Waiting for death with an expert

March 3, 2009 By

column_temple_artemis_ephesos_bm_sc1206_n33One would think it might be a challenge to write about the subject of death and dying without discussing religion and faith. Of course, the absence of religion or faith in the subjects’ lives could limit the range or scope of the discussion. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t part of the story.

That seems to be the case in this excellent Los Angeles Times piece by Thomas Curwen on “Waiting for death, alone and unafraid,” as the headline states. The article profiles Edwin Shneidman, a well-known expert in the area of suicide and the death of human beings, as he waits to die.

The article is timely for a couple of reasons. The state of Washington recently made effective a new law on assisted suicide. News organizations are responding by researching the subject that the LAT article points out that people don’t experience their own death, but rather, they experience others’ death. I think it’s fair to classify that as an opinion, depending on one’s perspective of life and death issues.

The science of death and dying is a huge part of the story, but so is religion. Early in the Shneidman profile there is a hint of religion and faith, but that’s about it:

Edwin Shneidman looks at the clock — an hour and a half since turning off the TV and closing his eyes.

“Mrs. Wiggles,” he shouts. He knows that that’s not her name, but he likes the joke.

Sitting in another room, Pauline Dupuy turns down the CD player and puts her Bible and crossword aside. She stands and walks down the hall into his room.

This brief mention of the Bible is interesting because Shneidman is Jewish. One can only speculate though what type of Bible Dupuy (one of Edwin Shneidman’s caregiver) had with her crossword puzzle.

Later in the article, Vernette Elijio, another caregiver, helps readers understand more about Edwin Shneidman’s view on religion and faith, but it’s almost an incidental part of the story:

The meaning of death is loss and sadness and inevitability. On the wall above the bed, he has hung a print by Breughel that covers a crack in the plaster. Here an army of skeletons wages war against humanity, and compared to the Chagall overhead, it’s a bleak and macabre picture of the final hour that without angels or signs of salvation is unremittingly godless.

The other day Vernette said he was blessed. True enough, he thought, but not quite right, not blessed. On a napkin on the TV tray he scribbled down the Greek prefix, eu, for good, and then through association and sound, fell upon doria. This is what he does. He coins words, and this would be the word for his good fortune. Eudoria. He spoke it out loud: gratitude without an object, no one to credit, no one to thank. No Jesus, no Yahweh, Muhammad, Vishnu or Buddha.

Because he believes life isn’t contingent upon a god or upon prayers. There is no heaven, no hell. Happiness lies in the here and now and the satisfaction of living a good life without religion or myth to guide you. He takes nothing away from others’ beliefs. He just prefers “Moby-Dick” to the Bible.

Death is quite simple. Life is more mysterious, and he never tires of its wonderments: How he — a Jew at that — survived the war, how he and a girl from the corn country of Illinois fell in love and married and had four children and such a long and happy life.

Yes, religion likely won’t ever headline a story like this, but I believe the level of attention it received is appropriate. It does raise the interesting point that religion is almost obligatory in a story about death and dying, even if the subject wants nothing to do with faith or a belief in a life of some sort after death. Perhaps that is responding to the readers’ desire to know, or just something innate about human nature. Either way, I’m glad it came up here because it gives us a fuller understanding about a fairly significant individual at a captivating point in his life.

Image of Thanatos, a personification of death and mortality in Greek mythology, used under a Wikimedia Commons license.

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Filed Under: Film, Journalism, Judaism, Marriage & family, People, Religion, Science, Social Issues

The haunting of Britney’s soul

March 3, 2009 By

britney-spears-circusThe Divine MZ and I have decided to go shallow, for a day, in a blatant attempt to appeal to search engines.

All jesting aside, I have always been interested — in a trying not to stare at a train wreck fashion — with the role of faith and moral issues in the career of Britney Spears. I mean, she starts out as a Southern Baptist kid with stars in her eyes, veers into sexy teen-ager mode (very early on, if her mother is to be believed), tries to maintain some sense of Middle-American shine into her early MTV stardom, veers into bi-Madonna Kabbalah land and then blasts off into her current reign as a tabloid goddess. She even made a quick, tearful walk down the born-again aisle with her mother — in front of cameras, naturally — in a Bible church in Inglewood, Calif.

All of which only adds to the sad tone of that recent Los Angeles Times coverage of her father’s attempts to keep her somewhere near the straight and narrow. I kept wondering if the reporter was going to make any references to faith and morality in this soap opera, but it never happened.

But there are ghosts in the story, for sure. Check out the top of Harriet Ryan’s report:

Entering his second hour on the witness stand, Britney Spears’ father was the picture of resigned misery. His shoulders sagged like he was carrying buckets of cement. His suit jacket flapped open and his tie lay crookedly across his barrel chest. His eyes were puffy and cast down and his mouth drooped in the pronounced frown of a bulldog.

