Catholicism

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Peter J. Boyer: Charged with covering faith for The New Yorker, I found GetReligion

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Peter J. Boyer: Charged with covering faith for The New Yorker, I found GetReligion

It was a piece of great luck for me that the “publish” button was clicked on the new GetReligion blog in 2004 just before I received the unlikeliest assignment of my career — the faith beat at The New Yorker.

I had been writing for the magazine for more than a decade, following my fancy on subjects ranging from politics and war to horse racing and hurricanes. I was a generalist, with the blessed (to me) freedom of

thoroughly exhausting my interest in a particular subject and then, once my piece was published, leaving it behind forever.

This suddenly changed in November 2004, with the re-election of President George W. Bush. The election had been a Republican wipeout, with Bush not only retaining the White House but Republicans strengthening their hold on the House and Senate — the biggest across-the-board GOP sweep since Ronald Reagan’s blowout in 1980.

The result, to say the least, had come as a shock to many in the news business, including (perhaps especially) those populating the corridors of The New Yorker. The magazine had claimed a stake in the election, having published an endorsement of a presidential candidate — the Democrat John Kerry — for the first time in its 80-year history. The lengthy editorial framed the Bush presidency as a creature of a Supreme Court “fiat,” and decried its “record of failure, arrogance and … incompetence.”

To his credit, editor David Remnick thought our readers deserved an explanation of the unexpected (to them) Republican wave. Polling suggested that Republicans owed their victory to a cohort that the media quickly labeled “values voters,” people who supported the War on Terror and believed that John Kerry and the Democrats didn’t represent their values.

At the core of this group, of course, were people of faith who regularly attended worship services. My assignment: Go out among these voters, and explain their motivations to the insular world the New Yorker represents.

I used to joke that I was assigned the faith beat because I was the guy at the New Yorker who’d been to church, and I am, indeed, a believer. But I was anything but an expert on religion, and I quickly learned that very few (of any) reporters in the mainstream media were.

Happily, I quickly discovered GetReligion.org, a website founded on the recognition that the mainstream press didn’t “get” religion.


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Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz: A farewell to GetReligion from Catholic radio

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Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz: A farewell to GetReligion from Catholic radio

Twenty years is a good run.

Unfortunately, GetReligion should run for at least another 20 more years because the need is still there, and under the circumstances that Terry Mattingly has described of the current state of journalism, one could easily argue that the need is even greater now than it was when this weblog was born.

But alas and alack, it seems that those with the charge of doing actual journalism have not been listening to the wisdom emanating from the authors on this brave site.

Instead of a revival of the classic American style of objective reporting, the owners of the Fourth Estate have denominated themselves into camps according to their respective narratives. That leaves them completely closed to the possibility of learning something new, including how to cover the religion beat.

As a Catholic media pro, this has been especially hard to watch because it makes me believe that there’s an agenda here, whether journalism executives want to admit it or not. When USA Today sends out a breaking news alert that links to a story reporting what is old news on the clergy sex-abuse crisis, that makes a reader wonder why they are so uninformed about basic facts.

Clemente Lisi’s latest of many GetReligion posts about attacks on Catholic churches shows that it’s not getting any better.

We are talking about basic information, here.


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Archbishop Charles J. Chaput: The religion beat is where 'our defining freedoms meet'

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Archbishop Charles J. Chaput: The religion beat is where 'our defining freedoms meet'

A free press is part of the American identity. It’s also one of our essential institutions. A responsible press and a faith shaped by the God of charity and justice share two things in common: a concern for human dignity, and an interest in truth.

This is why — to be specific — journalism coverage of religion is so important.

Believers and non-believers might define that word “truth” differently, and the differences might be serious. But an honest search for it creates a kind of maturity. And that maturity enables us to build a decent, common future through our choices here and now.

Freedom means that our choices matter. And our mistakes have consequences. That’s why so many people, increasingly today, seem to want a rescue from the burden of personal responsibility; deliverance from the work of thinking critically about themselves, their world, their mortality and the purpose of their lives.

We all struggle with these temptations. Americans as a people are no exception.

So I can imagine an America without a genuinely free and fair press. And I can imagine an America with much less religious faith. We’re well on the way to getting both. But in either case, the result will be a very different America and a betrayal of the generations that built it.


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Julia Duin: It's been a long road and we've reached the end of our GetReligion journey

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Julia Duin: It's been a long road and we've reached the end of our GetReligion journey

It’s been almost nine years since that day in February 2015 when Terry called me in Alaska to ask if I’d join the GetReligion team starting March 1.

(We already had a reminder of the Mattingly family sitting in our home; an enormous lion gifted by Terry and Debra to my daughter Veeka when she was 6 1/2, about the time she stayed with them for several days while I was on a reporting trip. I’ve included a photo of the Aslan-like creature with her delighted face just after she received it. The lion still keeps vigil by her window).

The GetReligion assignment, Terry told me, was that I’d concentrate on West Coast media and culture wars coverage.

 Since then, my writing has ranged w-a-y beyond that, from John Allen Chau to Josh Harris. I have picked up a lot about analytical writing, hopefully have not made too many enemies and have shown some light into dark corners.

