Same-sex Marriage

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Five big Catholic news angles that journalists will need to cover during 2022

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Five big Catholic news angles that journalists will need to cover during 2022

As 2021 comes to a close, everyone is looking towards 2022. The news cycle over the last two years has been dominated by COVID-19 and that doesn’t seem to be subsiding — given the rash of infections the past few weeks as a result of the Omicron variant.

The Catholic world, meanwhile, had in 2021 one of its busiest years. The election of Joe Biden as president — this January will officially mark his first year in office — also dominated news coverage. That Biden was also a Catholic (only second after John F. Kennedy in 1960) thrust Catholicism into the political news coverage. Politics plus religion equals news. It’s a familiar formula.

Biden, a practicing Catholic who attends Mass on Sundays, was at odds this year with many U.S. bishops — setting up a year-long debate over whether he (and other pro-abortion politicians) should receive Holy Communion. In the end, the bishops offered more clarification in the importance of the Eucharist without singling out Biden. Truth is, no one knows if the bishops actually considered mentioning Biden or other pro-abortion-rights Catholics.

Issues around politics and religion will likely dominate once again in 2022. The abortion issue and a pending Supreme Court decision regarding access to it will be a big story in the coming year. The Catholic church, a major part of the abortion debate in this country for decades, will play a major role in news stories that will be written over the coming months.

At the same time, Pope Francis, who recently turned 85, will again be surrounded by rumors that he will either resign or die. Whether this pope — the most polarizing in centuries — can chip away at his agenda to change the church in the 21st century will continue to pit traditionalists versus progressives.

Here are the five big news trends and stories journalists need to keep an eye on in the new year:

(5) Pope Francis and his focus on a progressive agenda

This coming year could be the one where the battle between this pontiff and doctrinal traditionalists intensifies even further. A Dec. 17 Associated Press story set the stage for such a confrontation in what will be Francis’ ninth year as head of the Catholic church.


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Think pieces: Why are evangelicals evolving on doctrines linked to LGBTQ issues?

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Think pieces: Why are evangelicals evolving on doctrines linked to LGBTQ issues?

Yes, this is an unusual “think piece,” in part because it is best to consider it an online debate between two major voices shaping debates in contemporary evangelicalism.

One one side is the Rev. Denny Burk, a biblical studies professor at Boyce College, which is linked to the giant Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville.

On the other side is historian and gender-studies specialist Kristin Kobes Du Mez of Calvin University, who is best known as the author of the much-discussed book “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.”

Let’s start with a short comment from Burk, who posted:

… I had an important exchange with Kristin Kobes Du Mez on social media. I won’t rehash the entire back and forth here. Some of it is linked below for your reference if you are interested in following the threads. If you boil it all down, she asked me a question, and I asked her one. She asked me whether I thought her book Jesus and John Wayne contains false teaching (to which I answered “yes”), and I asked her if she believes that homosexuality is sinful (to which she answered that she doesn’t know yet).

Hers is my question: What does it mean to state that “homosexuality is sinful”? Is this a discussion of homosexual orientation or of sexual behavior?

In other settings, people have been arguing about whether it is sinful, or perhaps simply spiritually dangerous, for celibate LGBTQ Christians to publicly and enthusiastically proclaim a gay identity. Thus, their sexual behavior does not violate centuries of Christian doctrine.

There are important lines between each of these stances and, frankly, other variations on these themes.


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United Methodist pastor who joined drag queen show? Now it's more than an RNS story

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United Methodist pastor who joined drag queen show? Now it's more than an RNS story

Remember the United Methodist pastor who decided to strut his stuff as a drag queen on HBO?

Well, that story is now bigger than the original Religion News Service coverage, which I discussed in this GetReligion post: “United Methodist pastor dives into HBO drag-queen culture, drawing joyful RNS applause.”

That pastor is out of a job, a plot twist that drew coverage from both the Associated Press and USA Today. We will come back to those stories later in this post — especially a jaw-dropping display of slanted language in the AP report, of all places.

But this has been an archetypal RNS mainline Protestant story from the get-go and the wire service’s update contains, well, about half of the essential information that readers needed to know.

What’s missing? The same thing as the first time around — any attempt to accurately reflect the views of conservative United Methodists in the pews of this pastor’s church. It was crucial, of course, to interview United Methodists and LGBTQ activists who backed this progressive pastor. At the same time, it would have helped to interview people on the other side of the debate. Maybe?

Here is the overture of the new RNS report: “Pastor who appeared in drag on HBO’s ‘We’re Here’ forced to leave his church.”

When Pastor Craig Duke appeared in drag on the HBO reality show “We’re Here,” he knew that some members of his United Methodist congregation would appreciate the episode and that others wouldn’t even watch it.

He also knew some members of his congregation support the full inclusion of LGBTQ Christians in the church and others don’t, and that would make his performance on the show a “challenging experience.”

But he didn’t think it would cost him his job.


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Emerging split inside old mainline: Is U.S. Christianity becoming two different religions?

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Emerging split inside old mainline: Is U.S. Christianity becoming two different religions?

