Marriage & family

Rome was warned about WHAT?

April 3, 2009 By tmatt

clergyshirt I thought I had heard everything about the deep, deep roots of the sexual abuse scandals — plural — in the Roman Catholic Church. I say “plural” because they really go back to the early 1980s and the waves of acid have been rolling in ever since.

For most news consumers, the big story today is in the New York Times, written by veteran scribe Laurie Goodstein, who has a solid reputation for getting her facts straight. However, in this case we really need to note that the key documents that are making news right now were first brought to light by the National Catholic Reporter. So click here for that report and NCR gets a big tip of the hat.

But here is the top of the story that most people are reading today:

The founder of a Roman Catholic religious order that ran retreat centers for troubled priests warned American bishops in forceful letters dating back to 1952 that pedophiles should be removed from the priesthood because they could not be cured.

The Rev. Gerald M. C. Fitzgerald, founder of the order, Servants of the Paraclete, delivered the same advice in person to Vatican officials in Rome in 1962 and to Pope Paul VI a year later, according to the letters, which were unsealed by a judge in the course of litigation against the church.

The documents contradict the most consistent defense given by bishops about the sexual abuse scandal: that they were unaware until recently that offenders could not be rehabilitated and returned to the ministry. Father Fitzgerald, who died in 1969, even made a $5,000 down payment on a Caribbean island where he planned to build an isolated retreat to sequester priests who were sexual predators. His letters show he was driven by a desire to save the church from scandal, and to save laypeople from being victimized. He wrote to dozens of bishops, saying that he had learned through experience that most of the abusers were unrepentant, manipulative and dangerous. He called them “vipers.”

There is so much that this story gets right.

For starters, it is clear that this scandal has been around a long, long time. It’s clear that there are issues linked to the spiritual and psychological treatment of these priests and that some people have been tempted to see the problem strictly in one way or the other. It’s clear that many Catholic leaders — for a variety of reasons — have been highly resistant to removing men from a sacred ministry.

At the same time, it’s clear that Fitzgerald was not a conventional messenger for this blunt, painful message. Some bishops rejected the messenger and, thus, it was easier to ignore the message. Thus, we read:

Asked why Father Fitzgerald’s advice went largely unheeded for 50 years, Bishop Blase J. Cupich of Rapid City, S.D., chairman of the United States Bishops Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People, said in a telephone interview that in the first case, cases of sexually abusive priests were considered to be rare.

Second, Bishop Cupich said of Father Fitzgerald, “His views, by and large, were considered bizarre with regard to not treating people medically, but only spiritually, and also segregating a whole population with sexual problems on a deserted island.”

By all means, wade into the lengthy quotes from the documents in the NCR piece, as well as read the rest of the Times report.

But here is my one concern. For 25 years or so, I have heard Catholic sources stress that this scandal really centers on two different problems and that bishops have — again, for many different reasons — often chosen to blur the lines between the two.

You see, “clergy sexual abuse” is a phrase that covers several different sins. When the terms are defined quite strictly, the experts draw a bright line between two different kinds of abuse. Here is how I described that several years ago in a column for Scripps Howard:

The Chicago news was full of sex, children and Roman collars.

This wasn’t part of the first national “Sins of the Fathers” furor in the mid-1980s. This was the early 1990s and the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago eventually opened its files on all 2,252 priests who had served in the previous four decades. The powers that be hunted for pedophiles and they found one.

The key word is “one.” One priest had been accused of assaulting a prepubescent child. The other allegations involved priests and sexually mature, but under-age, adolescents — mostly boys.

Here is how one expert on the left side of the Catholic spectrum — Father Donald B. Cozzens, former vicar for clergy in Cleveland and rector of a graduate seminary in Ohio — described the situation:

By definition, pedophiles are sexually attracted to boys and girls who have not reached puberty. But Cozzens said reports he has studied, and his own experience as a counselor, indicate the more common problem among Catholic clergy is “ephebophilia.” This is recurrent, intense sexual interest in post-pubescent young people — teen-agers.

