sexual abuse

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The complex legacy of Benedict XVI: Defender of tradition who opened door to Pope Francis

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The complex legacy of Benedict XVI: Defender of tradition who opened door to Pope Francis

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who served as head of the Roman Catholic church from 2005 until his surprise resignation in 2013, has died and his passing has fueled renewed debates about several newsworthy trends in the modern Catholic Church.

The scholarly Benedict, a former theology professor, was known for his writings and defense of traditional values to counter the increased secularization of the West. Benedict’s death at age 95 was announced by the Vatican. Pope Francis will preside over the funeral Mass on Jan. 5 at St. Peter’s Square.

Benedict XVI broke several records during his papacy, including being the first pontiff to have a Twitter account. In recent years, however, press coverage stressed his resignation from the papacy.

On February 11, 2013, the Vatican confirmed that Benedict XVI would resign at the end of that month as he neared his 86th birthday, becoming the first pope to step down since Gregory XII in 1415. His resignation ushered in the papacy of Francis, leaving Catholics around the world to grapple with the idea of two living pontiffs. In September 2020, Benedict became the longest-living pontiff — at 93 years, four months and 16 days — surpassing Pope Leo XIII, who died in 1903.

As for Benedict’s legacy, it remains mixed and complex. In the press coverage, it is crucial to note how journalists handle his childhood in Nazi Germany, his move from German liberalism to conservative thinking on doctrine and his public and private actions when handling church scandals.

Vatican observer John L. Allen, in a piece for the National Catholic Reporter in 2013, wrote:

“A legacy, of course, is partially in the eye of the beholder. For many feminists, gays, dissident theologians, liberal Catholics of various stripes, and victims of clerical abuse, Benedict simply wasn’t the pope they wanted. Others will be inclined to celebrate Benedict not so much for what he did, but what he represented. …

“For his part, Benedict probably won't be terribly interested in the discussion. He is, after all, a man who once joked to a French friend after the Paris papers had been hard on one of his speeches, ‘I’m like the cellist Rostropovich — I never read the critics.’”

A voracious writer and theologian, Benedict penned 66 books during his lifetime. Among the most notable are “Introduction to Christianity” (1968), “Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today” (1996) and “Last Testament: In His Own Words” (2016). He also wrote a trilogy of popular books — written for the laity — on the life of Jesus. The Vatican has reported that his final words were: “Jesus, I love you.”


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Podcast: Now what, after SBC 'messengers' have waved their yellow voting cards?

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Podcast: Now what, after SBC 'messengers' have waved their yellow voting cards?

Here’s a warning to reporters who are preparing for future national meetings of the Southern Baptist Convention: Never call these folks “delegates.”

They are not delegates at some kind of political event. They are “messengers” from their local autonomous churches. You see, this isn’t some kind of cocktail-hour mainline Protestant denominational whatever, and many Baptists don’t like the word “denomination,” either. This is a “convention” and it only meets for three days each year.

Use the wrong language and Southern Baptists will give you a steely gaze and then say something nasty, like “Well, bless your heart.”

Quite a few journalists attended this year’s SBC meeting because there were headline-worthy — from their editors’ point of view — topics on the agenda, like clergy sexual abuse, Critical Race Theory and an election to determine if some new-breed conservative “pirates” (that was their term from 2021) were going to wrest the wheel of the ship away from the allegedly “woke” establishment conservatives.

As you would imagine, host Todd Wilken and I dug into all of this during the “Crossroads” podcast this week (CLICK HERE to tune that in). One of the big themes was that the hard-news coverage of this convention — especially by “Location, location, location” pros from major SBC centers, like Houston and Nashville — was top-notch.

Veteran GetReligion scribe Bobby “Positive” Ross, Jr., will offer pages of URLs in his Plug-In feature this week, so I will not try to do that (I’ll post a link when it goes public). But this is what happens when major newsrooms send religion-beat professionals to cover a major event. Readers don’t have to agree with every single thing that they saw in the #SBC2022 coverage, but what we had here was a tsunami of serious coverage from professionals, backed by the skilled Baptist Press team running the on-site newsroom.

With that in mind, let me note a Big Ideas from this podcast.

