, making it not just a relic of the past, but wholly incompatible with the NCAA’s own stated values of equality and inclusion.


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Catholic journalists are must-read sources for those seeking reality of Cuomo scandals

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Catholic journalists are must-read sources for those seeking reality of Cuomo scandals

It was just two months ago, in the aftermath of the U.S. Capitol riot, that an idea was floated that could help stop all the misinformation in our society: a “reality czar.”

It was a New York Times piece by tech columnist Kevin Roose (his new book “Futureproof” is a must read if you’re interested in automation replacing you at work) on Feb. 2 that quoted experts who floated ideas to stop what the paper called the “scourge of hoaxes and lies.”

Roose’s piece threw out some interesting solutions — although “reality czar” is Orwellian, a Soviet-style solution to misinformation.

The harsh reality is that news consumers will need to read a wider variety of news sources if they are interested in finding solid facts, on-the-record sources and some sense of balanced reporting. On issues linked to religion, culture and politics, that will mean paying more attention to independent religious publications — including Catholic websites — that are now punching way above their weight. Hold that thought, because we will come back to it.

The truth is reality used to be what journalism purported to report on.

That’s no longer true given how polarized the news media has become over the past decade, a progression that sped up during the Donald Trump years and following the proliferation of partisan news sources during the internet age.

From a political standpoint, this brand of one-sided journalism has allowed politicians to earn cover from many mainstream newsrooms for alleged wrongdoings. On the left, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, embroiled in dual scandals regarding nursing home deaths during COVID-19 and growing claims of sexual harassment, is a prime example of this phenomena.

At this time last year, professionals at news organizations were fawning all over his press conferences as the country plunged into the pandemic. Many journalists considered Cuomo the coronavirus reality czar.

Why? Cuomo, a Democrat, served as the counterweight to then-President Trump.


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A police officer's calling and sacrifice: What about that sanctuary across from King Soopers?

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A police officer's calling and sacrifice: What about that sanctuary across from King Soopers?

If you have lived in the Denver area, you know that King Soopers grocery stores are a familiar part of the urban and suburban landscape.

As the details emerged from the hellish shootings in Boulder that claimed 10 lives, it was clear that the fallen first responder — 51-year-old Officer Eric Talley — was an unusual man whose career in law enforcement had unusual roots. He came to the job, people said over and over, with a sense of “calling.” That is, of course, a word with strong faith overtones.

There were many pieces of information to assemble, in portraits of Talley. He was the father of seven children — ages 7 to 20 — who were being homeschooled by his wife. He bought a 15-passenger van to make family travel easier. Another officer told the Denver Post that Talley was a “devout Catholic.” This is a case where that all-too-common adjective fits the evidence.

Some news-media reports mentioned Talley’s faith, others did not. It was hard to miss this quotation, picked up by Washington Post:

His father, Homer Talley, told Denver TV station KMGH in a statement that his son was working to become a drone operator, a job he thought would be safer.

“He loved his kids and his family more than anything,” his father wrote. “ …He didn’t want to put his family through something like this and he believed in Jesus Christ.”

However, I was struck by another detail in a statement from Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila of the Archdiocese of Denver. As it turns out, there was a reason that Talley was familiar with this particular King Soopers location.

We do know that Officer Eric Talley was Catholic, and has been described as a man of character and strong faith, a loving father to seven children, a husband who cared deeply for his family, and a soldier for Christ. …

We also know that Officer Talley regularly stopped by St. Martin de Porres in Boulder and participated in its events, even though he wasn’t a parishioner there. For those unfamiliar with the area where the shooting occurred, St. Martin de Porres is just across the street from King Soopers.


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Keeping up with the times: If schools nix 'Mom and Dad,' is mainstream journalism next?

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Keeping up with the times: If schools nix 'Mom and Dad,' is mainstream journalism next?

Reporters and editors want to be sensitive to personal and minority-group concerns alongside their professional duty to be clear, accurate and non-partisan.

How to handle this balancing act amid the West's fast-evolving verbiage to accommodate feminist or LGBTQ+ advocates? The media need to consider that proposed prohibitions now go well beyond replacement of "binary" pronouns with the singular usage of they-them-their (which breaks strict grammar in English and creates ambiguity on antecedents).

Grace Church School in lower Manhattan (sticker price $57,330 per year) provides a revealing rundown on new expectations for usage and diction in its "Inclusive Language Guide," enacted last September. It says e.g. that instead of "boys and girls," school personnel should now say "people, folks, friends," or specifics like "readers" or "mathematicians." Similarly, "husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend" give way to "spouse / partner / significant other." The Grace community is asked to say "grown-ups, folks or family" and shun the formerly acceptable "parents" or "Mom and Dad."

Some Moms and Dads were apparently upset upon learning about the guide when posted online in January. School leaders defended their new "inclusive" regimen but hastened to explain that wordings are "suggested," not "mandatory," and apply to the adult faculty and staff, not students.

The 12-page Grace guide, posted here under "Antiracism Resources" at is by no means unique in concept. It draws from such resources as the 2018 "language values" policy at New York City's Bank Street College of Education, which media policy-makers need to be monitoring.

The key disputes involve LGBTQ+ expectations and especially regarding gender identity and fluidity. Grace opposes "heteronormativity," that is, "the assumption that cisgender is the 'norm' or standard and transgender is the outlier or an abnormality." (Editors should ponder the "cisgender" neologism for labeling persons whose gender identity or gender expression matches their biology.)

"Language is constantly evolving," Grace correctly states, and the longstanding term "homosexual" should be eliminated. "More appropriate" designations include "queer,” formerly a derogatory equivalent of the N-word — but now rehabilitated as individuals' deliberate "political identification."