Sometimes I hit it out of the park. With the election of President Donald Trump and the ascendancy of his pastor, Rev. Paula White, I spread word of  an ascendant Pentecostal/charismatic movement that was way more powerful than its non-charismatic evangelical counterpart.

This was years ahead of the curve. Not a whole lot of folks were listening until Jan. 6, 2021.

But you, dear readers, were seeing it here first, starting my Nov. 10, 2020, column that begins with the frantic prayers in White’s Florida church in the face of a Trump loss. By the time my Dec. 15, 2020, column about the “Jericho March” in DC surfaced, there were prophets nationwide saying Trump would win no matter what and other disturbing trends that not enough reporters were tracking.

Why? These prophets were considered wackos by most.

My Jan. 11, 2021, column, about the aftermath of Jan. 6 (when some of those ‘wackos’ showed up on the streets of Washington) and the resulting “civil war” among charismatics got a lot more ears — and a ton of hits. By this time, the “Trump prophets” who had erroneously prophesied that the 45th president would win a second consecutive term were in the middle of a theological maelstrom. The day of Biden’s inauguration, I penned one last column on the topic here.

I count the work I did on the prophets and my coverage on Cardinal Theodore McCarrick as among the best work I did for this blog.


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Kenneth Woodward: GetReligion, in so many ways, kept offering on-the-job training

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Kenneth Woodward: GetReligion, in so many ways, kept offering on-the-job training

I never went to journalism school or took a journalism course. I learned on the job under a superb editor who never finished college.

Reading Terry Mattingly and his crew of smart contributors at GetReligion over the years was like that on-the-job training.

I especially relished the here’s-what’s-missing pieces pointing out the religion gaps in stories (“ghosts,” in GetReligion-speak), including essential questions that were not asked, core facts that were omitted and perspectives not sought.

Then there were the many can-you-hear-the-axes-grinding stories pointing out where ideology got in the way of basic reporting.

Also, there were the atta-boy pieces, too, that showered measured appreciation on work well done, angles found that no one else had noticed. That was the other side of the equation.

At Newsweek, where I labored for more years than Job had boils, once a story had been written and survived three layers of editors, we writers still had fact-checkers to answer to: Where’d you get that? Who was your source?

GetReligion did some of that too. But gently. More gently than I am inclined to do.

Mattingly and his mates could do all this because they think religion is an important dimension of public life and affairs, especially on matters tied to the First Amendment.

This would make them outliers in most newsrooms. I have the feeling that most of the folks who have written for GetReligion are religiously formed and convicted themselves, in various traditions. Which makes sense: I’ve always thought that those take their own religion seriously are better able than the religiously indifferent to grasp religions not their own.


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Will the Catholic Church allow married priests in the western Latin rite? Should It?

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Will the Catholic Church allow married priests in the western Latin rite? Should It?

QUESTION:

Will the Catholic Church allow married priests in the Western Latin rite? Should It?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The new year began with the surprise revival of this perennial issue by a prominent Catholic insider who asserted that the mandate for priests to be unmarried and celibate “was optional for the first millennium of the Church’s existence and it should become optional again.”

This came in a media interview with Archbishop Charles Scicluna, 63, named by Pope Francis in 2015 to lead the church in the nation of Malta. As he indicated, celibacy for all priests, not just those under vows in religious orders, was not made an absolute rule till the Second Lateran Council in A.D. 1139. Back then, one reason was to stop corrupt bishops from handing sons their lucrative posts.

Catholicism is the only branch of Christianity that imposes this requirement.

Sciclina is an especially influential figure due to his 2018 appointment by Francis to a second post as Adjunct Secretary of the Vatican’s all-important agency on doctrine. Over the years, the Vatican has also entrusted the archbishop, who holds doctorates in both secular and canon law, to prosecute delicate cases of sexual abuse by priests.

As Scicluna noted, the Catholic Church has long welcomed priests who marry prior to ordination in its Oriental and Eastern Rite jurisdictions, centered in Ukraine, India, Lebanon and in the Mideast. Such is also the tradition in Eastern Orthodoxy, which ordains married men, but requires celibacy for bishops. (Catholicism occasionally ordains married Protestant ministers who convert, such as Anglicans and Lutherans.)

The archbishop asked, “Why should we lose a young man who would have made a fine priest just because he wanted to get married? And we did lose good priests just because they chose marriage.” He said “experience has shown me this is something we need to seriously think about.” For one thing, some priests cope with the rule “by secretly engaging in sentimental relationships” and “we know there are priests around the world who also have children.” Therefore “if it were up to me I would revise the requirement.”

Was Scicluna nudging delegates who next October will attend the second and final session of Pope Francis’s Synod of Bishops at the Vatican?


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Why not cover these stories? GetReligion kept asking about attacks on Catholic churches

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Why not cover these stories? GetReligion kept asking about attacks on Catholic churches

There have been many big stories on the Catholic beat since I started contributing to GetReligion in November 2018.

