Catholicism's internal cracks go public with Cardinal Robert McElroy ban on EWTN

It should come as no surprise to anyone that politicians don’t much like the press. This isn’t a shocking statement to anyone old enough to remember President Richard Nixon and Watergate.

Nixon, of course, wasn’t alone. A watchdog press has ran afoul of many presidents, including Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. This last one most of all.

In Catholicism, popes have also been media targets. Popes, compared to presidents, have been more gracious when speaking of the press. That even goes for the hyper-aggressive Italian media and their daily Vatican coverage.

As the left-right political divide widens, while many journalists working for mainstream publications abandon objectivity, so have the Catholic left-right doctrinal feuds. Francis’ papacy, in fact, has been plagued by it. Mainstream news coverage, for those who read this space, know that readers are increasingly fed narratives over reality.

The Catholic press operates differently. Those on the left wish to reform the church. Those on the right want to uphold and preserve centuries-old doctrines. Catholic media, depending where the publication or TV station falls on the doctrinal spectrum, isn’t governed by objectivity but by church teachings. This is where the conflict arises and when culture war battles within the church — and society at large — can manifest themselves.

This is an internecine battle among members of the Catholic hierarchy. In the crosshairs is EWTN. The media empire, founded by Mother Angelica in 1980, is a news organization that does all of its reporting through the lens of traditional Catholic teaching. It’s the 1992 Catholic Catechism network.

That frequently comes into direct conflict with the words and actions of Pope Francis’ strongest supporters, when dealing with ministry to LGBTQ Catholics, for example, and other culture-war issues.

Just as Obama went after Fox News and Trump against most everyone (even Fox News following the 2020 presidential election), we now have Catholic cardinals openly criticizing Catholic media. The recent case involving San Diego Cardinal Robert McElroy is an example of Catholicism’s internal divisions playing out in Catholic media.

McElroy’s target is EWTN, one of the largest Catholic news organization in the world.

Tip for reporters: Don't assume what Catholics believe based on politics or Internet memes

There are moments in journalism that stand out more than others. One of those moments is when a certain piece — whether it’s a news story, analysis or opinion — gets a lot of attention by a large group of people for good and/or for bad reasons.

For a set of bad reasons, The Atlantic piece on the weaponization of the rosary was that piece for many Catholics and those who keep a watchful eye on media coverage of matters pertaining to the largest Christian denomination in the United States.

The piece — not necessarily a news story, but it was not labeled as commentary or even analysis — became a viral conversation topic among many family and friends over the last week. While the issue of Christian nationalism is important to understand, the bigger discussion — and questions I had to field — was more like this: What’s wrong with journalism these days?

That’s the central preoccupation of many — especially those of us who have been doing this for decades. (For more on that, please check out tmatt’s post and podcast from this past Friday. This view of what was going on in this piece may shock you.)

There were many lines from the Atlantic piece that stood out, but one that did most was this one:

The theologian and historian Massimo Faggioli has described a network of conservative Catholic bloggers and commentary organizations as a “Catholic cyber-militia” that actively campaigns against LGBTQ acceptance in the Church. These rad-trad rosary-as-weapon memes represent a social-media diffusion of such messaging, and they work to integrate ultraconservative Catholicism with other aspects of online far-right culture. The phenomenon might be tempting to dismiss as mere trolling or merchandising, and ironical provocations based on traditionalist Catholic symbols do exist, but the far right’s constellations of violent, racist, and homophobic online milieus are well documented for providing a pathway to radicalization and real-world terrorist attacks.

There’s the thesis of the piece, the connect-the-dots language linking strange behavior to current tensions in Catholic life in America.

There’s plenty to unpack here, but the reality is that citing a few political websites claiming to represent Catholic thought and then adding a smattering of social media memes is no way to gauge for what anyone really thinks and believes.