We’re a month into 2020 and, as expected, it is a year where the presidential election will dominate news coverage. In dominating the news, politics is also — like it or not — the prism in which journalists look at most other issues in society. That includes news about entertainment, economics, sports and, yes, religion.

A few things happened in January that have set the mood for the Iowa caucuses that took place Monday, the official start of the primary season. One of the biggest took place about 1,000 miles east of Des Moines, in Philadelphia, when Archbishop Charles Chaput was replaced by Nelson Perez.

The decision by Pope Francis, although ultimately not a surprising one, was largely portrayed in the mainstream press as the replacement of a conservative cleric with a largely progressive one. In other words, discussions of doctrine were framed and discussed in political terms.

This is how The New York Times framed the decision:

Archbishop Chaput, who was appointed to the position by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011, has long been known as a theological and political conservative, often at odds with Francis’ mission to move beyond the culture wars dominated by sexual politics.

Francis recently acknowledged that a good deal of the opposition to his pontificate emanated from the United States, telling a reporter who handed him a book exploring the well-financed and media-backed American effort to undermine his agenda that it was “an honor that the Americans attack me.”

Archbishop Chaput’s departure was expected, as he had offered his resignation to Pope Francis when he turned 75 in September. Church law requires every bishop to tender his resignation at that age, but the pope can choose not to accept it, often allowing prelates to remain in office for several more years.

In this case, the pope did not wait long before saying yes.

A theological and political conservative. Really?

Theological absolutely if you mean Chaput upheld the teachings of the church. The accuracy of this political judgement is up for debate. Is a Catholic a political “conservative” if he backs Catholic doctrines on the death penalty, abortion, marriage, immigration and other hot-button issues?

This brings us to the overall problem. Many journalists find it easy to put religious leaders in political boxes. Meanwhile, centuries of Catholic teachings — from abortion to immigration — make it hard to do this without being shallow and simplistic.

While many devout Catholics in this country will vote for Donald Trump come November, others may choose to go third party or even stay home. May look at both the Republicans and Democrats with dismay.

The Democrats, and with their cultural shift left, have made it harder for a large chunk of the Catholic electorate living in the middle of the country to support a Joe Biden, who is himself Catholic. Biden made no secret that he wants to target Catholics in Iowa and beyond. Biden’s pitch to Catholics, as Politico reported last week, is “as much about culture as it is religion — especially to older voters — who are of Irish, German, Polish and Italian descent and who live throughout the Rust Belt.” Biden ended up losing big in Iowa.

In Philadelphia, meanwhile, this particular change in archbishops has Catholics beyond the City of Brotherly Love talking.

A wonderful piece in Philadelphia magazine profiled Perez and the direction of the church in the United States. Here’s a key excerpt:

Back in Philadelphia, the replacement of Archbishop Chaput — who had become increasingly critical of Pope Francis and who was never made a cardinal — might be “a sign that the Pope […] is still intent on changing the ideological direction of the American church by setting a new tone in one of its most traditionalist dioceses,” the New York Times wrote. And Pérez could be Francis’s latest ally.

But things aren’t so black-and-white.

Rocco Palmo, one of the world’s foremost Vatican watchers and the Philadelphia-based journalist who broke the story of Perez’s appointment on his website, Whispers From the Loggia, calls the notion of a new progressive shift for the local Catholic church downright “preposterous.” “Catholic teaching already falls on both sides of the American partisan divide,” Palmo says.

If anything, Catholic social teaching leads Catholics to be “politically homeless,” Palmo tells me. On abortion, Catholics stand with Republicans. On immigration, Catholics are far to the left of the Democratic Party. A look at party affiliation among Catholics shows an almost even split between the country’s two leading political parties.

It might be a futile exercise to try to peg clergy like Perez and Chaput as conservative or progressive. If there is a shift with Pérez, it will be in his theological approach. “Because Catholic teaching is a monolith,” Palmo tells me, “style is substance in the church.”

The labels here are not so black-and-white.