* If you study attendance numbers at previous “hot” SBC meetings, you will notice a logical trend linked to a map of the Bible Belt. In this online list, note the 1985 Dallas convention drew 45,519 messengers and the 1986 Atlanta convention drew 40,987.

Yes, these were the pivotal years in the historic “conservative resurgence” in SBC life. But, truth is, those numbers also reflect how far ordinary messengers can drive in one day jammed into the buses or vans owned by “ordinary” SBC congregations.


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Ties that bind? Concerning journalism, Grindr, secrecy, homophobia and the Latin Mass

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Ties that bind? Concerning journalism, Grindr, secrecy, homophobia and the Latin Mass

Early in my religion-beat career, a veteran Catholic leader gave me wise advice about the challenges reporters would face covering the emerging national scandals about sexual abuse by bishops and priests.

Never forget, he said, that these scandals are not about “left vs. right.” Plenty of people, across the whole spectrum of Catholic life, have secrets in the past and some in the present.

Soon after that, I heard almost exactly the same take from the late A.W. Richard Sipe, the former Benedictine monk, priest and psychotherapist who spent more than a half-century studying the sexual secrets of Catholic clergy. A strong voice for progressive Catholic causes, he served as a witness or consultant in at least 250 civil legal actions. As I wrote in an “On Religion” column, soon after Sipe’s death:

"Sooner or later it will become broadly obvious that there is a systemic connection between the sexual activity by, among and between clerics in positions of authority and control, and the abuse of children," he wrote, in a 2016 letter to his local shepherd, San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy.

"When men in authority — cardinals, bishops, rectors, abbots, confessors, professors — are having or have had an unacknowledged secret-active-sex-life under the guise of celibacy an atmosphere of tolerance of behaviors within the system is made operative."

Once again, the key is secrecy, because a fog of secrecy, sin and shame can be use to hide all kinds of painful issues.

I bring this up, of course, because of the firestorm that has greeted an investigative report from The Pillar that ran with this headline: “USCCB gen sec Burrill resigns after sexual misconduct allegations.” Here is the overture:

Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, former general secretary of the U.S. bishops’ conference, announced his resignation Tuesday, after The Pillar found evidence the priest engaged in serial sexual misconduct, while he held a critical oversight role in the Catholic Church’s response to the recent spate of sexual abuse and misconduct scandals.

“It is with sadness that I inform you that Msgr. Jeffrey Burrill has resigned as General Secretary of the Conference,” Archbishop Jose Gomez wrote July 20 in a memo to U.S. bishops.

The key evidence was information drawn from signals on the hookup app Grindr, which a Vanity Fair feature once called “The World’s Biggest, Scariest Gay Bar.”


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Don't neglect Mainline Protestants when analyzing, e.g., sexual abuse or Baptist turmoil

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Don't neglect Mainline Protestants when analyzing, e.g., sexual abuse or Baptist turmoil

Two blockbusters dominated the American religion beat last week.

The Catholic bishops defied a nudge from Pope Francis's Vatican and decided overwhelmingly to write a Communion policy that might target President Joe Biden and other pols for liberal abortion stances. And conservative establishment voters in a Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) presidential showdown narrowly defeated (for now) hard-right populists.

Standard news judgment automatically puts the spotlight on hot disputes in the nation's two largest religious sectors — white evangelicalism and Catholicism. Meanwhile, week by week, year by year, the media consistently downplay the third-ranking religious category, "Mainline" Protestantism, which not so long ago exercised such vast cultural influence. (They also neglect fourth-ranking Black Protestantism.)

Two thoughtful new articles show intriguing ways to overcome sins of omission.

President Mark Tooley of the conservative Institute on Religion & Democracy asks, at the Juicy Ecumenism weblog, why Mainline churches apparently suffer fewer sexual abuse scandals than their evangelical rivals. And University of West Georgia historian Daniel K. Williams compares the turbulent Southern Baptists with their smaller and rarely covered Mainline rival, American Baptist Churches (ABC). [Disclosure: The Guy was happily raised in the ABC and remained a nominal member till age 30.]

"Mainline" refers to church bodies dating from Colonial and post-Revolutionary times that have been predominantly white, involved in ecumenical groups like the National Council of Churches and are either liberal on theology and politics or give liberals ample running room. The largest such denominations — often called the “Seven Sisters” — are the ABC, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), United Church of Christ and United Methodist Church.