Over the last five years, I have written about Catholicism as it related to doctrinal fights, politics, education and even sports. In between, we had a pandemic. Brother, has it been a busy time.

Over that time, I looked at mainstream news coverage regarding these issues and the growing importance of Catholic news media in the digital age. Catholic media is crucial, in large part, because of the many important religion stories that way too many elite mainstream newsrooms are ignoring.

No story has been bigger — in terms of both importance and reader interest — than church fires.

Churches have been targeted in the United States and around the world in what has easily been one of the most underreported (in some cases not reported at all) stories of the last decade. The problem? When it comes to press coverage, not all religious sanctuaries are created equal.

In my final post here at GetReligion, let’s take a look back at this trend.

In terms of news, the biggest was not an act of arson, according to authorities, but an accident. It was on April 15, 2019 that a structural fire broke out in the roof space of Notre Dame in Paris, a medieval Catholic cathedral and one of the biggest symbols of Christianity throughout the world.

By the time the fire was extinguished, the 12th century gothic house of worship’s spire had collapsed, its famed rose window destroyed, most of its roof wiped out and its upper walls severely damaged.

I was in my office at The King’s College in New York City when I saw the news alerts. I had already filed a post for GetReligion — ironically! — regarding a rash of fires at churches across France during Lent.

That new post — with quick rewriting by me and speed editing by tmatt (who was across the hall on that day) — went online while the fire was still burning. It instantly went viral.

Here’s how that went down, as recounted by a tmatt post the following day:

Here at GetReligion, my colleague Clemente Lisi had, days earlier, written a feature about the recent series of fires and acts of vandalism at French churches. Lisi and I quickly rewrote the top of that post and put it up about 3 p.m. EDT yesterday. The headline: “If churches keep getting vandalized in France, should American news outlets cover the story?”


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If a NFL coaching legend quotes scripture in a press conference, does it make a sound?

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If a NFL coaching legend quotes scripture in a press conference, does it make a sound?

One more time.

For years, Bobby Ross, Jr., and I have written lots of posts about religion-shaped holes in mainstream sports coverage. Apparently, very few GetReligion readers were interested in this topic (as opposed to, let’s say, the American audience for a prime NFL game).

But we soldiered on. This brings me — one last time — to a curious case study involving my Baltimore Ravens (who are still in the Super Bowl hunt, at this point).

Recently, a commentator on one of the dozens of NFL commentary shows asked an interesting question: Why don’t we talk more about the ongoing success of John Harbaugh, the Ravens head coach since 2008? No one had a good answer.

But I will ask a related question: After the Raven’s 34-20 playoff victory over the Houston Texans, which video clip was easier to find? The one (a) with Harbaugh showing his dad-style dancing moves in the joyful locker room or the one (b) in which he opened his press conference, with a very serious tone of voice, with a favorite Bible quote?

Click those Google links and you will see that, once again, the role that Christian faith (Catholic, to be specific) plays in the life and work of this future Hall of Fame coach is a “conservative” news story. Period. The viral dancing moves are much more important.

Which element of these two elements of Harbaugh’s personality is the most important in his life and work? The most accurate answer is “BOTH.”

However, I suspect that Harbaugh would say that his faith is more important. This brings me to the point that Ross and I have tried to make about the faith-shaped hole in most sports news coverage (and Clemente Lisi has noted this in global soccer coverage, as well). We are not stating that it is automatically news when sports personalities talk about their faith. It is new when they consistently cite their faith as a crucial factor how and why they do what they do in their career and life.

In this case, Fox News (naturally) went with the basic facts: “Ravens head coach John Harbaugh recites Bible verse to open press conference after playoff win.”


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Plugged-In: Amid challenges for pro-lifers, thousands still elected to March For Life

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Plugged-In: Amid challenges for pro-lifers, thousands still elected to March For Life

A new report covered by Christianity Today’s Jayson Casper highlights “the 50 countries where it’s hardest to follow Jesus in 2024.”

Last week’s Plug-in focused on Iowa evangelicals and Donald Trump ahead of the caucuses.

After the former president’s big win in that state, The Associated Press’ Josh Boak and Linley Sanders, CT’s Harvest Prude and the Washington Post’s Dan Keating, Adrian Blanco and Clara Ence Morse analyze the critical role evangelicals played.

The New Hampshire primary is Tuesday, and Clemente Lisi details “everything you need to know about the candidates” at Religion Unplugged.

This is our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith.

What To Know: The Big Story

What motivates pro-lifers: The crowd at today’s annual March for Life in the nation’s capital could top 100,000, organizers predict.

Fifty-one years after Roe v. Wade — and a year and a half after its overturning — “evangelical activists see a bigger fight to change Americans’ minds on abortion.” That’s the synopsis from Christianity Today’s Harvest Prude.

A different mood: If last year’s rally marked a celebration for the anti-abortion movement, the 2024 event reflects “formidable challenges that lie ahead in this election year.”

So notes The Associated Press’ David Crary, who quotes a leading activist:

“We have undeniable evidence of victory — lives being saved,” said John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life. “But there is also a realization of the significant hurdles that our movement has right now in the public conversation.”

Crary explains:


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