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Monday, April 14, 2025

Catholicism

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U.S. bishops preach pro-life Catholic doctrine to Biden: Isn't that a story during midterms?

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U.S. bishops preach pro-life Catholic doctrine to Biden: Isn't that a story during midterms?

The looming midterm elections have the Republicans giddy over the potential that they may take control of the House and Senate. Democrats, on the other hand, are hoping to stem the loses knowing that they still have President Joe Biden in the White House.

Amid all this midterm mania are the talking points politicians are pushing in order to appeal to their core voters. Republicans are campaigning on inflation and crime and Democrats on diversity and, of course, abortion following the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

Polls show that voters care more about inflation, but Democrats are hoping that talking up abortion will get out their base. Abortion, however, isn’t just a political issue. As Biden, a practicing Catholic, promises to make abortion a federal right by codifying Roe v. Wade into law should Democrats keep a majority, tension among him and several prominent U.S. bishops has heated up once again.

Some of these bishops have been in the news in the past regarding Biden’s support of abortion, threatening to deny him the sacrament of Holy Communion. It was last week that the issue came to the forefront again.

At least, it come to the forefront in Catholic news publications. In the elite press that GetReligion studies? Not so much or not at all.

This is how Catholic News Agency reported it on Oct. 25:

President Joe Biden, a professed Catholic, must end his “single-minded” abortion extremism and see the humanity in unborn children, the U.S. bishops have said. They said abortion’s impact is “tragic” and urged the president to support mothers.

“The president is gravely wrong to continue to seek every possible avenue to facilitate abortion, instead of using his power to increase support and care to mothers in challenging situations,” Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, said Oct. 25.

“This single-minded extremism must end, and we implore President Biden to recognize the humanity in preborn children and the genuine life-giving care needed by women in this country,” he said.

The U.S. bishops’ statement noted that last week Biden declared that his top legislative priority after the November elections is to codify a national right to abortion.

This is a major story that was covered by the Catholic press, but big secular newsrooms ignored it.


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Catholic voters and the midterm elections: Mainstream news blitz ignores major voter bloc

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Catholic voters and the midterm elections: Mainstream news blitz ignores major voter bloc

We are in the middle of another election season and in full mud-slinging mode.

Elections are an annual occurrence, to one degree or another, but the vote that will dominate this Nov. 8 are known as the midterms. It’s when a majority of seats in both the House and Senate are up for grabs, allowing for the party in the minority (in this case the Republicans in both chambers) to potentially becoming the majority. Midterm elections are also traditionally viewed as referendums on presidents.

This takes us to the Catholic vote and its impact on the outcome. This is a topic that is receiving little or no mainstream press coverage. As we say here at GetReligion: “Hold that thought.”

While inflation and crime will certainly be on the minds of most as they cast ballots, “culture war” issues are very much alive and well. Abortion, especially after this June’s Supreme Court decision that once again made it a state issue after Roe v. Wade was rolled back, will certainly be an issue.

There have been many, many news stories about how the abortion issue will motivate those on the political left to come out and vote following the Dobbs decision. The Washington Post, on Oct. 8, reported on the issue in a news feature that appeared under the headline, “Women powered Democrats in the 2018 midterms. Will they again in 2022?”

After opening with two Colorado women, Robin Kupernik and Elizabeta Stacishin, who had joined forces in 2016 to combat Donald Trump, who was elected to the presidency that year. This is the feature’s thesis:

In the 2018 midterm elections, women like Kupernik and Stacishin were part of a women-led army that changed politics. Women who had never been particularly active politically worked phone banks, wrote postcards and sent text messages to voters. They were repulsed by Trump and determined to do something about it.

They met in small groups, marched in the streets and went door-to-door to encourage people to vote for Democrats. Their passions were palpable. Many of the congressional candidates they were supporting flipped Republican-held seats, all part of a political tide strong enough to flush the GOP from control of the House, dealing Trump a major defeat. The Pew Research Center has estimated that 62 percent of White women with college degrees backed Democrats for the House four years ago.

That has become the major press-coverage storyline of the midterms.


