What a bizarre little semi-story

December 20, 2006 By

family ordinationWant to see a truly bizarre little news story?

Want to see a major missed opportunity to show a key scene in what simply has to have been a complex and rich human drama?

OK, then read the report by E. Richard Walton in The Greenville (S.C.) News that ran with this “duh” headline: “Priest ordained in two-hour ceremony.” Oh, what the heck, here is the story itself — since it is so short. Ready?

Dwight Joseph Longenecker, a lay pastor at St. Joseph Catholic School in Greenville who has served the Church of England, was ordained a priest Thursday night [Dec. 14] in front of a capacity crowd at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greenville.

The two-hour ordination was performed by the Most Rev. Robert J. Baker, bishop of Charleston.

Michael Phillip, a member of St. Mary’s Church, said, “It’s a special event.”

The Rev. Longenecker’s first act as priest was to bless Bishop Baker. Longenecker said in a written statement that he thanked his parents for raising him in a Christian home. He said, “I thank God for the Christian faith of my mother and father, and for the long heritage of devout Protestant Christianity in which my family is rooted.”

He added, “My journey to the Catholic priesthood has been a long and wonderful adventure. I do not consider my Catholic faith to be a rejection of the past, but a fulfillment of all that has gone before.”

Baker said the new priest will continue his role at St. Joseph’s.

Methinks there is more to this story and, hurrah, you can go to Longenecker’s homepage and blog and see some of the missed details.

That Protestant background? This man is a graduate of Bob Jones University, the world-famous fundamentalist Christian campus that has caused a few media storms in the past with its views on Roman Catholicism. Oh, and Bob Jones University is located where? That would be Greenville, S.C.

But there is more to this very interesting non-story. This man has also studied at Oxford University and spent some time in Cambridge, England, as well. He has served as an Anglican priest. He is married and has four children.

So what did this story need to get some serious attention in a Gannett newsroom in the same zip code as this rather symbolic ordination service? Don’t tell me that the editors avoid covering stories linking Bob Jones and Rome? You just know there were people in town who pitched this story to the newspaper over and over again.

Hat tip to Amy at Open Book.

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Filed Under: Catholicism, Evangelicals, Godbeat, People
About TMatt

Terry Mattingly directs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. He writes a weekly column for the Scripps Howard News Service.

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  • Deacon John M. Bresnahan

    I am willing to bet that if Father Longenecker–or any other priest in that diocese– were accused of being a pedophile–even if charge were obviously spurious–there would have been screaming, headline coverage there and probably around the country.

  • John Matzko

    Don’t attribute to cunning what can be easily explained by journalistic cluelessness.

  • Chris Bolinger

    Terry, I realize that, even though your blog features the William Schneider quote that the U.S. press “is one of the most secular institutions in American society” and “just doesn’t get religion or any idea that flows from religious conviction”, you try to be (ahem) fair and balanced by “highlight[ing] the good as well as rais[ing] some questions about coverage that we believe has some holes in it”. My opinion is that you and your fellow bloggers do much more of the former than the latter. Many of us gentle readers out here in the hinterland feel that Schneider has it right. And this ridiculously poor excuse for a “news story” is an excellent example, not an anomaly.

    I, for one, would like to see this blog be more hard-hitting than gracious. Then again, I am not a journalist, and I imagine that being seen as overly critical of journalists is not a good way to make friends among your peers. One of the reasons that people are abandoning the MSM, however, is that most MSM journalists appear quite reluctant to raise the bar for themselves.

  • imnojudge

    What Chris says is worth thinking about.