James Spears, a Louisiana native known everywhere but the courthouse as Jamie, earned his living as a cook until 13 months ago when his famous daughter was confined to a hospital psychiatric ward for the second time. A judge set up a conservatorship that gave him control of virtually every aspect of the singer’s personal life as well as shared oversight of her business interests, an empire of music and marketing worth tens of millions.

And you know what is coming:

The well of revelations about Spears is never dry. No gossip blog cycle is complete without the purported inside scoop about Britney. The performer herself gave an extensive interview about her troubles to MTV late last year, and her mother, Lynne, who is divorced from Jamie, published a tell-all memoir a few months before that. But in a windowless courtroom, a realm of harsh lights, unavoidable questions and real consequences, Jamie Spears’ halting testimony conjured a picture of his daughter that lacked the polish of a book and the tawdriness of a supermarket tabloid.

Although his demeanor on the witness stand conveyed a desire to be anywhere else, the proceeding underway in Judge Aviva Bobb’s courtroom … comes at the insistence of Jamie Spears and a team of attorneys representing him and his daughter’s estate. He is seeking restraining orders against three men who he says are trying to undermine significant improvements to his daughter’s mental and physical health. But in his testimony, he suggested he was also battling the performer herself.

small-tmzvideochurchOn one level, this is the story of the devils in Britney’s mobile phone — in the persons of her former aide Osama Lutfi and her ex-boyfriend Adnan Ghalib. It’s a quick leap from a secret text message to a hook-up with her world of clubs, booze and drugs, all in front of the usual army of paparazzi.

Can you say “restraining orders”? I knew that you could.

At the same time, it’s hard to talk about defamation of character when there is some question who, precisely, in this tale has any character left.

Sad, sad, sad. You have to ask, at some point, if Britney’s talent is some kind of curse. Some might ask if she is mentally ill. Others might turn that question in a spiritual direction.

But, hey! What about the new album? She’ll need to tour, right?

Lutfi has suggested that Britney Spears’ parents do not have her best interests at heart, and his attorney appeared to echo those charges by asking her father several questions about whether his daughter was mentally fit enough to go on a planned tour to promote her new record. Jamie Spears acknowledged that his daughter was confused “sometimes,” but said she is ready to perform onstage.

Millions will watch, of course. Lord, have mercy.

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Filed Under: Evangelicals, Marriage & family, Music, People, Pop Culture

Explaining facts and their significance

March 2, 2009 By

25146683A few months ago we looked at media coverage of the promulgation of a Bush administration rule dealing with the legal right of health care professionals to practice according to their consciences. Health care professionals who work at organizations that receive funding from the federal government have been protected from being forced to perform abortions since the 1970s. This rule — which costs “only” $44 million to implement — is about making sure those protections are enforced since some medical organizations and societies have penalized or were planning to penalize medical professionals who objected to various abortion-related procedures.

I think it’s safe to say that this distinction hasn’t been made clear in much media coverage — when the Bush rule was proposed last August, when it was finalized in December or . . . now.

It’s back in the news because the administration of President Barack Obama announced its plan to rescind the rule. The Los Angeles Times broke the story on Friday. It began with the perspective of the Obama administration but tried to get the perspective of defenders of the regulation as well. Here’s how the story ended:

In promulgating the rule last year, then-Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said it was necessary to address discrimination in the medical field.

Leavitt criticized “the development of an environment in the healthcare field that is intolerant of individual conscience, certain religious beliefs, ethnic and cultural traditions, and moral convictions.”

But critics complained the language of the rule is overly broad, covering any “activity related in any way to providing medicine, healthcare and other service relative to health and welfare.”

Obama officials said the administration’s goal is to make the rule clearer rather than force doctors to provide abortions.

“The Bush provider-refusal regulation has created confusion about the scope and original intent of the law,” one official said.

“It went into effect in the last days of the Bush administration, claiming to bring clarity to current law. But instead it created much confusion. . . .

“Not only does it potentially make it harder for women to get the care they need, but it is worded so vaguely, that some have argued it could limit counseling, family planning, even blood transfusions and end-of-life care.”

This perspective of Obama officials — always anonymous — was included in most every story. I wish it had been fleshed out a bit more. Would the Bush rule protect Catholic doctors at federally-funded facilities who have conscientious objections to prescribing birth control? Would Obama officials really oppose job protections for such doctors working at federally-funded facilities? Many stories described these two perspectives but didn’t quite get past the dueling sides talking points and spin. It left me confused. Also, how in the heck would blood transfusions and end-of-life care be involved in this discussion? If you’re going to quote someone making that claim, could you at least explain what in the heck they’re talking about and whether it is reasonable? NPR‘s story had similar problems to the Times story, albeit with less balance.

