South America

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Inside a tense huddle in Baltimore: U.S. Catholic bishops wrestle with Vatican criticism

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Inside a tense huddle in Baltimore: U.S. Catholic bishops wrestle with Vatican criticism

The U.S. Catholic bishops are gathered in Baltimore, once again, which means that reporters are listening to waves of friendly words in public, while trying to get bishops to be candid in the tiny windows of time when they are free to meet with outsiders.

The more tense the atmosphere, the smaller the windows of open discussion. Long ago, during meetings in a hotel ballroom in Washington, D.C., several reporters (including moi) blocked the service door to the kitchen so that we could ask questions when bishops tried to slip out that back door.

The issue? Vatican efforts to discipline a bishop who was getting out of line on doctrinal issues. Back then, it was a progressive bishop who was in trouble with the pope.

Times change. Today, it’s doctrinal conservatives who are worried, since they are on the wrong side of trends in Rome. For more background, see my recent post: “Attention U.S. Catholic bishops: You are not allowed to say that this pope isn't Catholic.”

This early Associated Press report punches several crucial buttons:

BALTIMORE (AP) — Catholic leaders called for peace in a war-torn world and unity amid strife within their own clerical ranks on Tuesday, as U.S. bishops gathered in Baltimore for their annual fall meeting.

The meeting came soon after two actions by Pope Francis that illustrated the divisive challenges facing the Catholic Church – removing one of his harshest conservative critics from his role as bishop of Tyler, Texas, and releasing a document conveying a more welcoming stance to transgender people than the official positions of the U.S. bishops.

The key is that Catholics everywhere are supposed to be talking more openly, bowing to the spirit of “synodality.” That is, of course, a reference to the first major meeting of the Synod on Synodality, which featured strong efforts to prevent participants from speaking to journalists or releasing texts of speeches or remarks that were not cleared by synod leaders chosen by Pope Francis.

The AP report turned to American politics, of course, and offered this “tsk, tsk” analysis:

The bishops elected Toledo Bishop Daniel Thomas over a more prominent cultural warrior, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, as the new head of their committee on pro-life activities. The committee’s chair serves as the conference’s point-person in efforts against abortion, a top priority for the bishops.

Jamie Manson, head of Catholics for Choice, called it an ironic choice, given that Thomas serves in Ohio where Catholic groups “just spent more than $12 million fighting a losing battle against abortion access.” Ohio voters enshrined abortion rights by ballot amendment last week.


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That story that stayed 'til Christmas: Pachamama debates lingered at the Vatican

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The scene during the Vatican's Christmas concert was simple and even childlike, as a young woman from Latin America instructed participants -- including smiling cardinals -- to fold their arms over their chests.

But this was a religious ritual, not a 1990s Macarena flashback.

"You will feel a strong vibration," she said, according to translations of the online video. "That is the heart -- your heart, but also the heart of Mother Earth. And on the other side, where you feel the silence, there is the spirit -- the spirit that allows you to understand the message of the Mother.

"For us indigenous peoples … Mother Earth, Hitchauaya, is everything. It is that Mother who provides food. She is the one who gives us the sacred water. She is the one who gives us medicinal plants and power and reminds us of our origin, the origin of our creation."

The name "Hitchauaya" was new, but battles over "Pachamama" rites had already emerged as one of the strangest Vatican news stories of late 2019. For weeks, progressives and conservatives argued about the relevancy of the first of the Ten Commandments: "You shall have no other gods before me."

Three events in Rome fueled the Earth Mother wars. For some Catholics, they became linked, theologically, to an early 2019 meeting in Abu Dhabi when Pope Francis signed an interfaith document that included this: "The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom."

First, early in the fall Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon region, there were rites that included wooden statues of a pregnant Amazonian woman. Some journalists reported that they represented "Our Lady of the Amazon" or were symbols of new life. Outraged Catholics then stole the statues and tossed them in the Tiber River.

Speaking as "bishop of this diocese," Pope Francis apologized and sought "forgiveness from those who have been offended by this gesture." He said the images were displayed "without idolatrous intentions."


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Did Pope Francis really embrace 'unorthodox' practices among charismatic Catholics?