  • Dominic Glisinski

    this “duh” headline: “Priest ordained in two-hour ceremony.”
    —————————————
    Having grown up a small town boy, this type of headline is the best one can expect…the local rags are basically glorified “4-H reports” :) They just report the facts, no spin. What with the regular Diner’s Club, Women’s Institute, and Horticulture Club meetings, the good turnout at Church Suppers and Rummage Sales, the Mayor doing some Ribbon Cutting, a new book donated to the Library, and a few Nationally Syndicated columns like David Suzuki, they’ve got the beat all nicely wrapped up in a tidy package…”and a great time was had by all. Thanks was tendered to the Ladies Guild for supplying refreshments. The next meeting will be held on…”
    :)

  • Dominic Glisinski

    Hmmm…
    An ex-fundy, turned Anglican, now ex-Anglican, turned RC, now a fundy-RC. Now turned around taking heavy-duty potshots at the Anglican ship already badly listing and tilting nose downward in a heavy running sea. Triumphalism at its worst.

    Leaves me cold.

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    CHRIS:

    Sorry. Our mission remains the same and I am sure you will find many, many people out there who think we are too whiny and snarky.

    The other thing that some may have missed in this post is that we are talking about a Gannett newspaper, not a mere local rag. This is part of the nation’s biggest chain.

    And, again, this is the hometown paper in BJU’s world.

  • Harris

    A Bob Jones alumnus goes off and becomes Catholic? Let’s just say, he’s not the first interesting graduate. Here’s another.

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  • Mike Wood

    You might want to make another connection, here: Longenecker wrote a book (Mary: A Catholic-Evangelical Debate) with another Bob Jones alumnus, David Gustafson.

    David Gustafson is a member of the Falls Church which just pulled out of the PECUSA.

  • Dennis Colby

    “One of the reasons that people are abandoning the MSM, however, is that most MSM journalists appear quite reluctant to raise the bar for themselves.”

    Oh, I give up.

    Journalists today are much better than they were even 20 years ago. The pressure to improve, to adapt, to change with the economy and the world is intense and daily. The news is delivered faster than it ever was in the history of human civilization. The competition at the highest rungs is now not just among newspapers, but newspapers, wire services, TV, radio, and the Internet.

    Not to mention the bottom line pressures. An industry in which 18 percent profit margins are considered failure is laying off workers, and as a result news agencies are covering expanding beats with fewer people.

    And how about the way the product actually looks? Consider the revolution in news design that’s taken place almost entirely over the last 15 years: art, photo, video, page layout. All of this to give consumers a product that wouldn’t have been dreamt of 30 years ago.

    And all this from an industry with wages and benefits far below what the average college graduate expects to make.

    But, no, journalists haven’t “raised the bar” because people aren’t getting their particular grudges massaged in quite the way they’d like. Right.

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    DENNIS:

    As you know, this site defends the media as much as we attack it.

    But there are unique problems on the religion beat, as writers on the left and right have said.

    Our goal is to see the religion beat handled by veteran, skilled reporters who have tried to prepare themselves PROFESSIONALLY for the beat. Like law. Like sports. Like the arts.

    More on this in a post later in the day.

  • Dennis Colby

    TMatt:

    I wasn’t referring to the bloggers here, just responding to a comment someone made. I agree that GetReligion is a pro-journalism site, which is why I like it. I wonder, though, about other critics of the press who seem to want to tear down rather than improve.

    I have the same goal regarding religion coverage. I think the way most news outlets cover religion is a scandal, although it’s admittedly a much trickier beat than government or sports or the arts.

    Instead of addressing this with more training and specialization, though, it seems like journalism as a whole wants to keep the religion beat at arm’s length. Take the new master’s program at Columbia – you can specialize in government, arts, science or economics. I applaud that, but why limit the idea of expertise to those four categories? Does that really reflect what most readers/viewers/listeners/web-clickers care about? As an editor of mine once said, there are a lot more people in the pews on Sunday than voting in most local elections, yet every paper has reporters covering city hall.

  • Chris Bolinger

    Terry, I respect the fact that you are trying to stay balanced. I do feel, however, that some on the GR team do too much cheerleading, tossing out terms like “wonderful” and “brilliant” for articles that are, at best, average. Set the bar low and everything looks way above the bar.