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English-language coverage of Italian elections packs lots of Meloni media baloney

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English-language coverage of Italian elections packs lots of Meloni media baloney

I have received more texts than usual the past two weeks. Most of them were about a rather unusual subject — Italy’s national elections. I say unusual subject because it’s not every day that this subject is discussed among my American friends.

Many readers of this space may know that I am the son of immigrant parents who moved to the United States from Italy. As a result, I am bilingual (I read Italian news sites almost as voraciously as American ones) and also a dual citizen, meaning I can vote in Italian elections.

But the texts I was getting was coming from a place of fear. They feared that the center-right would win the election (they ultimately did on Sept. 25) and bring Italy back 100 years to an era marked by fascism.

This sentiment came as a result of the English-language press (predominantly the United States and England) that framed the political rise of Giorgia Meloni as threat to democracy. It was this skewed news coverage that got me to write about her twice in pieces for for Religion Unplugged, which included an analysis piece last week on what her election means and the Vatican’s reaction.

Running on a “God, homeland and family” platform, the 45-year-old was labeled a “neo-fascist” and “hard right” by The New York Times largely because of her traditional Catholic views regarding marriage and her anti-abortion views. The Times hailed Meloni’s election this way:

ROME — Italy turned a page of European history on Sunday by electing a hard-right coalition led by Giorgia Meloni, whose long record of bashing the European Union, international bankers and migrants has sown concern about the nation’s reliability in the Western alliance.

Results released early Monday showed that Ms. Meloni, the leader of the nationalist Brothers of Italy, a party descended from the remnants of fascism, had led a right-wing coalition to a majority in Parliament, defeating a fractured left and a resurgent anti-establishment movement.

It will still be weeks before the new Italian Parliament is seated and a new government is formed, leaving plenty of time for political machinations and horse trading in a coalition with major differences. But Ms. Meloni’s strong showing, with about 26 percent of the vote, the highest of any single party, makes her the prohibitive favorite to become the country’s first female prime minister.

The opening of this news story reads more like an opinion piece, loaded with adjectives such as “hard-right coalition.”

This was parroted by other U.S. newspapers as well as major television networks and cable news channels.


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Traditional Latin Mass feud news remains scarce: How reporters can grasp what's at stake

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Traditional Latin Mass feud news remains scarce: How reporters can grasp what's at stake

What’s the deal with all the emotional meltdowns about the traditional Latin Mass? I mean, no one speaks Latin anymore.

It sounds like a line that could have come out of the mouth of comedian Jerry Seinfeld during one of his stand-up acts. It isn’t part of his act, but it is a more than symbolic question that Catholics have been pondering over the past year.

It was last summer when Pope Francis signed a motu proprio — Latin for a papal document personally signed by the pope to signify his special interest in a topic — on this very subject. In the July 16, 2021, decree, the pope approved clarifications regarding restrictions on the traditional Latin Mass in an effort to ensure that liturgical reform is “irreversible” and that bishops strive to enforce changes made after the Second Vatican Council.

Specifically, bishops were told to ban ordinations of priests and confirmations using the old rite. They also were instructed to limit the frequency of rites by priests who have managed to receive a dispensation to celebrate Mass in Latin.

What’s the deal with the traditional Latin Mass? It turns out a lot.

The Novus Ordo Mass, which has been celebrated since 1965, is the norm among Catholic churches in this country and around the globe. Coverage, particularly last year, of the Traditional Latin Mass took on a political twinge in the pages of The New York Times. This is how their story from July 16 of last year framed the debate:

Pope Francis took a significant step toward putting the Roman Catholic Church’s liturgy solidly on the side of modernization on Friday by cracking down on the use of the old Latin Mass, essentially reversing a decision by his conservative predecessor.

The move to restrict the use of an old Latin rite in celebrating Mass dealt a blow to conservatives, who have long complained that the pope is diluting the traditions of the church.

Francis placed new restrictions on where and by whom the traditional Latin Mass can be celebrated and required new permissions from local bishops for its use.

The key words to look for in mainstream news reports are “modernization” and “conservative,” as if this pope was doing something positive and that Pope Benedict XVI had been somehow stuck in the past.


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Looking beyond the polls to find Catholic news hooks in stories about 2022 midterms

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Looking beyond the polls to find Catholic news hooks in stories about 2022 midterms

Political news coverage is, in part, guided by polls.

