I love that biting Leonard Cohen song “Everybody Knows.” It begins: Everybody knows that the dice are loaded Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed Everybody knows the war is over Everybody knows the good guys lost Everybody knows the fight was fixed The poor stay poor, the rich get rich That’s how it goes, everybody knows Great poetry. Possibly not the best approach for journalism, though. One Associated Press reporter used this approach for a lede on the Vatican conclave:... Read more
To be honest with you, I feel like taking a short break from the Vatican beat — sort of. I predict news from Rome sooner rather than later. You think? In the meantime, let’s flash back a bit to a recent post in which I praised The Toledo Blade for a better than average story on the WomenPriests movement (and better than average is not, alas, saying a whole lot). The WomenPriests movement is, of course, is the latest in... Read more
The International Business Times sure has a scoop. Headline: Conclave 2013: Pope Benedict XVI ‘Did Nothing’ to Stop Paedophile Priest Nello Giraudo The headline phrasing makes it seem like the conclave decided that Pope Benedict XVI “did nothing” to stop a pedophile priest. Or at least someone said he “did nothing” to stop a bad priest. Which is why the actual story is so weird. I guess it’s mostly taken from an Italian TV report but there are some problems... Read more
A note of condolence written by Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, upon the death of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez has been the occasion of some of some mirth in the press. The Washington Post and the Huffington Post have made arch references to President Ahmadinejad’s statement that Hugo Chavez will be resurrected at the end of time. The Washington Post observed: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad left Tehran today to attend Hugo Chavez’s funeral. But that’s not all — in his condolences for... Read more
I have always been fascinated, both as a pastor’s kid and as a journalist, by the art of delivering eulogies. These addresses at public funerals — equal parts sermon, tribute and grief counseling — force ministers to face some unique challenges, while tiptoeing through the real lives of the person being honored. Try to imagine preaching the sermon in a high-profile worship service held to honor two unnamed sailors who died a century and a half earlier, lost when a... Read more
On this week’s Crossroads podcast, host Todd Wilken and I talked about recent admissions from the mainstream media about the difficulty they’ve had treating traditional marriage proponents with any justice or decency. Some of the best content we had on the blog this week came from a correspondent, who is a journalist, who weighed in on the matter. I’m not alone in thinking that content was most helpful for the discussion. Reader John M. wrote: That quote from the “correspondent”... Read more
At this point in the conclave process, I’m sure that millions of liberal Catholics are carefully watching The New York Times daily coverage to see what the world’s most powerful newspaper has to say about who will be, and who should be, the next occupant of the Throne of St. Peter. At the same time, I would imagine that traditional Catholics, as defined by doctrine rather than politics, are parsing the daily Times coverage from Rome with another agenda altogether.... Read more
This week, the conservative Weekly Standard broke a story that was headlined: Michelle Obama and John Kerry to Honor Anti-Semite and 9/11 Fan. Written by Samuel Tadros, the story explains that an award was going to be given today from the U.S. State Department to a Muslim woman from Egypt: Samira Ibrahim, as the State Department’s profile describes her, “was among seven women subjected by the Egyptian military to forced virginity tests in March 2011.” The press release further notes... Read more
Back in November, The New York Times produced a downright nauseating account of Liberty University’s effort to become a big-time college football program. This week, the Washington Post followed up with an in-depth report on Liberty’s transformation into an “evangelical mega-university.” The front-page headline described the university’s progress this way: Falwell’s university grows from David to Goliath size Bottom line: The Post’s story made my stomach churn much less than the earlier Times report. Of course, the Post focused on Liberty’s burgeoning... Read more
Friends, Romans and other anxious news consumers, some of you may not have seen the following update from Poynter.org about the current status of one of America’s most skilled scribes on all things inside-Catholic: During an interview this weekend with Philadelphia Inquirer culture reporter Stephan Salisbury, Vatican blogger Rocco Palmo whipped out his iPad and canceled his flight to Rome. Palmo had planned to be near the Vatican for the next two weeks of historic doings, but the cost of... Read more
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