Tooley is a Methodist evangelical and major critic of liberal trends, so when he faintly praises Mainline performance this commands attention.


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Beyond Potiphar's wife: Leaked letters yank SBC debates about sexual abuse into the open

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Beyond Potiphar's wife: Leaked letters yank SBC debates about sexual abuse into the open

It's hard to follow warfare inside the Southern Baptist Convention without a working knowledge of biblical symbolism.

Consider this passage in a May 31 letter (.pdf here) from the Rev. Russell Moore to SBC President J.D. Greear, which described key events leading to his recent resignation as head of the denomination's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

"You and I both heard, in closed door meetings, sexual abuse survivors spoken of in terms of 'Potiphar's wife' and other spurious biblical analogies," wrote Moore, in a letter posted at the Baptist Blogger website. "The conversations in these closed door meetings were far worse than anything Southern Baptists knew. … And as you know, this comes on the heels of a track-record of the Executive Committee staff and others referring to victims as 'crazy' and, at least in one case, as worse than the sexual predators themselves."

Who was "Potiphar's wife"? She was known for her efforts to manipulate Joseph during his enslavement in Egypt. The Genesis narrative notes: "Now Joseph was handsome and good-looking. And after a time, his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph, and said, 'Lie with me.' " When Joseph refused, the seductress accused him of assault and had him jailed.

It's easy to see how "Potiphar's wife" insults would fit into attempts to discredit Moore and activists who want America's largest Protestant flock to change how its agencies, seminaries and nearly 48,000 autonomous congregations deal with sexual abuse.

Moore's resignation, after years of attacks by critics, has pushed sexual abuse to the top of the agenda at the SBC's June 15-16 national meetings in Nashville -- along with the election of a new president.


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Purity culture questions: A friendly, but crucial, dialogue between two evangelical thinkers

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Purity culture questions: A friendly, but crucial, dialogue between two evangelical thinkers

The purity culture wars continue over on Twitter, where a crucial question — from a journalism perspective — can be seen in the following sequence.

There is no question that some church leaders went too far with purity culture themes and rites, including hellish actions by abusive men. Can anyone deny that? However, can journalists (and their academic and activist sources) assume that because evil happened in some cases means that it happened in all cases? And, to be specific, do journalists have on-the-record evidence that the alleged shooter in Atlanta was, in fact, warped by abusive people at an abusive church?

GetReligion published two posts linked to these debates. Check out Julia Duin’s post here: “Panning purity culture: What the press doesn't get about basic Christian doctrines on sex.”

Then, I raised other basic journalism questions here: “Wait a minute: How is a sermon on the Second Coming linked to shootings in Atlanta?”

Before we get to this weekend’s two “think pieces” on this topic — by religious-liberty activist David French and Crossway books executive Justin Taylor — here is a flashback to a key passage in my post, which is linked to some of Taylor’s constructive criticism of the French piece.

It’s not enough to say that this or that conservative congregation, or counseling center, or parachurch ministry is “evangelical” and, thus, the public can assume that Christian doctrines were used in manipulative ways. …

Ponder this equation: Journalists cannot assume that a specific evangelical flock advocates dangerous doctrine X, simply because there are experts (progressive evangelicals even) who insist that all evangelicals teach dangerous doctrine X and, thus, we know that dangerous doctrine X causes broken, manipulated individuals to do hellish things.

At some point, journalists need to find specific people advocating specific ideas and actions — using research methods that are deeper than second-hand reports and the convictions of hostile experts on one side of fights about the Sexual Revolution.

This brings us to French’s must-read piece:


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Ravi Zacharias scandal shows why independent ministries are so difficult to investigate

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Ravi Zacharias scandal shows why independent ministries are so difficult to investigate

If you have followed the Ravi Zacharias story in recent years, you know that it’s a tragedy on multiple levels and a reminder of why repentance is a crucial element of orthodox Christianity.

I followed this story at a distance, because — unlike many religion-beat pros — I had next to zero contact with Zacharias. I interviewed him only once, by telephone, several decades ago. I thought that he was clever, especially when addressing Hollywood’s trendy take on Eastern religions (“Only in America would anyone argue that reincarnation is Good News).”

