Thinking about the legacy of 'Team Ted,' as Vatican insiders talk about the next pope

If I have learned anything about mainstream journalism it is this: Editors love partisan political horse races.

This framework is, alas, also used when journalists ponder vacancy signs on the Throne of St. Peter in Rome.

In this kind of contest, scribes almost always (they don’t have to do this, of course) decide that there is a good horse and a bad horse. Most of the time, the “good” candidate is defined as the one who is in favor of “reform.”

What does “reform” mean, for most mainstream journalists? As I noted long ago in this post — “Who gets to ‘reform’ what?” — it helps to look up that loaded word in an online dictionary or two:

REFORM …
* make changes for improvement in order to remove abuse and injustices; "reform a political system"
* bring, lead, or force to abandon a wrong or evil course of life, conduct, and adopt a right one; "The Church reformed me"; "reform your conduct" ...
* a change for the better as a result of correcting abuses; "justice was for sale before the reform of the law courts" ...
* improve by alteration or correction of errors or defects and put into a better condition; "reform the health system in this country"
* a campaign aimed to correct abuses or malpractices.

Now, who gets to define what is and what is not an “abuse,” an “evil course of life,” an “injustice” or a “malpractice”?

That would be the players behind the horse race who are trusted by newsroom leaders and owners.

Thus, before we get to this weekend’s “think piece,” let’s pause and look back to a 2013 speech at Villanova University (YouTube at the top of this post) by the former, now disgraced, cardinal Theodore McCarrick. At the 18-minute mark or so, this media-maven Vatican player discusses his behind-the-scenes networking activity ahead of the conclave that gave the world Pope Francis.

So often the kingmaker in American Catholic life, McCarrick describes a meeting with an “influential Italian gentleman” at the North American College in Rome.

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?