George Weigel

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That big abortion scoop that Time forgot, and other tales from the news magazine era

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That big abortion scoop that Time forgot, and other tales from the news magazine era

Nostalgia time (or even Time).

Many articles have chronicled the shrinkage of America's newspapers, but last week The New York Times reminded us of other print media carnage in feature titled, in the print edition, "Where Have All the Magazines Gone?" Online, that’s “The Magazine Business, From the Coolest Place to the Coldest One.”

Alexandra Jacobs lamented the decline or demise of "the slicks" of yore with their cash, cachet and celebrity editors, naming no less than 30 of them. Their fall is "deeply felt," she confessed, and causes a "strange ache." The mags filled the dual role of both "authoritatively documenting" events of the day and "distracting from them," offering their readers stylish and entertaining fluff.

Also last week that first aspect, news gathering, was featured in a magazine that survives and thrives, The New Yorker. A "Talk of the Town" item brought to mind the old Time-Life News Service, whose corps of staffers and stringers served those two weeklies, with reporting exploits that were often anonymous and unheralded.

Remarkably, Time is still in print and marks its centennial next March. Disclosure: The Guy was a Time-Life correspondent before and after two decades writing Time's religion section.

The whole country is chattering about Politico's revelation of a draft Supreme Court majority ruling that in coming weeks will presumably return abortion for decisions by each of the 50 states.

That’s a huge scoop. But few recall that Time scored an equally big scoop when the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling abolished all abortion laws nationwide?

Enter David Beckwith, a young Washington Bureau hire fresh out of the University of Texas Law School. Roe was a Texas case and Beckwith perked up when the Washington Post -- in the barely-noticed July 4 edition -- ran an odd item lacking byline or named sources with inside dope on the Supreme Court's abortion deliberations coming up for an unusual re-hearing.

Beckwith spent subsequent months cultivating sources, gathered string, and was first in print the following January 22 flatly asserting the sensational news that the high court would soon order legalized abortion across the nation.


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No longer a Ukraine news sidebar: Pope Francis asks if combat can ever be moral

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No longer a Ukraine news sidebar: Pope Francis asks if combat can ever be moral

As Russia's invasion sought to erase Ukraine from the map, Moscow's Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, a key ally of dictator Vladimir Putin, met via video last week with Pope Francis.

The Religion Guy had planned to propose a wartime sidebar about the theological justifications for combat that could run any time, but suddenly the theme has gained timely mainbar status.

That's because an official Vatican release reported that Francis stated this at the meeting: "There was a time, even in our churches, when people spoke of a holy war or just war. Today we cannot speak in this manner. A Christian awareness of the importance of peace has developed. Wars are always unjust, since it is the people of God who pay."

Francis' 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti declared similarly that "it is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a 'just war'."

Francis deplores the bloodshed in Ukraine, but did not publicly castigate Putin or Russia by name, presumably in case a neutral papacy could help negotiate an end to the conflict. (That argument is used to explain Pope Pius XII's silence during Nazi Germany's Holocaust against European Jewry.)

Journalists can, at this point, ask several logical questions:

* Is Francis declaring dead the church's "just war" teaching, first formulated in the 5th Century by St. Augustine?

* Should 1.36 billion Catholics shift to pacifism, which excludes support for all wars?

* Is Ukraine wrong to take up arms to defend its existence as a sovereign and democratic nation?

Nearly all Christian commentators agree that Russia's aggression is evil and Ukraine's military defense against it is justified.


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Beyond the Orthodox questions: How might the Ukraine war scramble world Christianity?

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Beyond the Orthodox questions: How might the Ukraine war scramble world Christianity?

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has potential to be "the most transformational" European conflict since World War II, writes New York Times foreign policy columnist Thomas Friedman.

Will it be transformational for Christianity?