The term “ephebophilia” is rarely used in church debates and the press. Yet, Cozzens said that whenever clergy vicars held conferences 90 percent of the sex-abuse cases they discussed fell into this category.

If this is the case, then I think that these news reports needed to tell us if these early warnings were truly about pedophiles — a small number of the offenders. I have heard counselors stress that they truly do not believe that pedophiles can be treated. Ever. They can only be removed from any contact with children — forever.

But what about those struggling with “ephebophilia,” the more common condition? Have some bishops assumed that ephebophiles can always be returned to ministry after “treatment,” spiritual or otherwise? Who long did it take for bishops to grasp that they were dealing with two different issues? And if newspapers do not draw any lines between these different kinds of crimes, how do readers make sense out of these stories?

Filed Under: Catholicism, Marriage & family, People, Science, Sex

No religion in Beck’s life?

April 2, 2009 By dpulliam

Sometimes the media amazes me with its ability to ignore the way religion influences people’s lives. Often the result is that religion is hinted at, suggested in an off-hand manner, or noted in an unintentionally ironic manner.

This New York Times article on conservative populist Glenn Beck is a case in point. At this point, before you read any further, please provide a guess, informed or otherwise, of the faith to which Beck publicly subscribes.

Got one?

Now consider for another moment whether that faith would be relevant in examining Beck’s view of the world based upon the perception of his television show (“preaches against politicians, hosts regular segments titled ‘Constitution Under Attack’ and ‘Economic Apocalypse,’ and occasionally breaks into tears”) and his impact on society (“he talked to experts about the possibility of global financial panic and widespread outbreaks of violence” and “the TV host may have been promoting an armed revolt”).

Apparently, Beck’s Mormon faith isn’t relevant to any of that, but there are hints of his religious faith in the profile:

He says that America is “on the road to socialism” and that “God and religion are under attack in the U.S.” He recently wondered aloud whether FEMA was setting up concentration camps, calling it a rumor that he was unable to debunk.

At the same time, though, he says he is an entertainer. “I’m a rodeo clown,” he said in an interview, adding with a coy smile, “It takes great skill.”

And like a rodeo clown, Mr. Beck incites critics to attack by dancing in front of them.

“There are absolutely historical precedents for what is happening with Beck,” said Tom Rosenstiel, the director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. “There was a lot of radio evangelism during the Depression. People were frustrated and frightened. There are a lot of scary parallels now.”

See where the subject of Beck’s faith could be explored further? A couple of spots later in the article, there are other opportunities to discuss Beck’s faith, but apparently it did not come up, or there just was not enough room:

“Let me be clear,” Mr. Beck said. “If someone tries to harm another person in the name of the Constitution or the ‘truth’ behind 9/11 or anything else, they are just as dangerous and crazy as those we don’t seem to recognize anymore, who kill in the name of Allah.” …

When it was suggested in an interview that he sometimes sounds like a preacher, he responded,
No. You’ve never met a more flawed guy than me.”

He added later: “I say on the air all time, ‘if you take what I say as gospel, you’re an idiot.’”

Those last quotes concluded the article, but there are obvious theological implications to Beck’s declaration that he is a flawed individual. As you can see in the YouTube interview that leads off this post, Beck has quite a conversion story. Ignoring it leaves a substantial portion of Beck’s life out of the conversation.

That said, I will concede that the article was less about Beck’s personal life and more about using him as an example of the populist fever that has become an issue of late. But that doesn’t mean that the (TV) leader of the populist revolt shouldn’t at least have some of his life story mentioned.