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Panning purity culture: What the press doesn't get about basic Christian doctrines on sex

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Panning purity culture: What the press doesn't get about basic Christian doctrines on sex

Here we go again.

Evangelical “purity culture” is getting royally trashed these days for being responsible for a multiple murder last week in Atlanta. If only, these stories suggest, this man hadn’t been so messed up by primitive Christian morals, he might not have gunned down eight people.

Members of the GetReligion team have written before (in this 2019 piece by the Religion Guy) about how reporters consistently don’t get the doctrinal issues that are linked to purity culture. Here we are again with a string of murders by a Southern Baptist man who had a sex obsession. Suddenly, the national conversation is about the Christian teachings that might have driven him to it.

A number of media took a whack at the topic. I’ll start with Business Insider, which, in a piece headlined “The Atlanta shooting and the dangers of American evangelicalism’s trademark purity culture,” commits tons of journalistic sins starting with its fourth paragraph:

"It's not a jump to say white conservative Christianity played a role here," said Joshua Grubbs, an assistant professor of psychology at Bowling Green State University. "The facts need to come to light, but all the facts that are in the light right now suggest it's at play." …

Huh? All white conservative Christians are now complicit in the shootings? This whole marrying of what various writers hate about Christianity to “white evangelical culture” shows a massive ignorance of evangelicals.

First, a lot of evangelicals, especially younger ones, aren’t white. Show up at a college InterVarsity meeting sometime (that is, those that are still are allowed to use university facilities, which many aren’t these days because of their views on gay marriage) and take a look at the variety of folks there.

Back to the Business Insider piece:

Two key concepts here are "temptation" and "sex addiction." Both feature heavily in evangelical "purity culture," a set of rituals and beliefs around gender roles, designed to encourage believers, especially young men and women, to abstain from sex outside of heterosexual marriage.

The article marshals a list of scholars to trash white supremacy, the boogeyman in all this.


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Wait a minute: How is a sermon on the Second Coming linked to shootings in Atlanta?

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Wait a minute: How is a sermon on the Second Coming linked to shootings in Atlanta?

The hellish shootings in Atlanta have unleashed fierce debates combining questions about sex, sin, salvation, repentance, race and various combinations of all of those hot-button topics.

The debates center, of course, of statements by Robert Aaron Long — the suspect in the killing of eight people, including six Asian women — and his complicated and troubled history as a young member of Crabapple First Baptist Church in Milton, Ga., a Southern Baptist congregation.

Eventually, court testimony will provide hard facts about this case. At this point, all the evidence is that Long was raised as a conservative Christian, was active in his church youth group and that he abandoned his faith and then, quite literally, all hell broke loose in his personal and family life. Long has said that a “sex addiction” drove him to frequent massage parlors and his family, apparently, sent him to a Christian counseling center for treatment. His conservative Christian parents “threw him out of the house” the night before the shootings, according to reports in the Washington Post and elsewhere.

Like I said, on-the-record details will emerge. Right now, I want to raise a journalism question or two about coverage of the SBC congregation that is involved in this story. What do we know about this church and, well, how do we know what we know? One Post story notes the following, quoting a solid, factual source:

The evangelical congregation’s minister, the Rev. Jerry Dockery, is an energetic preacher who advocated for a socially conservative brand of Christianity that, as the church bylaws put it, views “adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, polygamy, pedophilia, pornography, or any attempt to change one’s sex, or disagreement with one’s biological sex” as “sinful and offensive to God.”

This isn’t shocking material, if you know anything about traditional forms of Christianity. It would be easy to find specific quotations from recent Catholic popes — including Pope Francis — condemning behaviors such as these, and more.

This congregation is also connected to several doctrinally conservative organizations or movements linked to SBC life, such as the Founders Ministries. All of this leads me to a specific sermon reference discussing the end of the world and Christian teachings about the second coming of Jesus Christ. Oh, and if you stop and think about it, this includes the church’s pastor — indirectly — offering a warning about Christians worshipping political leaders such as Donald Trump.

Say what?


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Plug-in: Debates about race, religion follow shooting of eight, Including six Asian women

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Plug-in: Debates about race, religion follow shooting of eight, Including six Asian women

Was race a motive in Tuesday’s killings of eight people — including six Asian women — at three Atlanta-area massage parlors?

Was religion?

These are among the questions after the arrest of a White suspect with ties to a Southern Baptist church.

Despite police downplaying the role of race, the shootings have stirred national fear amid “reported record numbers of hate crimes and incidents of harassment” against Asian Americans, note the Los Angeles’ Times’ Jaweed Kaleem and Richard Read.

The first details concerning 21-year-old suspect Robert Aaron Long’s faith background were vague, with the Daily Beast indicating that “he was big into religion.”

But then Washington Post religion writer Sarah Pulliam Bailey interviewed his youth pastor:

As a teenager, Long would stack chairs and clean floors at Crabapple First Baptist Church in Milton, Ga., said Brett Cottrell, who led the youth ministry at Crabapple from 2008 to 2017. Long’s father was considered an important lay leader in the church, Cottrell said, and they would attend morning and evening activities on Sundays, as well as meetings on Wednesday evenings and mission trips.

“There’s nothing that I’m aware of at Crabapple that would give approval to this,” Cottrell said in an interview, referring to the shootings. “I’m assuming it’s as shocking and numbing to them as it has been to me.”

Today, a front-page story by a team of New York Times reporters, including religion writer Ruth Graham, focuses on Long’s battle against a “self-described sex addiction”:


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