John Paul II

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If you haven't profiled the Catholic apologist Scott Hahn -- now's the time to act

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If you haven't profiled the Catholic apologist Scott Hahn -- now's the time to act

The Guy cannot recall any “legacy media” coverage of Scott Hahn, the influential U.S. Catholic lay theologian. If you haven’t done a feature on this fascinating Ohioan, here’s the ideal news peg -- Pope Francis’s Synod of Bishops that begins at the Vatican October 4.

There’s Catholic dynamite here. Hahn, who has a huge parish-level following, stated via Facebook August 24 that he’s “grateful for Bishop [Joseph] Strickland’s inspiring words,” and posted a link to a new pastoral letter from the outspoken Texas conservative who is attacking the synod (and under increasingly fierce Vatican pressure to cease his dissent or be forced to resign).

Strickland warned that “schismatics” are promoting “evils that threaten” the church, and implied that Pope Francis himself (though unnamed) is facilitating their nefarious cause through his Synod on Synodality process.  See GetReligion backgrounder on the Synod dispute here.

Among reactions, founder Mike Lewis at WherePeterIs.com said he’s long admired Hahn’s contributions to the faith so it’s “deeply disappointing” that he is now embracing a “toxic” and “reactionary” movement that Catholics loyal to the papacy worry could produce a “schism coming from the far-right of the U.S. Church.”

Hahn, 65, is the longtime professor of Biblical Theology and the New Evangelization at Franciscan University, a growing liberal-arts stronghold devoted to “the authentic teachings of the Church.” Journalists who scan the websites for Hahn’s off-campus activities and his Saint Paul Center for Biblical Theology will find he’s a popular speaker in person and via religious TV and radio, and a prolific producer of his own and others’ books, articles, DVDs, CDs, podcasts, online courses and conferences.

His organization, in its Catholic conservatism and independence from official church agencies, resembles the EWTN organization that grew from TV talks by the late Mother Mary Angelica beginning in 1981.

Hahn holds a Ph.D. from the Jesuits’ Marquette University in Milwaukee, but it’s significant that his divinity degree is from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a Northeast anchor of evangelical Protestant thought.


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Correction? Washington Post on the 'religious event' that marked passing of Benedict XVI

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Correction? Washington Post on the 'religious event' that marked passing of Benedict XVI

Once upon a time, it was relatively clear when a news organization did or did not need to publish a correction about an error in one of its reports.

But then the World Wide Web came along and reporters at major organizations began writing what were, in effect, news reports that evolved during or just after an important event — rather like the “write-thru” story updates that wire services had for decades sent to newsrooms.

In the old days, however, there was a definitive moment when ink hit paper and readers and journalists could consider a news report “published.” If there was an error of fact in that published story, then everyone (within reason) knew that there needed to be an ink-on-paper correction.

What is supposed to happen when a news report is merely published online? Is a story in digital bytes as “real” as the old ink-on-paper version? That’s the kind of issue journalists have been debating ever since professionals began “breaking” stories online or producing early versions of news reports that, eventually, merged into final reports that were “published.”

This brings me to an interesting sentence that ran, sort of, in a Washington Post foreign-desk (as opposed to the religion desk) story about the funeral Mass for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Here is that sentence, which has circulated in screen shots taken of the Post website:

At the religious event, sometimes called the Eucharist, the faithful receive the sacrament, normally consecrated bread like wafers and wine, symbolizing the body and blood of Jesus.

I have done quite a bit of searching for that material online — especially the “symbolizing the body and blood of Jesus” reference — and I can only find fragments of digital material that show that it once existed. Maybe I have missed it, somehow. If so, I would welcome a correction and a working URL.

Meanwhile, check out, this wispy reference found in this online search file.


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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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With open talk of schism, will German bishops mar the rest of Pope Francis's reign?

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With open talk of schism, will German bishops mar the rest of Pope Francis's reign?

Conservative Catholic news outlets have thoroughly covered growing turmoil in Germany's Catholic Church, making available solid backgrounding for "mainstream" media who've generally been sluggish in picking up on this story.

That neglect presumably won't last, considering factors The Religion Guy will now underscore for colleagues' consideration.

A significant phalanx of German bishops, united with prominent lay activists, seem intent on revisionist change to come from their "Synodical Way" project, which the Vatican has sought to suppress, so far without success.

The German go-it-alone demands set up an inevitable showdown with the Holy See. The global repercussions were captured in a blunt Wall Street Journal headline April 16: "Can Pope Francis Head Off a Schism?" One week earlier a headline in the conservative National Catholic Register declared that "U.S. Theologians Echo Fears of Schism in Catholic Church in Germany."

The Religion Guy proposes a different hed that uses the P-word rather than the S-word: Will German Catholicism Go Protestant, Five Centuries Late?