For more background on Beck’s life, see this article in GQ, which contains this interesting observation:

While he is broadly School of Limbaugh, Beck differs in striking ways. Where Limbaugh speaks of his “talent on loan from God,” Beck regularly calls himself an “alcoholic rodeo clown.” Where Limbaugh was a sanctimonious fall from grace waiting to happen, Beck wears his dysfunction on his sleeve, reveling in his past addictions and his clinically diagnosed ADD. Where Limbaugh is a lockstep Republican, Beck is a former social liberal turned libertarian conservative, a registered independent, and a devout, tithing Mormon. He has done 180s on contentious issues — from pro-choice to not, from being in favor of pulling the plug on Terry Schiavo to siding with her parents against it, from supporting George W. Bush’s handling of Iraq to seeing it as another Vietnam — and is almost as quick to fault politics itself as to go after Democrats.

Unfortunately, this article does not get that deep into his faith. But it is a start in terms of tying his conversion story into his worldview which in turn ties into the populist revolt he is perceived to be leading.

Filed Under: Catholicism, Evangelicals, Journalism, Marriage & family, Politics, Radio & TV, Religion, Social Issues, World Religions

Circumcision story with Style

April 1, 2009 By tmatt

stbasilgreatcircumcision600 So the ever snarky team at the Washington Post Style section decides to do a feature story about male circumcision.

(Cue: rim shot and cymbal splash)

It does sound like the start of one of those jokes: “So a priest, a rabbi and a televangelist walk into a hospital …” There are just so many bad puns that can be used in this circumstance, starting in the headline: “Rallying in the Name of the Unkindest Cut? Sharp Rhetoric Abounds In Circumcision Debate.”

I have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?

The good news is that reporter Dan Zak knew that there was more to this story than laugh lines. Thus, we have this excellent summary of what’s going on, as he covers a protest rally by “intactivists” at the White House:

How intactivists define circumcision: a cruel, traumatic and unnecessary surgery (the American Academy of Pediatrics says the benefits are not sufficient enough to recommend the procedure) that causes enduring sexual and psychological injury to a helpless infant who can’t give his consent.

How much of the medical community defines circumcision: a simple, nearly painless operation that removes an obsolete part of the body that can increase a man’s susceptibility to infections and sexually transmitted diseases (circumcision reduces the risk of getting HIV by 60 percent, studies show).

How religion defines circumcision: as a covenant with God, as conveyed to Abraham.

It’s a lopsided fight, but each side has doctors and lawyers. Each side has data. Each accuses the other of denial. One side is labeled as a bunch of baby-cutting sex criminals. The other is labeled as sex-obsessed, fanatical loonies who are duping the public.

Now for that bad news: if you are looking for serious content about the circumcision wars, other than about matters linked to the sexual revolution (and medical issues linked to it), then this is not the story for you. If you want puns and painful sidewalk exchanges between demonstrators and people yelling at them, then you’re in the right place.

There does seem to be an awareness that the sexual issues themselves have taken on a pseudo-religious dimension. Take this passage, which seems to jump out of nowhere, near the end of the feature:

There is, of course, a serious, disturbing side to this. Leading the pack are two 21-year-olds, Jason Siegel and Zachary Levi Balakoff, who are on Day 3 of a hunger strike. They say they won’t eat until genital mutilation is exposed. Go ahead, ask them why. They’ll tell you, for many minutes, about the “entire realms of exquisite feeling” they are missing by not having foreskins and the corresponding nerves. The “giant monstrosity” of circumcision “envelops” their entire lives.

“If we have to die, then that’s what’s necessary,” Balakoff says. They say they’ll sit in front of the Capitol until they starve.

Clearly, religion plays a major role in this culture, when it comes to mothers and fathers making decisions on this issue. Would it help to know what several major faiths — other than, obviously, Judaism — teach on this issue? Then again, it would be good to ask what Reform Judaism teaches on the subject. As you might expect, that’s a complicated question.

What are the trend lines today among Catholics? Evangelical Protestants? Mormons? The few liberal mainline Protestants who have children? How about the Muslim rites? The opposition among Buddhists and Hindus?

This is a case where the Post did dedicate quite a bit of dead tree pulp and ink to a complicated, emotional story. The reporter and the editors had enough space and could have covered the serious content, along with a few of the laugh lines. Why mention the religion angle, acknowledge its power, and then ignore the relevant facts?