Bloomberg reported a more narrow disagreement — dealing solely with provision of abortions or assistance in providing abortions. It also made clear that the rule dealt with groups that take federal funds.

Here’s the Associated Press. CNN.com had a rather one-sided account. The New York Times piece was much more interesting and included the best religion angle:

The rule prohibits recipients of federal money from discriminating against doctors, nurses and other health care workers who refuse to perform or assist in abortions or sterilization procedures because of their “religious beliefs or moral convictions.” Its supporters included the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Catholic Health Association, which represents Catholic hospitals.

In praising the Bush administration last fall, Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, said that in recent years “we have seen a variety of efforts to force Catholic and other health care providers to perform or refer for abortions and sterilizations.”

The New York Times story also explained opponents’ objections in greater detail! It said that some opponents said the rule could have voided state laws that require insurance companies to cover contraceptives and, for rape victims, drugs that prevent implantation of embryos. Others said that the rule could allow drugstore employees to refuse to fill contraception prescriptions. I wonder if this means that there are federally-funded drug stores or how such a claim could be made. Finally, some opponents say the rule isn’t needed because it’s duplicative. Not a bad story.

But I really thought Rob Stein’s write-up for the Washington Post advanced the story better than anything else. He included all the same details that everyone else did but wrote a story that was so much more interesting (even if he still uses the annoying scare quotes around “conscience”):

The administration’s plans, revealed quietly with a terse posting on a federal Web site, unleashed a flood of heated reaction, with supporters praising the proposal as a crucial victory for women’s health and reproductive rights, and opponents condemning it as a devastating setback for freedom of religion.

Perhaps most tellingly, the move drew deep disappointment from some conservatives who have been hopeful about working with the administration to try to defuse the debate on abortion, long one of the most divisive political issues.

“This is going to be a political hit for the administration,” said Joel Hunter, senior pastor of the Northland Church in Longwood, Fla., whom Obama recently named to his Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. “This will be one of those things that kind of says, ‘I knew it. They talk about common ground, but really what they want is their own way.’”

Exactly. It’s not terribly surprising that abortion rights supporters are pleased with Obama’s move and that the rule’s supporters think it’s an abomination — we’re used to those sides of the debate lining up exactly as they are. But the big story with Obama has been that he’s drawn support from some pro-lifers. How do they feel? Particularly since this isn’t he first abortion-related decision to go completely against their wishes?

Stein gets plenty of perspective from all sides and even lets sources go back and forth a bit. He ends with a discussion about whether compromise is possible. A woman with a progressive group says another rule could be promulgated that protects some conscience objections but doesn’t give medical professionals the right to opt out of contraception work, the Rev. Frank Page notes that some health-care workers have conscience objections to providing pills that prevent implantation of embryos, and it ends with a liberal woman saying compromise isn’t something her group would support anyway. It may not be hopeful but it’s definitely interesting and a more full discussion.

As a reporter, I tend to write stories with “just the facts, ma’am.” I’ve had more than a few editors ask me “so what?” or “why should general readers care?” Stein did a great job of answering those questions while also laying the facts out. Good work.

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Filed Under: Catholicism, Evangelicals, Journalism, Marriage & family, Politics, Social Issues

James Dobson, leader of what?

February 28, 2009 By

01dobsonAs you would imagine, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the Rocky Mountain News the past week, especially once the final word came down on the shutdown of the newspaper where I worked during most of the 1980s. I still have lots of friends out there and, of course, that is also the paper that the Divine Ms. MZ Hemingway grew up reading, as well. Lots of memories.

Then the announcement came out that Dr. James Dobson was taking another step away from the controls at Focus on the Family, which called to mind an especially powerful memory from my Rocky days.

There was a stretch in the 1980s when Colorado Springs — really quick — turned into “Wheaton of the West,” a phrase I used in a column early on that I really wish I had copyrighted. Every month or so, some new group arrived at the base of Pikes Peak. Try to imagine what would have happened if Campus Crusade for Christ had settled there, too.

Anyway, I’m sitting at my desk one day and a member of the business-page staff walked up and asked: “Hey, there’s some organization moving to Colorado Springs called Focus on the Family. Is that worth a brief?”

I almost fell out of my chair. I told her that this might be one of the biggest Colorado news stories of the late 20th century.

The response: No way. You see, none of the editors had ever heard of Focus on the Family. That was a niche radio show and published empire that was not on their radar screen.

Well, Dobson showed up and things changed. These days, most journalists have even realized that he is not an ordained minister!

