Knights of Columbus

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Podcast: Concerning the right-wing rosary attack -- was that Atlantic feature really 'news'?

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Podcast: Concerning the right-wing rosary attack -- was that Atlantic feature really 'news'?

No doubt about it. The early favorite for the wild headline of 2022 has to be “How the Rosary Became an Extremist Symbol” atop that viral feature from The Atlantic. And that now-deleted graphic with the rosary made of bullet holes? That will show up in media-bias features for years (maybe decades) to come.

Yes, I know that the editors tried to tone that down with a replacement headline — but it’s the original screamer that perfectly captured the article’s thesis. Oh, and the editors updated a mistake in the second line of the original headline with that new sub-headline: “Why are sacramental beads suddenly showing up next to AR-15s online?”

Attention Atlantic editors: Here is a quick guide to the seven Roman Catholic sacraments. Correction, please.

So here was the first question in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in). It’s a question your GetReligionistas have been asking more often in the past decade (even before Orange Man Bad): What WAS this thing? A news feature? A piece of blunt analysis? An opinion screed? And here’s the question I saw several people ask: Did the Atlantic editors set out to publish an anti-Catholic classic?

Here’s my hot take: I think the Atlantic editors thought they were publishing a PRO-Catholic piece that set out to defend GOOD Catholics who want to change centuries of church teachings from the BAD Catholics who want to defend those teachings, especially orthodox doctrines on marriage, sexuality, abortion, etc.

Why do I think that? Here is the crucial part of the article, from my point of view, starting with the overture:

Just as the AR-15 rifle has become a sacred object for Christian nationalists in general, the rosary has acquired a militaristic meaning for radical-traditional (or “rad trad”) Catholics. On this extremist fringe, rosary beads have been woven into a conspiratorial politics and absolutist gun culture. These armed radical traditionalists have taken up a spiritual notion that the rosary can be a weapon in the fight against evil and turned it into something dangerously literal.

Their social-media pages are saturated with images of rosaries draped over firearms, warriors in prayer, Deus Vult (“God wills it”) crusader memes, and exhortations for men to rise up and become Church Militants.


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Do these issues matter? Trump utters religious slur while Harris underlines Biden's Catholic questions

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This week’s Joe Biden and Kamala Harris nominations are an appropriate moment to look at the religious angles that writers are encountering in the 2020 campaign.

To begin, a Wall Street Journal column by Brookings Institution political scientist William A. Galston observes that in today’s United States “the level of religious polarization is the highest in the history of modern survey research.”

Which immediately brings up the Quote of the Year. It’s hard to think of any remark by a U.S. president more invidious than Donald Trump’s characterization of Democratic opponent Biden: “No religion, no anything. Hurt the Bible. Hurt God. He’s against God.”

Reporters seeking balance, and any Republicans who were embarrassed by this, could have noted that the 2020 food fight previously featured Democrats belittling the quality of Trump’s religiosity. Biden himself joined that chorus after the president’s walk from the White House to fire-damaged St. John’s Episcopal Church to hold a Bible aloft for the cameras: “I just wish he opened it once in a while instead of brandishing it. If he opened it, he could have learned something.”


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The unorthodox life of Kamala Harris: The future of interfaith American politics?

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Hang on for a wild ride.

Try to avoid whiplash.

Yes, it was another crazy week in the world of religion news and we’re going to cover the highlights in a hurry.

Starting with the obvious: Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s selection of U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California as his running mate brings plenty of faith angles.

Elana Schor, the national religion and politics writer for The Associated Press, notes that the 55-year-old Harris “attended services at both a Black Baptist church and a Hindu temple growing up — an interfaith background that reflects her historic status as the first Black woman and woman of South Asian descent on a major-party presidential ticket.”

Bob Smietana, editor-in-chief of Religion News Service, dubs Harris “the interfaith candidate,” and RNS national correspondent Yonat Shimron offers “five faith facts about Biden’s VP choice.” In a separate story, Shimron suggests that Harris “is also the future of American religion.”

But the crucial angles related to Harris and religion aren’t all positive, even if some news coverage is. Can you say “Knights of Columbus”?

Her selection prompted the National Review’s Alexandra DeSanctis to write about what DeSanctis’ article called “Kamala Harris’s Anti-Catholic Bigotry.” Even before the Harris pick, Kelsey Dallas, the Deseret News’ national religion writer, had reported last week on Biden’s “tough road ahead on religious freedom.”


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Democratic socialists vs. traditional Catholics: Guess who gets better news coverage?

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Every profession has a national convention. Bankers, plumbers and even electricians hold them. Journalists have several each year (I have attended some in the past), as do journalism college professors (I have attended those as well). Earlier this month, The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication — a mix of both professions — held their annual conference in Toronto.

That begs the question of when is a national convention worthy of news coverage?