Then again, if sex is a religion for many modern Americans, then the story is fine and no cuts or surgery is required.

Illustration: The icon of the feast of the circumcision of Jesus.

Filed Under: Catholicism, Evangelicals, Judaism, Marriage & family, People, Religion, Science

Newt swims the Tiber

April 1, 2009 By mollie

So former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was received into the Roman Catholic Church this past weekend. He had been Baptist. For most people, conversion isn’t exactly a political event. But when you’re a prominent Republican whose name is being mentioned as a possible future candidate for President, well, everything is political.

Much of the coverage has centered around what this conversion means for his political future. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that it’s difficult to pursue the story on many other levels — Gingrich hasn’t been giving interviews about his conversion, as Dan Gilgoff at U.S. News & World Report notes.

Katharine Seelye had a mostly straightforward report about the conversion for the New York Times‘ The Caucus blog:

Mr. Gingrich was confirmed into the church on Sunday at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church on Capitol Hill and celebrated that night, according to The Hill, with friends at Cafe Milano, one of Washington’s most insider-y dining establishments. His guests included Cardinal McCarrick, the retired Cardinal of Washington.

On the occasion of Mr. Gingrich’s conversion, the Daily Beast listed a dozen other notable converts to Catholicism. They include Jeb Bush and Nicole Kidman. Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, converted to Catholicism in December 2007, facing too many political difficulties of trying to do so while he was prime minister.

Things are a bit different in the United States, of course. While Britain has never had a Catholic P.M., the United States has had a Catholic president. Still, being Catholic can complicate a political career: John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004 and a Catholic, was threatened by some bishops with excommunication because of his support for abortion rights.

Um, I don’t have the best memory but I feel like I would remember if Kerry was threatened by some bishops with excommunication. I suspect that Seelye doesn’t understand the difference between excommunication and Catholic teaching about who should and should not receive communion. It was that latter point that various bishops weighed in on, considering Kerry’s support for abortion rights was in conflict with church teaching on the sanctity of human life.

The blog post goes on to discuss the political ramifications of Gingrich’s conversion. Most other coverage was of the bloggy variety. It was a bit snarky. The most mean-spirited punditry had to come from Christopher Buckley.

Much of the punditry and blog reports seemed confused about whether Catholicism requires all converts to have lived perfect lives prior to their conversion, much less after! There was lots of evidence confusion about how Gingrich, thrice married, could be received into a church that forbids divorce. I’m always amazed at how little the mainstream media and popular culture understand what Christians believe about sin. Yes, they think divorce, adultery, lying, gossiping, etc. are bad. They also believe in something called forgiveness. This is, in fact, the much more important part of the equation. Christians believe that God forgives sin.

To that end, I was appreciative that this Los Angeles Times blog post — cribbing from the Daily Beast — examined the issue of past marriages, sin and forgiveness:

The twice-divorced Gingrich, who has confessed to previous marital infidelities, converted to the faith of his third wife, Calista Bisek. And politicos are already speculating that the conversion will help shore up his position with values voters as he contemplates another race for the presidency in 2012.

Deal Hudson, who founded the Catholic magazine Crisis and advised George W. Bush’s political guru Karl Rove, argues that the Gingrich’s conversion represents a personal and political cleansing.

“From a Catholic point of view,” Hudson told the Daily Beast’s Max Blumenthal, “Newt’s sins no longer exist — they’ve been absolved. He’s made a fresh start in life. So Newt will continue to sin and confess but there aren’t going to be a lot of Catholics who will hold that against him. They understand why being a Catholic makes a difference.”

Our final Gingrich selection comes from Betsy Rothstein at The Hill. In a gossipy item about the conversion, she ends with this quote from Former Rep. Vin Weber, now a lobbyist at Clark & Weinstock:

Becoming Catholic isn’t simple.

“It’s harder than becoming a Lutheran or a Methodist,” said Weber. “You go through several months of preparation — it’s not like joining a country club.”