Now, the mainstream media is trying to describe why it is so important that Dobson is — kind of — moving away from center stage in American political and cultural life. The best lede is at the Washington Post:

James Dobson, a child psychologist who became a leader of the religious right, announced yesterday he was stepping down as board chairman of Focus on the Family, the megaministry he and his wife started 32 years ago.

Dobson, 72, had ceded the position of president and chief executive six years ago, and there have been ongoing discussions among the organization’s leadership about how to keep the Colorado Springs-based ministry and its popular radio show relevant to younger evangelicals. Dobson had already pulled back from most administrative duties, although he will continue to host the show, which reaches 1.5 million Americans daily, and write a newsletter that goes to 1.6 million people each month.

Note the emphasis on the “megaministry.” Now, compare that with the Los Angeles Times lede, which way overstates the situation:

James Dobson is stepping down as chairman of Focus on the Family, the conservative religious group announced Friday — a change that comes as the political movement Dobson has long embodied has been torn by questions over its direction and priorities.

Now wait a minute. Dobson embodies a “political” movement? What would that be? The religious right? Maybe, not not really. There are too many generals in front of that army for that to be true. Moral and cultural conservatism? No way. Traditional Catholics and Orthodox Jews out there. Raise your hands if Dobson ever spoke for you. Ditto for you charismatics and lots of you Southern Baptists.

If Dobson embodied anything, it was Focus on the Family, an organization that has waded into moral and cultural issues and frequently into politics. However, it must be emphasized that it began as a ministry truly rooted in marriage and family issues and, once upon a time, Focus materials were used in a wide range of sanctuaries — from old, mainline Protestant churches to evangelical megachurches to some Catholic parishes. His influence grew larger, as the years went by, but his reach also became more narrow.

jamescdobsonjpgThere is no way that Dobson was the leader of the religious right, let alone of the world of moral and cultural conservatism. He was powerful, but not that powerful.

This sets up the main problem that I had with the MSM Dobson coverage, which is this idea that the white “evangelical (whatever that means) vote (whatever that is)” is somehow splintering and that social and moral issues are losing their power. It is true that the Democrats have made some gains among conservative religious believers, but those gains have been small and the Democratic establishment has also allowed some culturally conservative candidates to run in key corners of the Sunbelt. It’s also true that many evangelicals are interested in a broader range of issues these days (a trend I started seeing in the mid-1980s, as more evangelicals began to work with Catholic activists).

But look at this language from the Los Angeles Times, which cannot seem to grasp that evangelicals can pursue a broader agenda without giving up 2,000 years of Christian doctrine on basic moral issues.

We are told that Dobson’s move:

… comes as U.S. evangelicals are reconsidering their movement’s tie to the Republican Party and to wedge issues like same-sex marriage that Dobson has long emphasized.

“It’s very symbolic, the handing off of evangelical leadership to the next generation, whoever that may be,” said the Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland church in Orlando, Fla.

Dobson initially opposed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for president but grudgingly backed the eventual nominee against Democrat Barack Obama, whom Dobson sharply criticized. Other evangelical leaders, such as Hunter, who offered the benediction at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, have been less confrontational with Obama and are shifting their focus to issues like global warming and combating poverty.

Who agrees with that assessment? Primarily voices on the religious left. Ask Hunter if he is “shifting his focus” away from the sanctity of human life. Ask him if his emphasis on the environment is actually part of his beliefs on the right to life. Please, ask.

It is certainly accurate to say that Dobson’s retirement is a symbolic moment. But it’s a symbolic moment for Focus on the Family and its supporters, not for some mythical, united evangelical movement that has never existed. And if reporters are actually interested in the political implications of traditional faith, then that’s a subject much, much, much broader than the life and work of Dobson.

Come on, do your homework, people.

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Filed Under: Creeping Fundamentalism, Evangelicals, Marriage & family, People, Politics, Radio & TV, Social Issues

Less porn, more math

February 28, 2009 By

math-doesnt-suck-from-danicas-siteBecause my background is in economics and not religion or media, the media malpractice that gets me worked up the most usually involves numbers. No matter which newsroom I’ve worked in, the presence of numbers or numerical analysis seems to make journalists lose any brainpower. You should see what it’s like when reporters try to analyze polling data or governmental budgets. It’s just not pretty.

A reader sent along a story about a new nationwide study about porn usage. The story appears in the New Scientist. I have to be honest, if this story is any indication, that name must be satirical. There is literally nothing scientific about the report, headlined “Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers.”

There is literally not one scintilla of evidence to back up the claim, written by reporter Ewen Callaway. I’m not saying conservatives aren’t the biggest consumers of porn. I’m just saying that there is nothing in the story to substantiate that they are. Maybe new science is about making stuff up?