THE QUESTION:

Is Christianity in the United States becoming two different religions?

THE RELIGION GUY'S ANSWER:

If the question above seems off the wall, at least look why it has arisen.

Two years ago, The Guy wrote that he was quite astonished by some survey research reported in "The Twentysomething Soul" (Oxford University Press) by Tim Clydesdale of the College of New Jersey and Kathleen Garces-Foley of Marymount University.

Young Americans age 30 and under, quizzed about religion, were asked how they think of God.

One option was "a personal being, involved in the lives of people today." It doesn't get any simpler or more basic than that, whether you're Jewish, Christian or Muslim. Other choices were some impersonal "cosmic life force," or a deistic creator who is "not involved in the world now," or that God does not exist.

Not surprisingly, the evangelical Protestants were virtually unanimous in embracing the first definition. But remarkably, only half of those in the predominantly white, theologically pluralistic "mainline" Protestant church bodies made that choice, while 40 percent favored the vague "life force." Young adult Catholics fell in between the two Protestant groups. (In this random sample, 30 percent were evangelicals, 18 percent Catholic, 14 percent "mainline" Protestant, and 29 percent with no religious affiliation.)

The Guy therefore posed the question whether Protestants' long-running two-party rivalry "could be evolving toward a future with two starkly different belief systems."

Now a more radical version of that scenario is explored at book length in "One Faith No Longer" (New York University Press) by Baylor University sociologist George Yancey and Ashlee Quosigk, a visiting scholar of religion at the University of Georgia. More info here.


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Coverage of the Arlene's Flowers story may be over, but many more cases are on the way

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Coverage of the Arlene's Flowers story may be over, but many more cases are on the way

Last week, a famous set of court cases: Arlene’s Flowers v. State of Washington and Ingersoll and Freed v. Arlene’s Flowers, Inc., was settled, allowing both sides to retreat with some feeling of vindication.

The case concerned Barronelle Stutzman, owner of a flower shop in eastern Washington state who was friends with a local gay male couple — but who refused to provide flowers for their same-sex wedding because of her traditional Christian beliefs about marriage.

The gay couple sued her and then the state attorney general, Bob Ferguson, also sued her, saying she couldn’t discriminate on basis of religion. It wasn’t about discrimination, she said. After all, she’d served gay customers before and had employed gay florists in her shop. But her religious beliefs gave her no choice but to refuse to create floral arrangements for the wedding rite.

The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court, which had just ruled on a similar Colorado case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, remanded it back to Washington state for further consideration in light of their favorable decision on behalf of the owner of the cake shop. But, true to form for those of us living in this ultra-blue state, the Washington Supreme Court ruled again against Stutzman.

The case returned to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Justices Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas agreed to take the case. However, that was one justice short of what was needed. (An essay at First Things asked questions about why certain other conservative justices bailed on taking this case).

Now 77 and more than ready to retire, Stutzman settled this month, paying Robert Ingersoll, one of the two men, $5,000 and freeing herself of additional legal costs. You may remember that she raised some $174,000 through GoFundMe before the managers of the website rejected her beliefs and shut her down.

Here's how the Tri City Herald, the local paper, covered the Stutzman’s finale:


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Complex doctrinal story or mere politics? Hmmm ... What shaped news about U.S. bishops?

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Complex doctrinal story or mere politics? Hmmm ... What shaped news about U.S. bishops?

Let’s face it. This Baltimore meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops was a classic example of what kind of stories drive front-page news in the mainstream press.

For starters, you had a complicated story about a doctrinal, moral and institutional crisis in Roman Catholicism today — the collapse of Catholic beliefs and practice related to sin, confession, forgiveness and Holy Communion.

Then you had a political story that, for journalists, pitted the satanic hordes of conservative bishops linked, somehow, to Donald Trump against the wise, progressive, nuanced shepherds who sympathize with ordinary Catholics like President Joe Biden.

Guess which story framed most of the coverage? Consider this headline from the journalistic college of cardinals at The New York Times: “Catholic Bishops Avoid Confrontation With Biden Over Communion.” And here’s the overture:

BALTIMORE — The Roman Catholic bishops of the United States backed away from a direct conflict with President Biden …, approving a new document on the sacrament of the eucharist that does not mention the president or any politicians by name.

At issue was the question of which Catholics, under which circumstances, are properly able to receive communion, one of the most sacred rites within Christianity. For some conservative Catholics, the real question was more pointed: Should Catholic politicians who publicly support and advance abortion rights be denied the sacrament?

For some of the most outspoken critics of Mr. Biden and other liberal Catholic leaders, the document represented a strategic retreat.

OK, here is a blunt question about that last statement: Is there any evidence that ANY DRAFT of this document — "The Mystery of the Eucharist in the Life of the Church" (.pdf here) — included a single reference to Biden, the White House or the presidency? If conservatives drove the process that led to this document, as assumed in the news coverage, isn’t it logical that references of this kind would have made it into digital ink at some point?


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New podcast: When popes and presidents meet, headlines may not tell the private stories

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New podcast: When popes and presidents meet, headlines may not tell the private stories

Sometimes, the calendar isn’t friendly to columnists and podcasters.