There are dozens of them that come out every few days in reporters’ email inboxes trying to gauge the temperature of the electorate on any given politician or policy decisions. This is especially true in a presidential election year. it’s also true during the midterms, which will arrive on Nov. 8.

While mainstream pollsters took a hit for being inaccurate when Donald Trump won the White House in 2016, the polls roll on as the experts put them out, pundits dissect them and news coverage reports on what they mean.

Often lost in this horse-race coverage of who’s up and who’s down are the views of real people about issues that are, in many cases, larger than partisan politics.

However, an EWTN/RealClear Opinion poll, released on July 15, took a snapshot of what Catholics are thinking, at this point in time. I wrote about its major findings for Religion Unplugged. However, there was more to this survey than a one-day headline.

There are plenty of nuggets of data that could serve as a jumping off point for news coverage in the coming weeks and months.

Overall, the survey found, in the words of Matthew Bunson, executive editor of EWTN News:

This new EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research poll finds that Catholics — like the majority of Americans — are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, have largely negative views about most of the institutions of government save for the Supreme Court, and are deeply concerned about attacks and vandalism against churches and pro-life clinics.


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Fallout from Supreme Court abortion decision: When reporters parrot partisan talking points

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Fallout from Supreme Court abortion decision: When reporters parrot partisan talking points

With emotions running high, the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade marked a cataclysmic shift in the ongoing culture wars. What it means for the upcoming midterm elections and beyond has been the topic of much speculation since the ruling was handed down.

The decision was marked by joy on one side and anger on the other, with may reporters wearing their emotions on their faces and under their bylines. However, many people I know reacted with mixed emotions. Even conservatives were uneasy about the decision, mostly because they feared the violence that could be a part of the fallout. Indeed, the National Catholic Reporter’s news account put it best in its headline: “As Court overturns Roe v. Wade, Catholics react with joy, anger, trepidation.”

We do live in a time when political decisions often inspire violence.

Lose an election? Storm the Capitol Building.

Unhappy with police misconduct? Burn down stores.

Both sides are guilty of this, although the mainstream press — which has grown ever-partisan in the Internet age — hasn’t always been good about calling out both sides for such intimidation.

The fallout from the Dobbs decision? It’s only been a few days, but there was violence in some parts of the country from Rhode Island to Iowa to Arizona. The rhetoric was vile on Twitter, quickly aimed at Christians, and that was soon on display in the streets in a variety of forms.

Again, national legacy media have not always been good about giving proper background and context to the events of the recent past, especially in terms of coverage of violence against churches and crisis-pregnancy centers.

The fissures in American public life are real. So are the distorted realities partisan news organizations like to perpetuate these days.

Just two weeks ago, Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain, argued that opinion pages are alienating readers and becoming obsolete. They doubled down by warning their reporters to refrain from using social media platforms to comment on the decision. However, take a look at this morning’s news summary from USA Today. Spot any patterns?


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Some 'Father Stu' coverage misses real-life redemptive message while shooting at actors

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Some 'Father Stu' coverage misses real-life redemptive message while shooting at actors

Easter weekend has become secular enough over the past few decades where many Americans use the holiday weekend to go to the movies.

It’s a trend that started with the summer blockbuster during the Fourth of July holiday and subsequently by Hollywood with premieres on Christmas Day. While COVID-19 put some of that on hold as audiences streamed movies at home, it seems to be making a comeback with the easing of the pandemic.

The gently gay-friendly Fantastic Beasts: The Secret of Dumbledore won the box office this past weekend, while the religiously-inspired film Father Stu finished a respectable fifth. It wasn’t a bad finish for a film that doesn’t feature a Marvel superhero and may find an audience in Western-rite Christians who were otherwise at church and with family this past Sunday.

Of course, this is a film that features a superhero of a different kind.

Father Stu is the true story of Stuart Long, an amateur boxer who eventually moves to Los Angeles in order to pursue an acting career and along that journey he becomes a Catholic priest. That’s the simplest way to put it without giving away too much of the plot for those who are planning to see it in the coming days.

