Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz: A farewell to GetReligion from Catholic radio

Twenty years is a good run.

Unfortunately, GetReligion should run for at least another 20 more years because the need is still there, and under the circumstances that Terry Mattingly has described of the current state of journalism, one could easily argue that the need is even greater now than it was when this weblog was born.

But alas and alack, it seems that those with the charge of doing actual journalism have not been listening to the wisdom emanating from the authors on this brave site.

Instead of a revival of the classic American style of objective reporting, the owners of the Fourth Estate have denominated themselves into camps according to their respective narratives. That leaves them completely closed to the possibility of learning something new, including how to cover the religion beat.

As a Catholic media pro, this has been especially hard to watch because it makes me believe that there’s an agenda here, whether journalism executives want to admit it or not. When USA Today sends out a breaking news alert that links to a story reporting what is old news on the clergy sex-abuse crisis, that makes a reader wonder why they are so uninformed about basic facts.

Clemente Lisi’s latest of many GetReligion posts about attacks on Catholic churches shows that it’s not getting any better.

We are talking about basic information, here.

Yes, the Gray Lady made a somewhat understandable error in its stolen-tabernacle story

Let’s face it, liturgical traditions in ancient Christian flocks are complicated.

With that in mind, let me respond to an error in an otherwise solid story in The New York Times — the latest in what seems like an endless river of news reports about attacks on sanctuaries around the world. Our own Clemente Lisi has written many posts on this topic and, alas, it seems that journalists will be writing more crime stories of this kind in the future.

Here is the dramatic double-decker headline on this latest tragic story:

Theft of a Church’s Tabernacle Leaves More Than a Physical Void
A Brooklyn congregation condemned the desecration of their sacred sanctuary in a burglary that the pastor called “one more blow” to a struggling church.

As I said, this Times story does contain an error that I think is worth a correction.

However, I will have to admit that I read right past this error when I first saw this story and I can understand why it might have slipped past copy-desk professionals (unless a traditional Catholic was in the mix). Why would I have missed it? I’ll deal with that in a moment. First, here is the overture, which contains the error:

Deflated, Father Frank Tumino stepped into the pulpit at St. Francis Xavier Church in Brooklyn on Tuesday morning. Six blocks away, St. Augustine’s, the other church where he serves as pastor, was closed and cordoned off with police tape. At its center was a literal and figurative hole.
“This is just one more blow,” Father Tumino said after presiding over Mass. He was referring to the theft of St. Augustine’s tabernacle, a $2 million gold treasure that was separated from its 19th-century foundation last week with a power saw before presumably vanishing into the murky underground of stolen artifacts.
The ornate tabernacle box that held the eucharist — the wine and consecrated wafers that the faithful believe embody Jesus Christ — disappeared from the Park Slope church’s sanctuary sometime between last Thursday evening and Saturday afternoon, the police said.

The error?