Now I don’t know how anyone from Minnesota could know so little about Lutherans but at my Lutheran congregation and every Lutheran congregation I’ve been a member of, there’s no set amount of time that one must be catechized before reception into the faith or communion. But the minimum is “several months.” For my husband, it took years from start to finish. From his first visit to our church to baptism was at least four or five years. And the last two or three years were spent in regular catechesis. Our pastor teaches ongoing catechesis classes for interested parties and individualized instruction as well.

Catechumens are taught the key accounts and teachings of Scripture, the “whats” and “whys” of liturgical worship, Christ-centered prayer, church history and the basics of the Small and Large Catechisms. And at the end, you’re not guaranteed membership. If our pastor determines that the candidate has learned the chief parts of the Christian faith and is able and and willing to confess them; if the catechumen has shown a desire to worship God and receive the sacraments and has given evidence of faithful participation in the Divine Service; and if the catechumen demonstrates the desire to renounce his or her sin and live as a Christian — then he or she may become a member. My church might do things differently than other Lutheran churches but such catechesis is the norm for reception into traditional, sacramental, liturgical churches.

Now, reporters can’t be responsible for all the misstatements of their sources but there’s an obligation to balance out the “country club” slur.

Filed Under: Catholicism, Evangelicals, Godbeat, Journalism, Mainline, Marriage & family, People, Politics, Social Issues, Worship

Quinn Bradlee’s archangel

March 31, 2009 By Douglas LeBlanc

We’ve been tough on Sally Quinn here at GetReligion, and there’s no need to revisit those disputes today. Instead, I want to enjoy a tribute to Quinn by her only son as he describes what it’s like to live with Velo-Cardio-Facial Syndrome.

In the March 30 edition of Newsweek, Quinn Bradlee writes of his love for both his parents, but also of his desire to be less dependent on them. He even uses, well, religious imagery to describe his mother’s fierce commitment to him:

… pretty soon after I was born, my doctor detected a heart murmur, and when I was about three months old, I had to have open-heart surgery. I think this was a pretty crappy time for my parents. They thought I might die, and I could have died. My mom says the night before my heart operation was one of the worst nights of her life. She wasn’t allowed to nurse me. She could barely even hold me. When they took me into the operating room the next day, she basically fainted.

… She’s a very powerful woman. She’s like a bulldog, or a lioness. You don’t want to mess with her. She has controlled a lot of my life. Sometimes I’m angry about that, because I feel I’m in the passenger seat of the car and I have to ride wherever the driver wants me to go. Sometimes I feel as if I have no freedom.

But there is a flip side to everything. And there is truth in everything that we say. I couldn’t have lived without my mom. She’s saved my ass a million times. She has been like an archangel to me. She had the wings that I didn’t. And she’s basically carried me everywhere I’ve been.

Ms. Quinn does not need to hear this from me, but I am glad to write it anyway: Well done.

Filed Under: Marriage & family, People

Mate selection and religion

March 31, 2009 By dpulliam

Houston Chronicle readers were introduced last week to the fact that a first generation Pakistani Muslim woman has values and preferences for a life mate that look an awful lot like a lot of Christian American women. She also faces a lot of the challenges all Americans face in general in finding a suitable life partner.

But one wouldn’t necessarily know that from reading the article because it attempts to introduce the reader to Pakistani-Islamic traditions while at the same time showing us that the article’s subject is different from that tradition. But the mate selection process used by the article’s subject is still different from what we’re supposed to believe is practiced in the American tradition. Is it really though?

I am also not so thrilled by the article’s headline:

Muslim woman tries to avoid the life of a spinster

The headline’s use of the term spinster is clearly a pejorative term that connotes an attempt to avoid degradation and disapproval by society by maintaining single-status beyond the time that society believes is appropriate. And with the woman portrayed in the article at the age of 30, the article attempts to show that her societal view — based on Islamic and Pakistani traditions — is so obviously different from the larger American society in which she now lives:

You see, Ali is 30 years old. And for a first-generation American with family and faith roots in Pakistan and Islam, 30 is not the new 20 when it comes to matters of marriage.