Peg-hunting reporters will want to watch the "wires" (to use an anachronistic term) May 10 for the latest pageant of defiance. On the heels of the Vatican's papally-approved statement reaffirming opposition to church blessings and marriages for same-sex couples, a large network of German Catholics — with clergy involved — plan to stage same-sex blessing ceremonies across the nation. Watch for how many bishops are silent, or even pleased, when their priests are willing to participate.

The LGBTQ issue is only one aspect of the German imbroglio that dates from the 2019 launch of the "synodical" process, which is co-sponsored by the German Bishops' Conference and the Central Committee of German Catholics, an influential group of lay activists.


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Who's to blame for 'Uncle Ted' McCarrick? That depends on the news sources you follow

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A week after the Vatican released its much-anticipated investigation of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, there remain many unanswered questions. Whether journalists will delve deeply into these unanswered questions remains to be seen.

The point of any report, after all, is to uncover the culprits and hopefully detail how sins and crimes of this nature can be prevented in the future. For the Vatican, the report’s release appears to mean “case closed” on the decades-long history of sexual misconduct of McCarrick.

But is it?

Not at all. If anything, the open questions are great leads for journalists who may be interested in pursuing this story further. Depending on which publications one gets their news from these days, the two biggest takeaways were divergent.

If you read secular mainstream media, like The New York Times, Associated Press and USA Today, and Catholic media on the doctrinal left, then the fault was primarily with former Pope John Paul II, now a saint, accused of ignoring abuse allegations in the 1980s and promoting McCarrick to archbishop (and eventually cardinal) of Washington, D.C. That would pave the way for the man known as “Uncle Ted” to ascend up the Vatican hierarchy and become one of the most powerful cardinals on both sides of the Atlantic. Also, these reports tended to say that McCarrick was a very effective liar who, acting alone, fooled everyone.

However, if you read Catholic publications on the doctrinal right, the takeaway was that the report was a whitewash, aimed at protecting Vatican higher-ups and primarily aimed at exonerating Pope Francis from any wrongdoing. Also, it’s crucial that McCarrick was a leader who had colleagues and disciples at all levels of the church (see tmatt’s GetReligion post and podcast on ‘team Ted’).

Conservative Catholics have a point when they say there’s more missing in the report then what it actually tries to detail. It’s obvious that the report’s omissions and unanswered questions need further examination. Here are a few that stick out:


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Podcast: Was there more than one 'Team Ted' that helped McCarrick stay in power?

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“Team Ted.”

You may be familiar with this term, if you are a longtime follower (several decades, perhaps) of the hellish soap opera surrounding the life and career of fallen cardinal Theodore “Uncle Ted” McCarrick.

But if you followed the McCarrick story in the mainstream press, this is not a term that you would know — for logical reasons. The same is true if you read media reports about the Vatican’s long-awaited investigation of the sins and crimes of McCarrick (click here for a .pdf file of the 450-page report).

“Team Ted,” you see, was a nickname give to a circle of journalists who depended on McCarrick as one of their prime doors into life in the American Catholic church and Vatican affairs, in general. Especially during his heady years as the archbishop of Washington, D.C., McCarrick was the unappointed voice of the U.S. Catholic establishment.

One of the key themes in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in) is that this journalistic “Team Ted” concept could also be used in an ecclesiastical context. According to McCarrick, he was a team captain, bridge-builder and kingmaker among his brother bishops, archbishops and cardinals. That leads to some big unanswered questions that loom over the Vatican report and the press coverage it has received, so far.

But first, let’s back up to 2004 and a fawning profile of McCarrick that ran in The Washingtonian under this dramatic double-decker headline:

The Man In The Red Hat

With a Controversial Catholic in the Presidential Race, the Cardinal Is Seen by Many as the Vatican's Man in Washington -- and He May Play a Big Role in the Selection of the Next Pope

The controversial Catholic, of course, was Sen. John Kerry and, behind the scenes, McCarrick worked to protect the candidate’s Catholic bona fides from attacks by conservative Catholics. The issue, as always, was whether this pro-abortion-rights champion could continue to receive Holy Communion. That’s a long, complicated story that may — soon — be relevant once again with President-elect Joe Biden heading into the White House.

Journalists played a crucial role in that dance between McCarrick and Kerry, which raises this question: Which member of the Catholic establishment will play the McCarrick role for Biden? We will see.

Here is the original “Team Ted” reference, at the end of a long, crucial passage in the Washingtonian:


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John Paul II is already a saint -- is it time to add 'the great' to this pope's title?

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John Paul II is already a saint -- is it time to add 'the great' to this pope's title?

As he began his 1979 pilgrimage through Poland, Pope John Paul II preached a soaring sermon that was fiercely Catholic, yet full of affection for his homeland.

For Communist leaders, the fact that the former Archbishop of Cracow linked faith to national pride was pure heresy. The pope joyfully claimed divine authority to challenge atheism and the government's efforts to reshape Polish culture.