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Time for a quick trip into the thick tmatt file of guilt, full of GetReligion topiccs I had hoped to get to several days ago.

During the papal trip to South America, the New York Times veered away from political analysis in one story and hit on one of the most important two-part developments in world religion in the past few decades.

Part one: The rise of Pentecostal Protestantism in the once solidly Catholic culture of South America. Click here for tons of information from the Pew Forum. Part two: The rise of the Catholic charismatics soon after that in the same region, and elsewhere in the Global South.

This led to an interesting, and to me troubling, Times team use of an important doctrinal term. Then, that mistake hinted at a key hole in the story. Let's start at the colorful beginning:

QUITO, Ecuador -- The rock music boomed as the congregants at this simple, white-walled church sang and clapped, raising their arms skyward as they prayed aloud and swayed to the beat. The sermon included jokes and a call-and-response with people in the pews. There was even a faith healing testimonial.
But just when it seemed like a Protestant revival meeting, the blessing of the host began and the parishioners filed to the altar to take communion, as in any other Roman Catholic Mass.
Afterward, many of the worshipers bought T-shirts and scarves with the logo of Pope Francis’ visit to their country this week.
“They’re not so Catholic, are they?” joked the priest who presided over the service, Ismael Nova, referring to the Masses he conducts at San Juan Eudes parish church. “They’re different.”

Not very Catholic? Really now.


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Pope Francis travels to South America to talk climate change (and, maybe, Jesus)

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Once again, the pope is travelling. This means that, once again, readers get to observe one of the iron-clad laws that govern religion-news coverage at work.

This chunk of the mainstream journalism Grand Unified Theory states that, no matter what the pope cites as his reasons for visiting a land or region, he is actually there for political reasons. He is there in an attempt to impact the lives of real people through political ideas or actions (as opposed to through sacraments, biblical truth, etc.) Then again, he might be there because of something that is going on in church politics. Reporters are allowed to consider that option.

In this case, Pope Francis is back home in South America where, in a welcoming ceremony at Ecuador’s Quito International airport. he offered the following reasons for this trip:

Pope Francis ... spoke to a delegation which included Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, government authorities, and his fellow bishops. The Pope told the delegation that his reason for coming to Ecuador was to be “a witness of God’s mercy and of faith in Jesus Christ.”

Wait. That isn't the reason for the journey quoted in your main news source?

Oh, right. That quote is from the Catholic News Agency report, which actually used a lede that combined both the sacred and the secular language from the Pope Francis arrival rite.


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Connecting dots between Santo Daime and blurring lines between religions

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Connecting dots between Santo Daime and blurring lines between religions

I attended a Bob Dylan concert in Baltimore some years back where I fell into conversation about Mr. Robert Allen Zimmerman and his music with a high-schooler sitting next to me. Suddenly, it hits this kid: "Wow! You're from the '60s!" I smiled. But the kid had it right. I felt like an archeological artifact.

Yes, I lived as a college student and as a working journalist, when I wasn't just hanging out, in New York's East Village and San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury. I covered Jerry Rubin's Yippies and Berkeley's People's Park. And despite the cliche, I remember that period of my life quite clearly. I know what I did.

By which I mean that in addition to a lot of brown rice and mung beans, I consumed a fair quantity of psychedelic drugs, natural and synthetic, in, shall we say, non-clinical settings. I do not recommend that anyone follow my example. But I was fortunate and avoided trouble. Moreover, I experienced altered states of consciousness that provided my first hint that there was more to life than the every-day material world, and that spirituality and religious tradition would be profoundly real and important to me.

Why this confessional now? To grab your reading attention, of course. It's called a lede.

Now that I apparently have it, let's discuss a recent story in The New York Times about an experimental Brazilian prison program that provides select maximum-security convicts with a plant-based psychedelic brew in the hope it will mitigate their anti-social behaviors. In short, it's meant as psycho-spiritual therapy.


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Pope trip: Time to play 'spot the political sound bite'

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The pope is abroad. This means, of course, that it is time to look at the papal texts — Vatican site here — and play a mainstream media game that can accurately be called “spot the political sound bite.”


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