“In our culture women are expected to be married by their mid-20s,” said Mona Baig, Ali’s childhood friend — her married childhood friend.

“In American culture, being single at 30 is no big deal, so by those standards she’s on the right track,” Baig added.

Ali’s tracks to marriage have gotten a bit crossed. Like many young first-generation South Asian-Americans, Ali is committed to marrying within the traditions of Islam. But it’s a tradition twisted for the life of a bright, witty, supersocial Sugar Land resident with her own business.

The challenge this article presents is its attempt to define American culture as opposed to Ali’s efforts to remain within her culture. Instead of attempting to portray Ali’s attempt to straddle American and South Asian cultural traditions as somehow different or unique, a better approach would have been portray Ali’s efforts to find a life mate as exactly what many human beings do regardless of the specifics of their religious background or the culture in which they live:

For example, Ali doesn’t date. She doesn’t get gussied up for sexy evenings of dinner and dancing to meet potential mates.

But Ali’s parents also won’t choose her husband. She expects to find him herself, with the knowledge and blessings of the two families, of course.

The setup is more an “assisted” than an “arranged” marriage, Ali said.

Until the right level of assistance meets Mr. Right, Ali must be courted.

She knows what she wants and is not afraid to be upfront about it.

Hanging out is fine; getting physical is not. She is clear from the get-go that the goal is marriage.

“It’s kind of old-fashioned, where suitors used to come to people’s homes and take the women for a walk in the garden,” she said.

Ali’s approach is not that far off from many women in the United States of Christian or Mormon faith. And regardless of faith, I’m sure there are non-religious individuals out there that prefer a similar no-nonsense process for finding a life mate.

A few paragraphs later the article states that “Ali doesn’t bear the battle scars of dating American-style” such as the lack of “drunken first dates or bad breakups and certainly no walk of shame” but why is that the definitive style of American dating? That’s certainly a popular portrayal of it, particularly in Hollywood and the stereotypical impression many have of secular American college campuses. But that doesn’t mean it’s the rule for “American-style” dating. This also implies that the only way for attractive, intelligent, successful women in America to find spouses is to go on drunken first dates, experience bad breakups and experience the “walk of shame.” Really?

In general, the article treats religion and Ali’s religious faith as a cultural backdrop that suggests many of the stereotypes that inform American impressions of Muslim-Americans. Ali’s approach to life and dating is portrayed in some nuisance, but only in the sense that it is different from those stereotypes:

Ali’s tale of heartbreak concerns a love who caved when his parents demanded he call it off so he could marry a woman from their hometown in Pakistan.

Her dream guy is worldly and educated, he appreciates different cultures, and he possesses wit and humor to rival hers.

“I’m looking for a best friend, someone I can click with, I can hang out with all the time,” Ali said.

I would have liked to know more about what it means for Ali to marry “within the traditions of Islam” beyond the fact that the man would have to be of the Islamic faith.

Another aspect the article fails to address is divorce and Americans’ relatively high rate of the practice. Some interesting comparisons would be whether divorce rates — or the functional equivalent — have any statistical comparison between the United States and Pakistan.

Filed Under: Evangelicals, Islam, Journalism, Marriage & family, Politics, Religion, Sex, Social Issues, World

Got news? State Department edition

March 28, 2009 By mollie

virgen_de_guadalupe2 I thought I’d wait to write this post until I saw mainstream media coverage of one particular aspect of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. And then, thousands of stories about the visit to Mexico later, I realized that the press wasn’t going to be covering it.

Which, assuming this story is true, says a lot about the media. Here’s how Catholic News Agency reported the most recent diplomatic gaffe:

During her recent visit to Mexico, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an unexpected stop at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and left a bouquet of white flowers “on behalf of the American people,” after asking who painted the famous image.