The answer goes to the heart of journalism, potential bias and why reporters and editors choose to cover an event over another. It’s a no-brainer when the gathering is the Republican or Democratic National Conventions held every four years. After all, that’s where each party officially nominates a presidential candidate. It’s where speeches are delivered and news is made.

What’s the bar for coverage when it comes to lesser-known gatherings? Two very distinct conventions earlier this month may shed some light on who is worth covering these days and why.  

The Democratic Socialists of America held their convention last week in Atlanta. By coincidence, the Knights of Columbus held their annual convention in Minneapolis. Readers of this space should find it to be no coincidence whatsoever that the Democratic socialists received plenty — and perhaps more favorable — coverage compared to a Catholic group.

Most can infer who the Democratic socialists are. They have gained lots of influence in the Democratic party and broader political debate since Bernie Sanders ran for president in 2016. Many of the group’s anti-capitalist policy positions have gained traction among those running for president in 2020.  

The New York Times wrote about the gathering in an August 6 feature. This is how the piece opens:

Three years ago, the Democratic Socialists of America had 5,000 members. Just another booth at the campus activities fair, another three-initialed group an uncle might mention over lunch.

Today, dues-paying D.S.A. members exceed 56,000. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a rising star of American politics, is one. So are a couple of dozen local elected officials across the country. Senator Bernie Sanders, a current presidential candidate, is not, but he may as well be: He identifies as a democratic socialist and enjoys a totemic status with the group’s members.


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Did America just undergo a massive pro-life lurch? Reporters should interpret polls carefully

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Did America just undergo a massive pro-life lurch? Reporters should interpret polls carefully

Axios, always atop breaking news trends, posted a bold headline Feb. 24 that announced “New Poll Finds ‘Dramatic Shift’ on Abortion Attitudes.”

The February poll showed Americans are evenly split between those identifying as “pro-choice” and as “pro-life,” tied at 47 percent, while only a month before the same pollster reported pro-choicers outnumbered pro-lifers, 55 percent to 38 percent.  

The Axios article recycled a press release from the polls’ sponsor, the Knights of Columbus, that proclaimed "in just one month Americans have made a sudden and dramatic shift away from the prochoice position and toward a pro-life stance.” See January release here and February release here.

Abortion attitudes remain as politically and religiously potent today as they’ve been the past 46 years, so reporters are ever alert to trends. But should the media be reporting that thinking across the fruited plain lurched from a big gap to a tie between Jan. 8-10 and Feb. 12-17, the survey dates? 

What are the odds? Democrats’ recent advocacy for unpopular late-term abortions alongside intimations of infanticide might be driving a modest pro-life uptick, but 17 points? 

With polls, journalists always need to be careful and assess the full context. The Religion Guy’s hunch here is that the fat abortion-rights majority in January was an outlier, and the February tie is pretty much representative of American thinking.  Why? See below. 

Preliminaries: The Knights, who paid for both the January and February polls, are ardently pro-life Catholics. However, they hired the well-regarded Marist Poll to run the survey and crunch the numbers. Despite its Catholic name and origin, sponsoring Marist College is officially non-sectarian. Technical note: the Knights did not reveal the polls’ response rates, an all-important factor. 

The Religion Guy maintains that February’s 47-47 tie is interesting but not the big news as trumpeted.

Enter the Gallup Poll, journalists’ invaluable gold standard for asking consistent religious and moral questions across many years. 

Gallup’s comprehensive compilation on abortion attitudes shows this version of the Marist question, asked 32 times since 1995: “Would you consider yourself to be pro-choice or pro-life?”


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Sen. Kamala Harris begins White House campaign: Maybe her 'Knights of Columbus' views are relevant?

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There’s quite a bit of mythology surrounding the term “Catholic vote,” whenever journalists discuss American politics.

First of all, there’s no such thing as a typical American “Catholic voter.” At the very least, journalists have to probe the sharp divisions between “cultural” Catholics and those who attend Mass on a regular basis.

In the past, I have shared a “Catholic voters” typology that I learned from an elderly priest who had decades of experience in Washington, D.C. I have edited this a bit:

* Ex-Catholics. Solid for Democrats. Cultural conservatives have no chance.

* Cultural Catholics who go to church a few times a year. This may be an "undecided voters" niche, depending on the economy, foreign policy issues, etc. Leans to Democrats.

* Sunday-morning American Catholics. Regulars in the pew and they may fill some parish leadership roles. This is the key “Catholic,” swing voter candidates are chasing.

* “Sweats the details" Catholics who go to confession, are active in full sacramental life of the church and back Catechism on matters of faith and practice. This is a small slice of “Catholic voters.” Solid for GOP.

All of this matters because Catholics, of one kind or another, are 21 percent of the U.S. population and their votes are crucial in swing states such as Ohio and Florida. In the past, Catholics were a crucial part of coalitions that led the Democratic Party.