There's a slim chance peace could be restored, but at this writing Russian dictator Vladimir Putin appears committed to doing whatever it takes to demolish the independence of his once-friendly neighbor and its young democracy. We might see Russian military occupation, a puppet regime, persistent armed resistance by furious Ukrainians, ongoing aid by the West and at some future point a humiliating defeat and withdrawal -- a replay of the decade-long occupation of Afghanistan that played into the Soviet Union's collapse and therefore to Ukraine's independence.

Russia faces accusations of war crimes amid mass killings of innocent civilians, and bombardment of homes, hospitals, schools and infrastructure, with attendant suffering.

The contours of world Christianity could be scrambled, as a result of all of this. This religious aspect seems a mere sidebar for the news media just now.

But long term, the Russian Orthodox hierarchy has fused the church's stature with a regime hit by widespread moral condemnation, sagging influence and rising economic and diplomatic isolation. Opprobrium comes not just from the U.S. and western allies. In a United Nations vote, 141 nations denounced the "aggression" while only four problematic regimes backed Russia. Even China abstained.

The media should be alert to the following possible scenarios.

The starting point for discussion is a current church split within Ukraine, whose Orthodox population is second only to the massive church of Russia. See detail here in a previous Memo.

In 1686, the Ecumenical Patriarch, "first among equals" who lead Orthodoxy's independent "autocephalous" branches, granted the Moscow Patriarch the jurisdiction over Ukraine that it still exercises. But after national independence, a rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine now led by Metropolitan Epiphanius arose, and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew — with the sympathy of western leaders — formalized its autocephalous status in 2019.


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Crucial question in all those newsworthy abortion debates: When does life begin?

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Crucial question in all those newsworthy abortion debates: When does life begin?

THE QUESTION:

When does life begin?

THE RELIGION GUY'S ANSWER:

Those four words are regularly posed in the current abortion debate, so let's scan the lines in pregnancy that have been drawn by experts — religious and secular — in the past.

Pre-scientific cultures spoke of "quickening," typically between 16 and 18 weeks, when the mother first feels the unborn child moving in her womb. A famous example involves the unborn John the Baptist in biblical Luke 1:41. Some ancient Jewish authorities in the Talmud, and Roman and Greek philosophers, supposed that the unborn child "formed" earlier, at 40 days.

Then there's "viability," when a fetus can live on its own outside the womb, typically reached around 23 or 24 weeks, or somewhat earlier or later in individual cases. The U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion before that point in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, and after viability when there are risks to the mother's health, broadly defined.

The high Court on December 1 hears a case from Mississippi, which defied the Roe ruling and bars abortions after 15 weeks on grounds that the fetus experiences pain by then. A Missouri law, also under court challenge, puts a ban at eight weeks when "everything that is present in an adult human is now present in your baby," according to the American Pregnancy Association. The Court temporarily left in place a ban in Texas (likewise in 13 other states) after six weeks, when pulsations can be diagnosed at what eventually becomes the fully formed heart.

Many modern Christians believe that life begins at conception (sperm first meets egg) or implantation (fertilized egg attaches to the mother's womb) while some put the line a bit later at twinning (after which multiple pregnancies do not occur).

Note the brief filed last month in the Mississippi case by pro-choice religions including "mainline" Protestant churches, non-Orthodox Judaism, Unitarian Universalists and others. It says "numerous religious traditions posit that life begins at some point during pregnancy or even after a child is born."


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It's not too early to start gathering string on Catholic Cardinals on the rise

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It's not too early to start gathering string on Catholic Cardinals on the rise

The U.S. presidency is a geezer’s game this round.

If Donald Trump wins and completes a full term he'd be 78, while a President Joe Biden would be 82 -- thus the unusually intense buzz about Sen. Kamala Harris as president in waiting. Either man would be history’s oldest president.

On the religion beat, Pope Francis appears spry but he turns 84 in December and, inevitably, writers are already starting to muse about his successor. An election campaign for the leader of 1.3 billion Catholics is the religion writer’s equivalent of the Olympics, compounded by secrecy and subtlety. This should be an unusually hot race because Francis has roiled conservatives on both doctrinal and political matters.