The story begins by quoting the study’s author Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business School noting that there is little variation across the nation when it comes to consumption of on-line porn. And yet . . .:

However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds.

“Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by,” Edelman says.

Um, this is your first clue that something is amiss. The data groups consumers by “states” and yet we then extrapolate based on anonymous credit card receipts that people who are outraged by porn are consuming it?

How do I explain to Edelman and Callaway that states are places where many people live and that in each state there are variations in behavior in attitudes? You can, say, live in a state that has legalized marijuana usage for medicinal purposes because a majority of voters supported that. And yet you can also oppose marijuana for any use. You can, say, live in a state that voted for President Barack Obama and yet not have voted or not have voted for him. See how that works? This seems like such an unbelievably obvious point to make and yet look at how the story lumps millions of people together as if they are all lock-step voters:

The biggest consumer, Utah, averaged 5.47 adult content subscriptions per 1000 home broadband users; Montana bought the least with 1.92 per 1000. “The differences here are not so stark,” Edelman says.

Number 10 on the list was West Virginia at 2.94 subscriptions per 1000, while number 41, Michigan, averaged 2.32.

Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year’s presidential election – Florida and Hawaii were the exceptions. While six out of the lowest 10 favoured Barack Obama.

I don’t if Callaway or Edelman — or both — are to blame for the idiocy of the above three paragraphs. But someone needs to explain to people that these numbers don’t mean a thing.

I mean, is the Utah number so high because some high number of repressed Mormons are logging on to some cheesy porn site? Or is it so high because all of the non-Mormons use porn as an outlet in their private time because the state is so pious otherwise? Or is it some altogether different explanation related to, say, gender ratios? We have literally no idea because Edelman didn’t have data that would even come close to answering that question.

Are John McCain voters obsessed with porn? Or are Barack Obama voters who are marginalized in Red States seeking comfort from porn? We have, again, literally no idea. To infer otherwise is nothing less than lying. And it’s not just inference, if you recall that headline.

And then check out this:

Church-goers bought less online porn on Sundays — a 1% increase in a postal code’s religious attendance was associated with a 0.1% drop in subscriptions that day. However, expenditures on other days of the week brought them in line with the rest of the country, Edelman finds.

Residents of 27 states that passed laws banning gay marriages boasted 11% more porn subscribers than states that don’t explicitly restrict gay marriage.

That first line can not be known from the data. Church-goers may buy more porn on Sundays, they may buy less. We don’t know because the data set that Edelman was using didn’t identify individuals by their church attendance. Are 100 percent of the people in postal codes with increased religious attendance going to church? Obviously not. So how do we know which percentage of the churchgoers are in his credit card data and which percentage of non-churchgoers are in his credit card data? We don’t know. We just don’t know. To say otherwise is hackery.

Now there have been studies that ask INDIVIDUALS (as opposed to, um, STATES) about their porn usage and various other sex-related questions. And when it comes to INDIVIDUALS (as opposed to, again, STATES), 60 percent more Democrats than Republicans report having watched at least one porno in the last year. That was from the 2006 General Social Survey. While there’s no breakdown for conservative versus liberal, it does seem to contradict the claims by the New Scientist and Edelman. And it has the bonus of being data-driven as opposed to existing solely in the fevered imaginations and poorly-done statistical analysis of two individuals!

I read the study and it really is shocking that an assistant professor of business administration at Harvard University could be so clueless about what his data showed. I fear for the state of higher education. But whether or not a professor tries to make data say something it doesn’t even come close to saying, reporters should remember that their job is not to be so gullible. As news coverage spreads, hopefully reporters won’t fear or reject statistical analysis as much as Callaway. It’s not looking good thus far.

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Filed Under: Academia, Journalism, Marriage & family, People, Science, Sex

A guy’s guy goes recruiting

February 26, 2009 By

saint_patricks_cathedralI’ve been out of the loop for a day or two, so let me jump back in with a comment or two about the ongoing coverage of the new pope of the United States of America — the unofficial title that many pin on the man who wears a red hat in New York City.

It’s obvious that the leaders of the New York Times must, their roles as priests at the Alpha Newspaper atop the mainstream media food chain, work out a template for this guy. He cannot go away, so the editors must make sense of him. They must find the appropriate label, so that they know how to cover him. They have to tell people who he is.

As regular GetReligion reader Brian notes:

I’ve been trying find out more about Archbishop Dolan, but everything I read I have to play the game, “If source X says he’s Y then that probably means he’s Z.” This seems to be true not only in the mainstream media but also in Catholic news sources and blogs. Whatever Dolan is, it’s not easily quantifiable, he doesn’t seem to fit into any one of the standard labels. I’d appreciate a newsource I could trust to paint an objective picture of him without having to translate as I read.