"Man cannot be fully understood without Christ," John Paul II told 290,000 at a Mass in Warsaw's Victory Square. "He cannot understand who he is, nor what his true dignity is, nor what his vocation is, nor what his final end is. … Christ cannot be kept out of the history of man in any part of the globe, at any longitude or latitude of geography."

That was bad enough. Then he added: "It is therefore impossible without Christ to understand the history of the Polish nation. … If we reject this key to understanding our nation, we lay ourselves open to a substantial misunderstanding. We no longer understand ourselves."

This was the stuff of sainthood, and John Paul II received that title soon after his 26-year pontificate ended. But the global impact of that 1979 sermon is a perfect example of why many Catholics believe it's time to attach another title to his name -- "the great."

"The informal title 'the great' is not one that is formally granted by the church," explained historian Matthew Bunson, author of "The Pope Encyclopedia: An A to Z of the Holy See."

"Every saint who is also a pope is not hailed as 'the great,' but the popes who have been called 'the great' are all saints. … When you hear that title, you are dealing with both the love of the faithful for this saint and the judgement of history."

In the case of John Paul II, mourners chanted "Santo subito!" (Saint now!) and waved posters with that slogan at his funeral. During a Mass only 13 hours after his death, Cardinal Angelo Sodano spoke of "John Paul, indeed, John Paul the Great."


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Calling BS on NC-17

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The Ringer has published an odd report by Keith Phipps that traces the doomed path of the NC-
17 rating in a time when streaming TV has eclipsed the importance of films. Its headline is an
engaging two-sentence summary: “Thirty Years Ago, Hollywood Won the Battle Against the X
Rating. But It Lost the War.”

Phipps devotes nearly 2,600 words to this topic.

You just know that simple-minded religious people play a major role in this drama. His one reference to cultural conservatives (“a religious right eager to protest whatever they [sic] felt to be an affront to their values”) is as predictable as a media release from Americans United. He adds this:

“They didn’t lack targets and, in fairness, those targets felt closer at hand thanks to neighborhood video stores with curtained ‘adults only’ sections and scandalous music videos just a click away on cable.”

That’s as far as the fairness extends, though. This isn’t hard-news journalism, of course. Still, it would have been nice — interesting even — to see some serious discussions of the views of people on both sides of this issue. Diversity is often interesting.

Phipps makes no effort to demonstrate such eagerness or easily affronted values, but simply notes
these factors as though they were universally established realities.

But here comes an informative turn, as Phipps presents a few examples of films that were
harmed by the dreaded adjective controversial:

Though ultimately more talked about than seen, Jean-Luc Godard’s 1985 film Hail Mary — featuring a modern day retelling of the nativity story — earned protests and the condemnation of Pope John Paul II. But that was a mere prelude to what greeted Martin
Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988. …


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Catholic school wars (yet) again: Can teachers take public actions that defy church doctrines?

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What we have here is another one of those stories that your GetReligionistas have written about so many times that we have crossed over into a state of frustration.

Can you say “doctrinal covenant”?

At this point, it’s clear that many newsroom managers just can’t handle the fact that the Catholic Church is not (in many zip codes) a liberal democracy, which means that many Catholic bishops still think their schools should defend the contents of the Catholic catechism. OK, maybe the issue is whether people in Catholic schools get to attack the faith in symbolic ways in public.

Once again, no one thinks that journalists have to endorse the doctrines of the Church of Rome. The question is whether reporters and editors know enough about the contents of these doctrines, traditions and canon laws to cover them accurately. At a bare minimum, journalists need to know that there are experts and activists on both sides of these debates, but that — in the vast majority of cases — local bishops, representing the Vatican, are the “prevailing legal authorities.”

So here we go again. Let’s turn to USA Today, for a rather one-sided story about this latest conflict: “Cathedral High School terminates gay teacher to stay in Indianapolis Archdiocese.” As you will see, this story is Act II in a larger local drama:

Just days after the Archdiocese of Indianapolis cut ties with one Catholic high school over its decision to continue to employee a gay teacher, another school is firing one of its educators to avoid the same fate.

Cathedral High School, located on the northeast side of Indianapolis, announced Sunday it is terminating a gay teacher in order to avoid a split with the archdiocese, which stripped Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School of its Catholic identity last week.

Brebeuf refused to fire its educator, who is in a public same-sex marriage.

Cathedral's board Chairman Matt Cohoat and President Rob Bridges posted a letter on the school's website announcing the decision to "separate" from a teacher in a public same-sex marriage. The letter is addressed to the "Cathedral family."

The archdiocese made it clear, the letter said, that keeping the teacher employed “would result in forfeiting our Catholic identity due to our employment of an individual living in contradiction to Catholic teaching on marriage.”

OK, let’s unpack this oh-so-typical conflict — yet again.


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