You can read more about Guadalupe here, but Roman Catholics believe that the beautiful image was miraculously imprinted on the cloak of a 16th-century peasant. It is Mexico’s most popular and important religious image and the basilica that houses it is the second-most popular Catholic shrine in the world.

Here are the details of the exchange:

Msgr. Monroy took Mrs. Clinton to the famous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which had been previously lowered from its usual altar for the occasion.

After observing it for a while, Mrs. Clinton asked “who painted it?” to which Msgr. Monroy responded “God!”

Now, it’s one thing to not know what the Catholic Church teaches about Guadalupe. But it’s another for the State Department not to have briefed Clinton prior to her visit. Of course, those are political considerations.

Here’s what I’m wondering: Why was this story not deemed newsworthy? I’m sure some people would say that it’s just bias — that if, say, a Bush Administration official had said it, we’d be hearing all about it. I’m not sure. I suspect that it’s more likely we’re seeing the media’s ignorance of Mexico’s religious heritage and her most important religious picture.

The reader who sent this story in thought the faux pas was certainly worthy of at least a line or two in coverage of the visit. I agree.

This being Catholic News Agency, it’s also worth noting how the story ended:

This evening Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to receive the highest award given by Planned Parenthood Federation of America — the Margaret Sanger Award, named for the organization’s founder, a noted eugenicist. The award will be presented at a gala event in Houston, Texas.

You can read more mainstream media coverage of that award here. It doesn’t look like Sanger’s controversial views were deemed worthy of mention.

Image via Wikimedia commons.

Filed Under: Catholicism, Godbeat, Got news?, Journalism, Marriage & family, People, Politics, World, Worship

Got news? The space between

March 27, 2009 By pastorliz

On Tueday, March 24, leaders in the American anti-abortion movement met with Joshua Dubois, Executive Director of the White House Faith-Based Office to discuss two of that office’s goals.

You’d think that this would be news, wouldn’t you? After all, the Faith-Based Office is staffed by a 26-year old former pastor with the mission of strenghtening ties between the White House and faith communities in arenas that include abortion reduction and encouraging responsible parenthood.

Well, it is news–everywhere (apparently) but in the mainstream press. Initiated by anti-abortion leaders, the projected White House conversation was noted on the Christian Post website.

Here’s part of what CNS (Cybercast News Service) had to say about the meeting before it occured:

“We hope to start a dialogue with the White House faith-based office,” CWA President Wendy Wright told CNSNews.com. “The faith-based office has been reformulated to now have a new mandate, which included reducing the number of abortions and focusing on fatherhood.”

On Feb. 5, when Obama unveiled his faith-based office — an office started during the Bush administration — the new president said the priorities would be to “support women and children, address teenage pregnancy and reduce the need for abortion,” among other priorities addressing poverty.

On the “Brody Blog” David Brody of CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network) has a partial transcription of an interview he did with Wright after the meeting, which she termed an “honest” one. Last night MSNBC’s liberal muckraker Rachel Maddow commented on the meeting in her inimitable Maddow style (see video above). Heck, even the lion of the left, Mother Jones, had something to say.

Kudos to the NPR show “Tell Me More, by the way, for doing a really good interview with Wendy Wright and Religion News Service’s Kevin Eckstrom on this topic today.

To strike a note heard before on GetReligion-what makes a story “conservative news?” What makes it “liberal news?” And why, if it seems worthwhile for media from both “wings” to report on an unfolding story, isn’t it being covered by beat journalists with an ear for the political and religious implications?

I’m reminded of a recent column by the New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof. In the “The Daily Me” Kristof talks about our increasing tendency, with the disappearance of many mainstream media outlets and the ascent of blogs and other sources, to seek out news that reinforces how we think about the world already. But what other option does one have when the MSM don’t cover a story that many of the partisan and denominational outlets consider to be real news?

Whatever you think of their opinions, this time, the reporters on either side of the conservative-liberal divide made the right choice–and, by and large, the mainstream media missed out. Readers will just have to fill in the quotes, the context and the information that form the “space betweeen.”