As I suggested the other day, the Vatican tends to send men into these high-profile slots (see the throne in Washington, D.C.) who are conservative, but not confrontational. Rome knows that the New York Times is not going to go away, either. Always remember that the Vatican is in Europe and is used to a European press.

So it’s clear that Dolan is a kind of conservative, but is not toooooo frightening.

However, he is also popular with many ordinary Catholics and he has interesting academic credentials. But being popular and a kind of conservative, in the nuanced world of the Times, must mean that he is a kind of light weight. That appeared to be the theme in the opening salvo of coverage and no there is an interesting follow story that suggests that this is going to be the template for Dolan coverage, at least until he takes some action that clearly makes him a sort-of good guy or a truly bad guy.

It seems that the archbishop is a man’s man, a guy’s guy and this means that he may be able to attract more men into the priesthood. All kinds of questions loom in the background, but this is what we get in print:

The big recruiters talk about him as if he were future Hall-of-Fame material — the kind you build organizations around. They talk about his “skill set,” the leadership qualities that make the young ones double their commitments.

They speak of Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of Milwaukee, the gregarious, football-coach-size prelate whom the Vatican named … to take the helm of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. They hope he helps attract more men to the priesthood.

“He’s a professional extrovert, a banterer, a sports fanatic,” said the Rev. Edwin H. Obermiller, director of vocations for the Congregation of Holy Cross at the University of Notre Dame. “He knows how to talk to young men.”

dolanOnce again, we are drifting into the most pressing demographic crisis that is affecting Catholicism in the West — the declining number of men willing to enter the priesthood.

It’s good that the Times piece does point toward one of the most obvious causes of the decline, which is the plummeting birth rates among American Catholics. A family with one son will rarely produce a priest. There is also a short, short reference to questions about celibacy. There are zero references to other concerns, such as the opinions on the left that almost all young seminarians are arch conservatives and the frequent claims on the right (and sometimes on the left) that about half of the new priests are gay.

Instead, we get this picture of Dolan as the old-fashioned urban Catholic who does old-fashioned Catholic guy things without breaking a sweat. There is, you see, this suggestion that a guy who is totally into football and baseball probably isn’t hooked on Broadway tunes.

Here is what that looks like when he visits a seminary in Yonkers:

… (A)fter a vespers service at St. Joseph’s chapel in which Archbishop Dolan addressed the seminarians as “the future of the priesthood I love,” many of them stood around gaping with what seemed a mixture of curiosity and awe as he held court in a scrum of television cameras and sound booms, answering questions from reporters.

The bishop laughed a lot. He spoke glowingly of the Green Bay Packers, the Mets, the Yankees, hot dogs and jelly doughnuts. At one point he shouted over reporters’ heads: “Hey, when’s opening day at Yankee Stadium?”

One seminarian, standing with his chin resting on his closed hand, smiled broadly when asked by a reporter what he thought of the new guy. “They asked us not to make comments,” he said, turning to walk down a hall to a dinner in honor of Cardinal Egan and his successor. “But I like him.”

Standing with his chin resting on his closed hand? I am trying to picture this stance and figure out what it means, in terms of body code. Any suggestions? In fact, any suggestions what in the heckfire this piece is trying to say? What’s the bottom line?

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Filed Under: Academia, Catholicism, Godbeat, Journalism, Marriage & family, Worship

Devils are in the details

February 24, 2009 By

1950701-at_a_village_in_swat-pakistanThe other day, I wrote the following about one of the major news reports on the events unfolding in Pakistan’s Swat valley, where government leaders are trying to work out a compromise with the Taliban. News reports have been telling us that:

… (T)his compromise with extreme elements of Islam will bring sharia law to the region. This is very confusing to me, because Pakistan already has sharia law.

So clearly, we are talking about one of the complex realities at the heart of coverage of Islam today. There is no one Islam. There is no one system of sharia law. Reporters have to provide practical details that draw lines between Muslims who are, in some ways, practicing different religions or, at the very least, radically different versions of the same religion.

Now, the Los Angeles Times has published an update that gives us some more generalities, but one or two powerful details. Here is a key summary passage:

The agreement was unveiled early last week, when officials in the North-West Frontier Province said they would allow the imposition of Islamic law, or Sharia, in Swat and surrounding districts in exchange for a cease-fire by the insurgents. In the intervening days, however, both sides have repeatedly made contradictory statements about the nature of their accord.

Critics have described the pact as a dangerous capitulation to Islamic militants who began battling government forces in Swat more than a year ago, enforcing their dominance of the valley with beheadings, floggings, school burnings and abductions.