Francis’s dozens of appointees to the College of Cardinals will exercise major voting power in the coming “conclave,” but that doesn’t mean his successor will be a clone. Cardinals chosen by the doctrinaire St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, after all, elected Francis. (As religion specialists will know, only cardinals under age 80 are electors and their total cannot exceed 120, with a two-thirds majority required to win.)

Further on the age factor. Some will say the rule of thumb has moved to older popes, as with the U.S. presidency, since both Francis and predecessor Benedict XVI were in their later 70s when chosen. However, back in 1958 the cardinals elevated a similarly aged Angelo Roncalli, the patriarch of Venice. Some figured he’d be a mere caretaker; in fact, he summoned the epochal Second Vatican Council.

One final age factor. It seems inconceivable that the cardinals would choose a youngster like Pope Pius IX, who was only 54 when elevated and had a turbulent 32-year reign.

By odd coincidence, two conservative Catholic publishers have simultaneously issued relevant pre-conclave books with the identical title, though the subtitles signal different purposes.


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Old 'liberal' views of the New York Times news bubble -- one from left, one from right

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It’s been awhile since Bari Weiss of The New York Times wrote That. Resignation. Letter. to publisher A.G. Sulzberger, but I am still thinking about what she wrote and some of the published reactions.

Yes, I wish someone would leak some Times newsroom Slack discussions about the aftermath. As always, I am more interested in what is happening in the newsroom, as opposed to the offices of the editorial-page staff (click here for the GetReligion podcast post on that subject).

Two commentary pieces jumped out of the swirling online mix, for me, in the days after that firestorm. I often read lots of material on the cultural left and then on the cultural right and look for thoughts that overlap.

With that in mind, let me recommend this piece by Jodi Rudoren, who is editor in chief of The Forward, a progressive Jewish publication. Rudoren spent more than two decades at the Times.

It’s safe to say that she worked there during — to frame this in terms of the Weiss letter — the era of the “old orthodoxy,” which was basically old liberalism, to one degree or another. The Times was a culturally liberal workplace, but it was not — at least not deliberately — trying to preach its gospel to readers. Now there is a “new orthodoxy” on the rise in America’s most influential newsroom.

Thus, the headline for Rudoren’s piece: “I don’t recognize the NYT that Bari Weiss quit.”

By all means, read all of that piece. But here is a crucial chunk of that, which starts with a discussion of the forced resignation of editorial page editor James Bennet after the publication of Sen. Tom Cotton’s essay calling for the use of U.S. military troops to quell violent protests. Rudoren writes:

I found the argument that publishing the OpEd endangered anyone’s life to be specious, though it was repeated by many of my former colleagues on Twitter; I thought that organized, open revolt violated every code of collegiality; and I worried that the paper was cowering from its historic role as the host of raucous but respectful debate.


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Influential voice from St. Pope John Paul II era offers blunt take on Amazonian synod

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I have noticed something strange in recent weeks, when reading news coverage — mainstream and Catholic — of the recent Vatican Amazonian synod of bishops.

Increasingly, I am finding that conservative and progressive Catholics sort of agree on what is happening in their global Communion. What they disagree on is whether it is good or bad, small-o orthodox or potentially heterodox.

They may also have different views of which potential synod “reform” is the most important, but they pretty much agree on what the big three or four topics of debate were during the proceedings. Click here for an analysis of that by my colleague Clemente Lisi.

This leads me to this weekend’s think piece, which is a First Things essay by the conservative Catholic intellectual George Weigel, official biographer of the late St. Pope John Paul II. We are dealing with a conservative thinker here — obviously — but one who is frequently creatively optimistic in terms of his views of trends in the church in the age of “the new evangelization.” This is a rather different mood, for Weigel.

The title: “There’s a pony in here somewhere: A post-synodal reflection.” I will allow readers to dig into the earthy Ronald Reagan parable that led to that title.

The positive pony hidden in the synod, Weigel opines, is that, “The Cards are Now Face-up on the Table,” in terms of discussions about what is happening in Pope Francis-era Catholicism.