This week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in) was recorded before the lengthy, closed-door chat (with photo ops before and after) between Pope Francis and the “devout” Catholic President Joe Biden. Thus, host Todd Wilken and I took a kind of “tomorrow’s headlines” approach, surveying the advance coverage of the meeting and some fascinating features that looked at images and the realities of some previous pope-president meetings.

In this podcast I predicted that the headlines and public pronouncements would focus on their agreements about the environment, immigration, poverty and COVID-19 strategies.

Why? Well, the mainstream press believes that these meetings are, first and foremost, political events and these are political topics, even though they clearly have doctrinal content for those with the eyes to see that.

Biden and the pope agree on these subjects and, at this point, the progressive Pope Francis has little or no motivation to hurt a Catholic progressive in the White House. They have many of the same goals and they, to be blunt, have all the same enemies — especially among American Catholics who wear the red hats that mark them as cardinals (and those who have not received red hats).

Would anything significant happen in the private discussions?

That’s the kind of question that Catholic publications will probe and, here at GetReligion, I’ll leave commentary on that topic to Clemente Lisi (it helps that he is fluent in Italian).

If you are looking for a perfect summary of the elite press template for coverage of this meeting, and the ties that bind these two modern Catholics, this block of Washington Post material — from a political-desk story, of course — is pitch perfect:

… The resonance is also personal, given the similarities between the 84-year-old pope and the 78-year-old president, who have in a sense become allies. Both attained ultimate leadership late in their lives and quickly moved in a liberal direction. They have faced internal resistance. Both are treated warily by conservative American bishops.


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Lots of Latter-day Saints are going liberal? Washington Post story tries to make that case

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Lots of Latter-day Saints are going liberal? Washington Post story tries to make that case

Back in late 2010, I began a seven-year stint of freelancing for the Washington Post’s Sunday magazine to help fill a gap in coverage of conservative religion. I wrote about Pentecostal serpent handlers, a female Jewish ambassador from Bahrain and the Orthodox Church of America’s rather controversial metropolitan, among other things.

Then sometime in 2017, a new editor came onboard and, after running my story on Paula White (which made quite a splash I might add), simply refused to respond to any more of my emails. “There goes in-depth religion coverage,” I thought, and turned to other markets.

But lo and behold, the magazine just ran a piece about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about a “battle for the future of Mormonism.”

Basically this article makes the case that the Mormons are veering left on gay issues. The reporter visits a very liberal congregation in Berkeley, Calif., and some conservatives in Rexburg, Idaho, considered a traditional Latter-day Saint bastion.

Not to my surprise, the reporter, in support of this thesis, only cites people in both locations who are gay or gay-friendly.

It felt like the reporter had a predetermined goal for the story that just needed the right quotes to scaffold it. Why? I see all the interviews going in one direction: Committed, serious believers who have come to the conclusion that many Mormons are secretly quite liberal. Here at GetReligion, we call this “Kellerism,” a nod to the teachings of a former New York Times editor.

Part of the story is based on an amazing — and inaccurate — assumption.

More so than in other conservative religious institutions, liberals — or at least those disaffected from conservatism — are making their presence known inside and on the perimeters of the church, provoking something of a Latter-day Saint identity crisis.


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United Methodist prelude: Small denomination faces its own split over Bible and sex

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United Methodist prelude: Small denomination faces its own split over Bible and sex

The Reformed Church in America, one of those small denominations that usually get little ink despite rich history and accomplishments, is set to celebrate its 400th anniversary in 2028. But what will the RCA consist of by then?

At an October 14-19 General Synod meeting in Tucson, Arizona, this venerable church will decide whether to split up.

Reporters can think of this as a prelude to the formal divorce that the huge United Methodist Church (UMC) is expected to approve next year. In both churches, the central problem is the dispute over proper Bible interpretation, especially on sexual morality.

The goal of this Memo is to sketch out a few basics for journalists who'll cover the RCA showdown, which was postponed from 2020 because of COVID-19. The United Methodists have faced similar legal delays, of course.

Like the UMC, the RCA (www.rca.org) has spent nearly half a century discussing its traditional teachings on marriage and sexuality, which shaped rules on same-sex marriages and ordinations. All sides have reached a consensus that the divide is unbridgeable and the status quo untenable.

In 2018 the RCA commissioned a study team to consider future options that included "grace-filled separation." In July, the team issued its final recommendations with a proposed process for splitting.

The report offers a different and unusual path that avoids formal schism by reorganizing RCA regional units ("classes," singular "classis") on the basis of "affinity" in belief rather than the usual geography, in effect creating two churches within a church. In yet another proposal. those staying within the RCA and those leaving would still cooperate in a new, non-denominational foreign mission agency.

In the schism plan, the RCA would change an existing policy and let any unhappy local congregation leave and keep ownership of its building and other assets. A request to depart would need three-fourths approval by the congregation's governing board and then three-fourths of voting members (two-thirds margins are the more common Protestant practice).

Then there are other hoops to jump through.


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