Once again, here is the same confusion that I cited earlier. Pakistan already has Sharia law, right? Are the Taliban leaders, in effect, being given the power to set up another level of Sharia law and, if so, what would that look like, other than “beheadings, floggings, school burnings and abductions”? Legal abductions?

Pakistani officials, you see, are trying to get the United States to back this compromise, which is being brokered by onetime Taliban commander Maulana Sufi Mohammed. Is that possible?

Late, late, late in the story we finally get to a symbolic detail about the actions of a key militant, Maulana Qazi Fazlullah.

As violence escalated in Swat during the last year, Fazlullah’s followers sought to impose a social code similar to that mandated by the Taliban in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, after the Islamic movement seized power and forced women and girls to stay at home. More than 200 girls schools in Swat were burned down or bombed in the last year as militants seized control of town after town.

Over the weekend, provincial officials said girls schools would be allowed to reopen and that the students could sit for an upcoming round of exams. But Monday, a spokesman for Mohammed told journalists that the resumption of girls’ schooling was only “under consideration,” not agreed upon.

Right. There you have it. Try to forget that detail.

Photo: A tourist brochure photo of a village in the Swat region.

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Chain letters and unnamed sources

February 20, 2009 By

n11531People who oppose abortion are divided on how best to fight the political threats they face in the current environment and one area in particular that pro-lifers have been divided on is how to fight the Freedom of Choice Act. The bill, which was first introduced in 1989, is described by supporters as an attempt to codify Roe v. Wade at all levels of government. Opponents note that it could be used to fund abortion and invalidate parental notification laws, informed consent laws, and bans on partial birth abortion.

Which brings us to this curious article in Time magazine, written by national editor Amy Sullivan, “The Catholic Crusade Against a Mythical Abortion Bill“:

The U.S. Catholic Church’s crusade against the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) has all the hallmarks of a well-oiled lobbying campaign. A national postcard campaign is flooding the White House and congressional offices with messages opposing FOCA, and Catholic bishops have made defeating the abortion rights legislation a top priority. In the most recent effort to stop the bill, Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia sent a letter to every member of Congress imploring them to “please oppose FOCA.”

There is only one hitch. Congress isn’t about to pass the Freedom of Choice Act — because no such bill has been introduced in the current Congress.

Okay, beyond the hystrionics, (“Crusade?” Really?) there are some basic problems with the reporting. The Catholic Conference of Bishops does have a postcard campaign running right now. And it does relate to FOCA. But it’s beyond absurd, for anyone who knows about the legislative process and how quickly a bill can become a law (particularly with this Congress!) to suggest that groups are only allowed to lobby once a bill is in committee. But what’s more, the postcard campaign specifically notes:

Passing the “Freedom of Choice Act” would achieve these pro-abortion goals in one extreme piece of federal legislation, though this same “FOCA agenda” could be pursued in a series of smaller steps.

Italics mine. The postcards themselves ask members of Congress to “oppose FOCA or any similar measure, and retain laws against federal funding and promotion of abortion.”

So even if one agrees with Sullivan that FOCA is not a realistic threat, the Catholic campaign is about fighting any abortion-rights legislation. Is Amy Sullivan promising us that not one piece of abortion-supporting legislation will even be introduced during this Congress? That seems odd, doesn’t it?

Let’s check out this paragraph:

At a time when the United States is gripped by economic uncertainty and faces serious challenges in hot spots around the globe, some American Catholics are finding it both curious and troubling that their church has launched a major campaign against a piece of legislation that doesn’t exist and wouldn’t have much chance of becoming law even if it did. To many critics, it feels like the legislative equivalent of the dog that didn’t bark.

Oh for the love of all that’s holy. One of the main reasons why FOCA doesn’t have much of a chance of passing as a complete package (although components are another story) is because groups like the Catholic Conference of Bishops are fighting it tooth and nail on the front end. And this moral equivalency schtick of comparing the economy with the sanctity of human life is fine for a cocktail party discussion, if many drinks have been consumed and the banter is not at its most erudite, but not for a reporter who has an obligation to get all sides of the story. And that “dog that didn’t bark” line? As one reader noted, the dog that didn’t bark is a clue in a Sherlock Holmes story that leads to the identification of a murderer — not evidence that there was nothing happening. (The dog didn’t bark because he knew the murderer.)

The article then goes on to underplay what FOCA would do to current laws restricting abortions before underplaying how far-reaching Roe v. Wade itself is. Then we get this drive-by:

A chain e-mail of unknown origin soon began making its way into Catholic inboxes, warning of an imminent threat to the anti-abortion cause. “For those of you who do not know,” it read, “the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) is set to be signed if Congress passes it on January 21-22 of 2009. The FOCA is the next sick chapter in the book of abortion.” The e-mail urged Catholics to say a novena — a devotion of dedicated prayer for nine successive days — beginning on Jan. 11 and ending the day prior to Inauguration Day.