The stunning, sordid details of his abuse of women make it clear that he suffered from some kind of sexual addiction. And while his mind was razor-sharp when dissecting many questions about moral theology and ethics, he also used his intellectual gifts to justify his own behavior — to the point of saying that God was blessing his actions.

What can we learn from the news coverage of this scandal?

First of all, it’s a good example of what happens when editors allow religion-beat professionals to cover important stories on their beat. Second, the reporting — in Christianity Today and also in the mainstream press — is devastating because it is based on mountains of documentation and on-the-record sources, as well as the testimonies of victims who deserve privacy.

However, there is a third point that must be emphasized, echoing a point frequently made at GetReligion for nearly two decades. I repeat this as a way of stressing one of the biggest challenges facing journalists — even veteran religion-beat pros — covering stories of this kind.

The fall of Zacharias is a perfect example of why it is so difficult to cover independent, non-denominational parachurch ministries (and independent congregations, as well). Nine times out of 10, radically independent religious organizations are only as honest as their charismatic, gifted, rainmaker founders allow them to be. This is true whether we are talking yoga or the prosperity anti-gospel. It was true long ago when I worked with skilled investigative reporters trying to probe the hidden scandals of PTL’s Jim Bakker. Alas, this remains true today.

Hold that thought, because we will come back to it.

Readers who want to know the horrifying details of this case can start with Christianity Today or with The New York Times. Here is the summary material from CT:


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Members, money and math: Are sex-abuse lawsuits the only cause of Scouting woes?

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When it comes to the ongoing crisis facing Scouting — previously the Boy Scouts of America — it’s obvious that the big headline right now is the decision to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

I get that. However, I would like to ask a question once again about this complex story about an organization that, for decades, was a powerful sign of unity in mainstream American culture.

Has this bankruptcy been caused by waves of child-abuse allegations, alone? See the wording in the headline atop a massive USA Today feature the other day: “Boy Scouts files Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the face of thousands of child abuse allegations.”

Here’s another basic question: Would Scouting leaders be in better financial shape if their membership totals were way up above 4 million, where they were in the 1970s, as opposed to just under 2 million participants today? Would Scouting be better off if supporters in many large conservative religious groups — think the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and many Southern Baptist congregations — hadn’t hit the exit doors in the past decade or so? Do the math?

Yes, note that there is a religion-news component to this missing part of the story. If Scouting is going to survive, who will host these activities and provide the volunteers (and children) they need to thrive?

There is next to nothing about this side of the story in that long USA Today feature. Here is the overture:

Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy protection … amid declining membership and a drumbeat of child sexual abuse allegations that have illuminated the depth of the problem within the organization and Scouts’ failure to get a handle on it.

After months of speculation and mounting civil litigation, the Chapter 11 filing by the scouting organization's national body was unprecedented in both scope and complexity. It was filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware overnight.

The exact effects on Boy Scouts' future operations are unknown, leading to speculation about the organization's odds for survival, the impact on local troops and how bankruptcy could change the dynamic for abuse survivors who have yet to come forward.

The story never focuses on membership trends and some of the changes in Scouting that critics link to the falling numbers.


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Plug-In: How the SBC sex abuse scandal turned a city hall reporter into a religion writer

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Robert Downen almost burned out on newspapers and went into the insurance business.

Instead, the talented journalist, now 28, stuck it out and spearheaded what the Religion News Association chose as the No. 1 religion story of 2019.

I’m talking about the Houston Chronicle’s bombshell investigation that revealed more than 700 victims of sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention and spurred reforms by the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

Come April, Downen’s work on the “Abuse of Faith” project could earn him and his colleagues a Pulitzer Prize. For now, it has resulted in a new gig for the former City Hall reporter. As of last week, he’s covering religion full time for the Houston newspaper. This is wonderful news for Downen and Chronicle readers.

“Mr. Downen has already demonstrated the importance of the beat with his impactful investigative work,” said Peter Smith, the RNA’s president and the veteran religion writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Houston will benefit from his attention to the religiously diverse population of this major American city.”

Texas’s largest daily newspapers — including the Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram — all used to have full-time Godbeat pros.

But no more. At the Chronicle, Downen steps into an important role that has been unfilled for a while. (Here’s hoping those other papers decide to keep up with the competition.)


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