This brings us to a Washington Post political-desk report about Sen. Kamala Harris throwing her hat into the already crowded field of Democrats seeking their party’s presidential nomination. The headline: “Sen. Kamala Harris formally opens her presidential campaign with a mix of unity and blunt talk about race.”

This is one of those stories in which it is hard to discuss its religion-news contents, because the story contains a large religion-shaped hole, one of special interest to many Catholics. In particular, it is interesting that the story does not contain these words — “Knights of Columbus.” Hold that thought:

OAKLAND, Calif. — Sen. Kamala D. Harris on Sunday formally announced her presidential campaign, merging lofty and unifying lines aimed at a restive Democratic electorate with a blunt discussion of racism, police shootings and the impact of police brutality.

Harris announced on Monday, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, that she would seek the presidency. Her appearance in her hometown on Sunday was the ceremonial start, and it became the highest-profile address yet by any presidential candidate.


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CNN on Tulsi Gabbard: Some candidates' LGBTQ policy ghosts are more relevant than others

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It’s pretty easy to see where the Rep. Tulsi Gabbard story is going for the new CNN.

I think the heart of the story can be expressed this way: Are you now, or have you ever been a … conservative Democrat (or related, by blood, to one)?

Gabbard recently declared that she is one of the legions of Democrats who plan to seek the party’s presidential nomination. She is the first Hindu (a somewhat controversial convert, no less) to take that step.

However, she also created a mini-media storm with an op-ed in The Hill in which (trigger warning) she took an old-school liberal stand on a key religious liberty issue, affirming Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution, which bans any form of “religious test” for those seeking public office.

Yes, we’re talking about the Knights of Columbus wars. Gabbard wrote:

While I oppose the nomination of Brian Buescher to the U.S. District Court in Nebraska, I stand strongly against those who are fomenting religious bigotry, citing as disqualifiers Buescher’s Catholicism and his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus. If Buescher is “unqualified” because of his Catholicism and affiliation with the Knights of Columbus, then President John F. Kennedy, and the 'liberal lion of the Senate' Ted Kennedy would have been “unqualified” for the same reasons.

Wait for it. Here is the language that probably put a millstone around her neck.

No American should be told that his or her public service is unwelcome because “the dogma lives loudly within you” as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said to Amy Coney Barrett during her confirmation hearings in 2017 to serve as U.S. Circuit Court judge in the 7th Circuit. …

The party that worked so hard to convince people that Catholics and Knights of Columbus like Al Smith and John F. Kennedy could be both good Catholics and good public servants shows an alarming disregard of its own history in making such attacks today.

We must call this out for what it is – religious bigotry.

The reactions were fierce, to say the least.


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Friday Five: What Wuerl knew, Opus Dei, Tim Tebow fiancee, Cyntoia Brown, Knights of Columbus

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Once again, the Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal dominates the headlines.

From the Washington Post to the New York Times to Commonwealth, the story that won't go away keeps making mainstream news.

And yes, various angles show up in this week's Friday Five.

Let's dive right in:

1. Religion story of the week: The Washington Post’s Michelle Boorstein reported Thursday that despite past denials, D.C. Cardinal Donald Wuerl knew of sexual misconduct allegations against ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick and reported them to the Vatican.

Catholic News Agency, which broke the news, includes a name that is crucial to the wider story: Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano.

Look for more GetReligion analysis of this important development in the coming days.

2. Most popular GetReligion post: Yet another Washington Post story on a major angle in the scandal was the focus of our No. 1 most-clicked commentary of the week.


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Your weekend think piece: So is Crux officially a 'Catholic publication' these days?

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Your GetReligionistas were exchanging emails the other day, just talking shop, and I suggesting taking a look at a news feature that had just gone online at Crux. One of the gang responded by asking this question: Do we still view Crux as a mainstream or "secular" news outlet, as opposed to being part of the world of official and semi-official Catholic news and commentary publications?

In other words, is Crux still a publication striving to use the American model of the press -- with a commitment to balance, fairness and accuracy -- or is it now an advocacy publication covering news from a distinctively Catholic point of view? After all, it used to be part of the Boston Globe operation and now it's a nonprofit publication linked, financially, to the Knights of Columbus.

These days, Crux runs copy from all over the place, including Catholic wire services as well as mainstream news from Religion News Service, the Associated Press and its own veteran scribes. Of course, there's lots of clearly-labeled commentary and op-ed work, as well.

As you would expect, the head man at Crux has been asked that question plenty of times, including by yours truly in an interview for a Universal syndicate column. Now John L. Allen, Jr., has written an "Editor’s note on Crux redesign and vision" to update his readers.

So what does he have to say?

First, here is what Allen told me several months ago, after "Crux 2.0" opened on April 1. This was a crucial test case for the whole "nonprofit journalism" model that is becoming so common today in this tense, troubled age for independent journalism. During its Globe run, Crux had plenty of readers, but the digital advertising dollars were not adding up. Thus, goal in this new nonprofit hybrid model:


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