When Jan. 22 came and went without a Freedom of Choice Act becoming law, the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities announced a nationwide postcard campaign to blanket congressional offices and the White House with appeals to stop FOCA. Anti-FOCA groups on Facebook soon had more than 150,000 members and added thousands more each day. Priests started preaching against the legislation, and churches began circulating petitions to oppose its passage.

Oh Amy. So an email that has nothing at all whatsoever to do with the campaign of the Catholic Bishops is sent around to unknown and unquantified email boxes. Thanks for sharing. But then note the second paragraph . . . which clearly makes it seem like the two are related. They’re not. And beyond that, sigh, Sullivan is factually wrong again. In fact, the postcard campaign was announced long before Jan. 22, not after. It was launched the weekend after the inauguration and continued through mid-February but it was voted on in November and announced then. It’s not like you can launch a national campaign without some level of effort, after all.

Here are other problems:

In the midst of all this activity, the fact that there was no Freedom of Choice Act before the 111th Congress went largely unnoticed and unmentioned.

A Freedom of Choice Act was introduced in the 108th and 110th Congresses (from 2003 to ’05 and ’07 to ’09, respectively) by Representative Jerold Nadler, a New York Democrat.

Um, considering that some of the lobbying efforts against FOCA began before the 111th Congress itself began, the first paragraph is nonsensical. That Congress has only been in session for a few weeks now. And even the second paragraph is flawed since earlier versions of the bill were also introduced in 1989 and 1993.

So why in the world are these crazy, awful, deranged, lying pro-lifers worried about such a mythical piece of fantasy legislation as FOCA? Well, buried deep in the piece, Sullivan mentions this:

In some respects, President Obama has only himself to blame for the current controversy. As a presidential candidate, the then Senator himself pointed a spotlight on the legislation he co-sponsored when he told the Planned Parenthood Action Fund in 2007 that “the first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing I’d do.”

chainbreaker
Oh, so the sitting President of the United States promised not only to sign FOCA (which he co-sponsored in the Senate in the last Congress) but to make it his first act as President? So pro-lifers believed the words that their president said? How dare they! And how dare they assume that even if FOCA doesn’t get passed that other abortion-rights legislation might be a significant threat? They are clearly deranged and awful people who should be taken off the street and mocked in the pages of Time magazine.

The piece goes on to say that President Obama hasn’t done much to support abortion, only citing the Mexico City policy. Of course, he’s also filling the executive branch with fellow travelers and laying the groundwork for various other changes. And I don’t think Planned Parenthood enjoyed cocktail hour at the previous White House. But, per the beginning of the story, pro-lifers are only allowed to notice such things after there is little to nothing to be done about them.

Sullivan’s piece devolves into pure partisan analysis before quoting an official from Catholics United, a liberal organization. He questions the motivations of the bishops, saying they only care about this issue because it raises money for them. No one is allowed to respond to the character assassination.

And the piece ends with what I like to call “the Sullivan special.” Here it is:

Some of the USCCB’s own policy staffers are reportedly frustrated by the attention given to FOCA. And a few Catholic officials have even taken the rare step of speaking out to correct misinformation about the issue.

The Sullivan special is where you claim some special knowledge that is not shared in detail with readers. It may be conservatives secretly giving her, a liberal reporter, information off the record that miraculously supports her point. Or maybe it’s just a personal interpretation of data. It’s kind of hard to know how seriously to take these anonymous sources since they appear so frequently in Sullivan’s pieces and always in favor of the point she’s so obviously trying to make.

There’s also the problem that the false information she mentions comes from a bleeping chain mail. I mean, since when do we make organizations that have nothing to do with chain email answer for them? It’s just ridiculous and horrible to do that to an organization like the Catholic Bishops who are speaking quite loudly on the record for all to see. And one more thing, one of the pieces of supposedly false information is actually not false. Or, at least, there’s no way to know whether an estimate of how many more abortions will be performed if FOCA were passed is right or not. But if taxpayers fund abortion and other restrictions are removed, it’s not false to estimate that abortions will increase. Sullivan may disagree with the estimate but that’s different than calling it a “false claim” as she does. It makes her article no better than a chain letter.

There is much more that could be said but one final note. In a piece of this length, how does the “reporter” “reporting” on the story for a “news magazine” not manage to speak with a single, solitary person in favor of the campaign? Is Sullivan’s advocacy so fragile that she can’t actually discuss the topic with someone who doesn’t share her views? Does she need help locating the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops? She should just follow this hard-to-find link for better sources on future stories.

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