Here is the must reading. It is long and it will anger Catholics on the doctrinal left.

So why run it here?


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Down memory lane: A brief history of Catholic leaks that made news

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This is another of those religion beat nostalgia Memos, inspired by a pretty sensational March 22 scoop  in America magazine from its Vatican correspondent, Gerard O’Connell. He reported the precise number of votes for all 22 candidates on the first ballot when the College of Cardinals elected Pope Francis in 2013.  

The cardinals’ first round usually scatters votes across assorted friends and favorite sons, but a telltale pattern appeared immediately. The Italian favorite, Angelo Scola, got only 30 votes, with the eventual winner, Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina, close behind at 26 and Canadian Marc Ouellet at 22. In a major surprise, Boston’s Sean O’Malley was fourth with 10 votes, and New York’s Timothy Dolan got two. Clearly, the electors would forsake not just Italy but the Old World entirely and choose the Western Hemisphere’s first pontiff .

As so often occurs, the Washington Post immediately grabbed an important religion story that other media missed, with Michelle Boorstein adding a beat specialist’s knowing perspective (behind pay wall).

O’Connell likewise demonstrates the virtues of specialization. He has worked the Vatican beat for various Catholic periodicals since 1985, a task that requires long-term cultivation of prelates who spill secrets. (Or did his wife, a Vatican correspondent from the pope’s homeland, acquire this leak?)

Adding to the intrigue, in papal elections each cardinal must take a solemn oath before God to maintain strict secrecy on everything that occurred, under pain of excommunication.

Yet O’Connell’s oath-busting leak appeared in a magazine of Francis’s own religious order, the Jesuits.  The article was excerpted from “The Election of Pope Francis,” O’Connell’s fuller version to be published April 24 by  another Catholic entity, the Maryknoll order’s Orbis Books.


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Is Cardinal Pell a perpetrator or victim? Aussie media keep wavering between the two

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Ever since Australia’s Cardinal George Pell was convicted of child abuse, the journalism folks Down Under have been split on if he’s actually guilty or whether he’s the target of a vicious anti-Catholic campaign.

Reaction to his conviction and jailing (the sentencing isn’t until March 13), has rippled across the Pacific, prompting Ethics and Public Policy scholar George Weigel (writing at First Things) to call the Pell affair “our Dreyfus case.”

(Capt. Alfred Dreyfus was a French Jew and a military man who was wrongly pilloried and imprisoned in 1894 on charges of selling secrets to the Germans. He was declared innocent in 1906, but the matter was considered as barbaric anti-Semitism on the part of the French. The conflict tore at the heart of French society.)

I’ll get back to Weigel in a moment but first I want to quote from a piece BBC recently ran on all this.

Cardinal George Pell is awaiting sentencing for sexually abusing two boys in 1996. The verdict, which he is appealing against, has stunned and divided Australia in the past week.

It has sparked strong reactions from the cardinal's most prominent supporters, some of whom have cast doubt on his conviction in a wider attack on Australia's legal system.

The largely conservative backlash features some of Australia's most prominent media figures, a university vice-chancellor and a leading Jesuit academic, among others.

Former prime ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott also continue to maintain their public support for the ex-Vatican treasurer.

The reporter then reports on her visit to St. Mary’s Cathedral in downtown Sydney where the parishioners predictably claimed that Pell is innocent. The reporter then interviews another journalist who has an obvious vested interest in Pell (notice the book title) being guilty.

Such stances have caused profound hurt to survivors, says ABC journalist Louise Milligan, author of the book Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell.

"I've been contacted by many, many Australian Catholics who are devastated by the way the Church is handling this issue," Milligan told the BBC.

"They are also greatly upset that political leaders continue to side with a convicted paedophile — and that is what Pell is, a convicted paedophile — over his vulnerable victim and the grieving family of his other victim." (One victim died of a drug overdose in 2014.)

The article then swings back to Pell’s defense.


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