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The Catholic New World
Observations - by Tom Sheridan, Editor

June 5, 2005

Reese’s bits and pieces

Ripples of concern have roiled segments of the Catholic press following the apparently forced resignation of Jesuit Father Tom Reese as editor of the influential magazine America.

His Jesuit community acknowledged in early May that Reese left under pressure. Reports said pressure came from the Vatican congregation formerly headed by Cardinal Ratzinger before he became pope, from some unnamed U.S. bishops, or possibly both.

The problem, according to its critics, was that America published articles which failed to support authentic Catholic positions by promoting viewpoints contrary to official teaching.

Journalists working for Catholic media are also very much aware of the traditions and mission of their profession, among which is the desire to proclaim the truth. But Catholic journalists, for the most part, are also aware of another truth. That is: We are what we are, journalists who share the truth of faith.

But some Catholic journalists worried that fallout from the Reese affair would mean an inability to report contrary viewpoints, and that could impair the ability to share solid teaching.

In late May, journalists from the United States and Canada gathered in Orlando for the 2005 Catholic Media Convocation where Reese, obviously, was a topic. In a workshop, Archbishop John Foley, a former newspaper editor and now president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council on Social Communications, shared his perspective.

It’s a worthy one, and quite simple: journalists who write for Catholic media should not appear to give “equal weight … to articles which present the teaching of the church and articles which dissent from it.” In other words, it’s not just what gets said, but how.

That’s an important consideration. Archbishop Foley shared how, as an editor in Philadelphia in 1968, he reported on the controversial Vatican document Humanae Vitae. The teaching, he said, went on Page 1; the opposing views went inside.

Catholic journalists can, and perhaps must, present issues in a way that unequivocally demonstrate Catholic teaching—but still explain when objections exist.

To present authentic church positions, however accurately, in a vacuum which ignores or dismisses other views can reduce solid Catholic teaching to a disconnected set of rules.

This is an important time for the church. Clearly there is a continuous clash with a popular culture offering an ethos vastly different from the Gospel. At stake are the souls of non-Catholics, to be sure, but also of Catholics who do not understand, or who actively oppose, some church positions. We often see that here regarding the church’s positions on life issues, war, poverty, immigration and more.

That the Gospel is counter-cultural ought not be surprising. It always has been. But to counter culture, to challenge those things which do not reflect the way of Christ, that culture must be at least acknowledged. To do otherwise is shadow-box. We cannot pretend it doesn’t exist.

And no one ever secured a knockout in shadow-boxing. Or by not studying the ways of the opposition.

During another convocation talk, Father John Cusick, director of Young Adult Ministry for the Archdiocese of Chicago, touched on the trials—and the triumphs—of working with the segment of the U.S. population most negatively affected by today’s culture.

Cusick said this generation expects more of their faith than did previous ones. They expect a welcome (indeed, all of us should), but they also expect to be intellectually and spiritually challenged. After all, popular culture envelops them. Clearly it is a group which needs to be taught … but it would be foolish to think we can teach without full explanation of why the culture is wrong and the church is right.

Perhaps that’s why, as we were reminded often during the convocation, that Pope John Paul II’s final document before his death, was on how to use media—especially Catholic media, print and electronic—to change the world. But certainly not by ignoring the world.


Tom Sheridan
Editor and General Manager

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