{"id":123130,"date":"2014-05-26T09:00:04","date_gmt":"2014-05-26T13:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/?p=123130"},"modified":"2014-08-29T13:32:02","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T17:32:02","slug":"is-cardinal-dolans-star-fading-ny-times-somes-it-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/05\/is-cardinal-dolans-star-fading-ny-times-somes-it-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Cardinal Dolan’s star fading? NYTimes ‘somes’ it up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u2019ve just made up a rule for reading news: The confidence a writer places in an article is inversely proportional to the number of times he\/she uses \u201csome.\u201d Such words often substitute for actual findings.<\/p>\n

I know, because I occasionally did it myself as a reporter. But I\u2019m not sure I used it six times in one story, as did a New York Times<\/em> article on Cardinal Timothy Dolan and his place in the Catholic power structure.<\/a><\/p>\n

The story\u2019s basic assessment is that Cardinal Timothy Dolan was Pope Benedict XVI\u2019s American culture warrior, fighting trends like abortion and same-sex marriage. Benedict was also fine with Dolan\u2019s upper-middle-class lifestyle, and with Dolan delegating archdiocesan matters to his vicars instead of handling them himself.<\/p>\n

But with a new pope in town, Dolan \u2014 well, isn\u2019t on the outs, exactly; he\u2019s just out of step with the newer, humbler, more pastoral church of Pope Francis. So says the Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But to make that case, the arguments get pretty, well, argumentative.<\/p>\n

In the last years that Benedict XVI served as pope, Cardinal Dolan, 64, was America\u2019s top bishop as the president of the United States Conference for Catholic Bishops. Ever the genial guardian of Catholic orthodoxy, he led the charge against the Obama administration\u2019s efforts to require some religious employers to cover birth control for employees. Some church experts say he was also the go-to cardinal for many in the Vatican when they wanted to know what was going on in the American church.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See that? Even that nut paragraph, as journalists call it, uses the \u201csome\u201d qualifier. Here are others:<\/p>\n

Some see the influence of Cardinal Dolan, once considered a possible candidate for pope himself, waning in the era of the new pontiff.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But some priests said a silver lining of Cardinal Dolan\u2019s lowered profile would be a more hands-on approach toward running the diocese.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And those are just the examples that aren\u2019t backed up with quotes or anecdotes. Three or four other \u201csomes\u201d are followed with attribution or quotes \u2014 a little better, but still more opinion than fact.<\/p>\n

Not all of those<\/em> \u201csomes\u201d are supported, either. Like that last example, predicting Dolan would take a \u201cmore hands-on approach toward running the diocese.\u201d After that is a priest saying: \u201cThose of us in the parishes, we don\u2019t work closely with the archbishop on a day-to-day basis.\u201d Complaints are not evidence.<\/p>\n

I also have an issue with the Times<\/em> trying to maintain that cherished media narrative: the break between Francis and his papal predecessors. The article, for instance, holds up Cardinal Sean O\u2019Malley of Boston as a Francis kind of guy. Well, O\u2019Malley was used extensively by Pope John Paul II as a fixer in scandal-plagued dioceses<\/a>, including Falls River, Palm Beach and Boston itself. And who made O\u2019Malley a cardinal? Benedict.<\/p>\n

The Times<\/em> also highlights Francis\u2019 choice of Cardinal Donald Wuerl, \u201cwidely considered a moderate,\u201d to replace the more conservative Cardinal Raymond Burke on the Congregation of Bishops, the Vatican committee that selects new bishops. But as my May 14 story<\/a> notes, Wuerl\u2019s influence at the Vatican is hard to measure because of his quieter style and carefully parsed public statements.<\/p>\n

This paragraph may be one of the reasons that this article is tentative:<\/p>\n

Cardinal Dolan is still on several important Vatican committees, and in the United States, remains the preferred bishop to speak on television. He is a master communicator, pithy and gregarious. But the buzz that followed him into the conclave to select Francis as pope in March 2013 \u2014 that he himself could be a papal candidate \u2014 has dissipated.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So Dolan is still influential, but his star has faded because he is no longer considered a papal candidate? Well, gee. At the 2013 conclave, 115 cardinals voted,<\/a> and 114 of them weren\u2019t elected \u2014 including O\u2019Malley, who was considered a papabile<\/em> that year, too.<\/p>\n

No, the problem is more like trying to read a situation that has no handy measurement, and gets no confirmation from official sources. Closest is:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that he\u2019s out of favor or irrelevant,\u201d said John Allen, who wrote a book with Cardinal Dolan and now reports for The Boston Globe. \u201cBut both in terms of who Rome listens to in the American church, and setting priorities for the American church, I think there\u2019s no question that Tim Dolan is no longer the prime mover in that regard.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Allen is a veteran Vatican reporter, and I respect his opinions. But if the Times<\/em> asked him why<\/em> he thinks Dolan has lost pull, the article doesn\u2019t say.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing wrong with admitting that not everyone agrees, and that there\u2019s more than one way to look at a situation. But overusing qualifiers can start to look like a cloak for guesses or opinions. \u201cSome\u201d times, a newspaper should use another word: commentary.<\/p>\n

Photo: Archbishop Timothy Dolan in a 2009 file photo. Uploaded by Gugganij to Wikimedia (CC By 2.0).<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve just made up a rule for reading news: The confidence a writer places in an article is inversely proportional to the number of times he\/she uses \u201csome.\u201d Such words often substitute for actual findings. I know, because I occasionally did it myself as a reporter. But I\u2019m not sure I used it six times […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1568,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,7,12,169],"tags":[360,326,1167],"class_list":["post-123130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholicism","category-journalism","category-religion","category-vatican","tag-cardinal-timothy-dolan","tag-new-york-times","tag-pope-francis"],"yoast_head":"\nIs Cardinal Dolan's star fading? 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