    Dennis, yours is not the only intensely competitive industry under pressure to improve, to adapt, to innovate, to deliver a better product faster than ever before, and to improve the bottom line. Try working in any segment of the high tech industry…or, for that matter, just about any industry out there these days. Your wages are irrelevant; no one forced you into journalism.

    I am a prospective customer of your products. Rather than dismissing me with an arrogant tone and with untrue assumptions about what motivates my comments, try listening to me and gaining an understanding of my needs and requirements. It’s called marketing, and in today’s world it’s critical for your survival.

  • Martha

    Oh, I don’t know; I think it’s a nice little story dealt with nicely and tactfully. I don’t think Fr. Longenecker would be particularly pleased to have his ordination made the jumping off point for a “You’re all going to Hell, says Bob Jones University! No, you’re the ones going, says the Vatican!” bit of pot-stirring.

    After all, has he come out and said “I was saved from the errors of Fundamentalism by the One True Church”? No, he thanks them for the grounding in Christianity he received. Have any of the University staff made a point of rubbing it in that “Today we lost another soul to the errors of the Whore of Babylon – beware lest you too perish”? No, I’m not aware they’ve done so. Everyone, including the local paper, seems to have done their best to be gracious and generous.

    And I suspect it is precisely because it is the local paper located where the local university has had one of its graduates convert and be ordained to serve in a local parish, that it’s being so tactful. Now, if Fr. Longenecker had gone out of his way to attack Bob Jones University in his ordination sermon, or had the University taken out an ad in the paper calling for a boycott of the service, then it’d have been big news that the reporter should have gone after. But as it is, I can’t see any reason why they should have gone out of their way to raise a storm in a teacup.

  • John Matzko

    OK. Forget about the BJU connection. How about the wife and four kids? Isn’t that worth mentioning at the ordination of a Catholic priest?

  • Larry Rasczak

    Terry says “you will find many, many people out there who think we are too whiny and snarky.”

    Terry, Your NOT whiny and snarky.

    I’M whiny and snarky and YOU’RE never at the meetings!

    (Which reminds me, if you don’t start showing up they will revoke your membership card…)

    That aside John is right. I think you could do a really neat feature piece on what it is like to be one of his kids. Heck you could probably make a pretty good sit-com out of it… then again I LIKED Major Dad so I’m sort of biased.

    I think Fr. Longenecker would make for a great book subject. I’d love to read about the long strange trip he’s taken and how and why.

    And let me say, Chris is right on target.

    Those of you that wonder why folks like Chris and I don’t have a lot of respect for Journalists can go to

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_scandals

    and see why, and I don’t think Cpt. Jamail Hussein even makes the list.

    And I’m sorry Dennis but I am feeling all snarky about “And all this from an industry with wages and benefits far below what the average college graduate expects to make.”

    Lets face it, everyone likes to think their chosen profession as “a hard job”, but journalisim is not brain surgery, or crab fishing off of Alaska or being a roofer in Texas in August, or working in a sausage factory. You don’t have to pass the MCAT, or the Bar, or a P.T. Test, or Physics, or Calculus, or even Algebra 2 to do it. A near infinite number of bloggers do the same thing every day. Not all of them do it as well as the MSM, but a disturbing amount are doing it better.

    Check Six my friend.

  • Maureen

    Um… why didn’t this story mention that Longenecker has written several books? You’d think journalists would be interested in that sort of thing — kindred professions and all that.

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  • Robin Hunt

    There is an all too convenient shorthandiness to the labels with which we dress ourselves and others. As a former classmate of Dwight and David (who has spoken with Dwight but not David within the last decade), I am interested in, but not especially surprised by, the way each seeks a catholic life that embraces truth and love. Are our experiences anything but an anthology of bizarre little semi-stories of suffering and joy? Maybe the understated article with the weak headline in The Greenville News is an expression of humility—inadvertent, if not intentional—closer to the medium than the message.

    —wearing, among other attributions, those of currently lapsed PECUSAlian in Denver, Colorado (hello, tmatt) and of BJU grad while a resident of Wheaton, Illinois.