The two-hour film, featuring Mark Wahlberg as the main character, gets a Rotten Tomatoes score of 45% based on 75 reviews by critics, but a 95% from verified users from the general audience. It shouldn’t surprise me that there is a divergence between media-market critics and the audience when it comes to movies that glorify faith. I found the story compelling, despite the vulgar language, but it is worth seeing.

I get that reviewers are entitled to their opinions. After all, that’s the job of a critic. But the coverage around the film, however, has been framed in a certain way, offering up lopsided and negative takes among many mainstream news sites.

This isn’t a traditional news-coverage question, but it’s appropriate to ask: What’s going on here?


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Press quiet as a mouse when it comes to Catholic angles in this Disney-DeSantis fight

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Press quiet as a mouse when it comes to Catholic angles in this Disney-DeSantis fight

I was never nuts for Disney. I’ve never been to one of their a theme park, either as a child or now as a parent of two children, and never indulged in their movies much over my lifetime. I’ll freely admit that puts me in the minority, both in the United States and around the world, when it comes to Disney consumption.

I was, however, once a Disney employee. No, I didn’t work in one of their stores. Instead, I was employed at ABC News in New York, where I worked for their digital unit running the website and other internet assets such as social media. It was a great place to work — although not “The Happiest Place On Earth” as the official tagline for Disneyland states. It was, after all, a newsroom — but one of the perks was free tickets each year to their amusement parks.

I say all this in the context of the ongoing feud regarding the Florida “Parental Rights in Education” bill, which is now law after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it. This is the much-discussed bill that bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity from kindergarten through third grade “in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”

The law continues to get media coverage for two reasons. First, because of Disney’s involvement and second due to the larger notion that DeSantis, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, is — everyone chant the media mantra — “engaging in a culture war.” This remains a political story, a business story and a pop culture story.

Is this also an important religion story? It certainly is (tmatt takes on this very topic in GetReligion’s most recent podcast).

My most recent GetReligion post focused on the news media’s largely ignoring the Republican DeSantis’ Catholic faith in regard to the widespread news coverage around the bill, which opponents effectively labeled “Don’t Say Gay” even though the bill never used those words.

At the same time, the news coverage for conservative press around the legislation has centered much more on Disney’s late-in-the-game activism in opposing it. The coverage among mainstream and progressive news sites continues to center on that activist “Don’t Say Gay” mantra.


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Sports and religion: Simone Biles, mental health and why no mention of rosaries

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Sports and religion: Simone Biles, mental health and why no mention of rosaries

It’s mid-August, so it’s the time of year when the Lisi clan leaves the hustle-and-bustle of New York City for a few weeks for the quieter environs of Long Island’s East End. It’s from this undisclosed beach location where I wrote this post about the latest goings on in the Catholic world.

It’s has been a busy summer for Catholicism and this month could be even busier. I’ve been distracted, in part, by sports. The subsiding of the pandemic brought back sports with a roar this summer. The centerpiece for it all has been the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Games.

The Olympics have been a great distraction from the Delta variant, our insane politics and the culture wars that dominate the news cycle every minute of each day.

It’s true that sports do intersect with these topics, but that’s why I typically limit my Twitter minutes this time of year. I’ve been fascinated by the athletes — and in particular the ones with ties to Catholicism — that dominated the recent Summer Games.

The headliner, of course, was gymnast Simone Biles and her decision to temporarily withdraw from competition to prioritize her mental health drew criticism, but also massive praise.

Her actions put a spotlight on athletes’ mental health, but also highlighted the inability of the mainstream press to delve deeper and ask pertinent questions regarding her faith. You see, Biles is a Roman Catholic, something written about leading up to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. You wouldn’t know it from the news coverage of the past few weeks.

The lack of mentions in news accounts of Biles being Catholic in regards to her mental wellness spilled over this past Monday when the gymnast’s Instagram account made news. She claimed to be pro-abortion-rights in a post, triggering plenty of mainstream news coverage. In a subsequent Twitter post, Biles wrote that in no way did she favor aborting babies as an alternative to the foster care system. Biles grew up in the foster care system and was later adopted.

Again, none of the mainstream news coverage included that she is an active Roman Catholic.


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