That comes after the Philadelphia Inquirer did their own story on how Chaput and Perez may differ less in substance than in style — although those black-and-white brush strokes are evident in framing of the new appointment.

Chaput built a reputation as an outspoken and opinionated leader in the intellectual debate of the church and its intersection with politics and culture, according to the Rev. Thomas Reese, senior analyst for Religion News Service. Perez, the Cleveland bishop since 2017 and one of only three Latinos to be named a U.S. archbishop, comes across as more comfortable talking about families, migrants, and the poor — dinner-table concerns that make him more like Francis.

Or, as Reese put it: “Chaput is more interested in how we explain the faith. For Pérez, it’s more about how we live it.”

While the press in Philadelphia, to varying degrees of success, tried to explain the pope’s new appointee in American political terms, Palmo’s blog Whispers in the Loggia featured a series of important posts.

After all, it helps that he’s based in Philly. What’s not helpful is mainstream journalists not reading it or choosing to ignore it. His January 28 post delves into the Chaput-Perez relationship and gives plenty of context and a factual backstory that journalists could benefit from reading, ahead of the new archbishop’s installation on February 18.

Here’s a taste from Palmo’s post, particularly as it relates to the immigration issue. This is long, but essential:

While Philadelphia has historically had pockets of Latinos (predominantly Puerto Ricans) in a handful of neighborhoods, the demographics have radically shifted since the mid-1990s as waves of Mexican emigres began settling here, whether for service-labor jobs in the city or agricultural work at the western and southern edges of this five-county fold.

Per diocesan figures, the Philly church's Hispanic population doubled in size from 2000 to 2016 – and, indeed, given the widespread tendency of the undocumented to shirk civil or ecclesial registrations to avoid being found, odds are the spike is bigger still. Nonetheless, the Capuchin prelate was given the same response nearly every US bishop receives on seeking a Hispanic deputy: the Holy See simply didn't have enough promotable Latino candidates to accommodate the request. (For every Stateside petition for a Latin bishop, experience shows the demand is such that one is only able to be provided in roughly every five or six cases.)

Of course, as candidates from ethnic "minorities" are drawn from national lists, Philadelphia's own best-equipped Hispanic had already been snapped up, sent to Long Island and a hat just shy of his 51st birthday. Yet in the end, it all worked out: had Chaput nabbed his desired Latin auxiliary six years ago, it is virtually certain that Perez’s homecoming to the 12th Floor of “The 2’s” – 222 N. 17th Street (The Philadelphia Chancery) – would never have come to pass.

This isn't the first time the process has only worked over the long haul. One has to be around long enough to be able to understand that.

On a related note, while a good bit of media reaction to the appointment has aimed for sensationalism over substance – above all in terms of seeking to pit predecessor and successor as somehow in opposition to each other on questions of secular politics – back in reality, any notion of a "wedge" between the two archbishops is simply preposterous... or, to use a common Chaput-ism, utterly “foolish.” (To use a shorthand the brothers will appreciate, the Pope has named Perez – not Perzan – as Archbishop.)

For all of the retiring prelate's very well-known qualities after 25 years on the national stage, a poker face ain't among them and never has been. Accordingly, were Chaput in any way displeased with the pick, it wouldn't have taken much to sense it at Thursday's presser – indeed, even the yokels at the Inquirer would've been able to notice.

Given that, it's admittedly hard to recall the last time the Ninth Archbishop sparkled like that in public in this town – after eight years spent battling the archdiocese's century of demons (and worn tired from it), his long-held wish to retire quickly had been granted with lightning speed ... and at least as much, the pleasure was clear that his succession belonged to, as he put it, “exactly the man with exactly the abilities our [local] church needs.”

Yes, the events of the last few weeks in Philadelphia, and what is yet to come over the next few months, matter to American Catholics across the doctrinal spectrum.

How the mainstream press chooses to cover this divide matters. Catholics are “politically homeless” — but it’s not likely that they will be covered that way by a mainstream press that sees everything through an election prism — complete with simplistic political labels — throughout this primary season and on to November’s general election.