Theology vs. trivia

Pope Benedict XVI is celebrating mass in Washington today and a nation that walks a fine line between Saturday night and Sunday morning, as the Rev. Jimmy Buffet once said, is struggling when it comes to discussions about the visit.

Last night, for example, the pontiff told bishops, the Boston Globe said, "to do better communicating with the public, connecting with priests, and educating children; he also exhorted them to demonstrate unfettered support for immigrants. And he offered an analysis of the role of religion in America, suggesting that the freedom here has at the same time allowed faith to flourish but also can 'subtly reduce religious belief to a lowest common denominator.'"

OK, let's talk about that.

"The pontiff doesn't like to drink wine with dinner, and at dinner last night he was seen with a can of orange Fanta, and some Cracker Jack was also seen," the commentator on CNN noted during live coverage of the mass this morning. That was a few minutes after noted theologian Mike Piazza, who conducted services for years behind the plate at Shea Stadium, described the differences between Pope Benedict and his predecessors.

So what are viewers left with? Here's a review of the coverage so far from Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times:

Cable news channels and the networks interrupted their regular programming to provide live coverage of the pope at the White House as he read his speech precisely and evenly in a slight German accent. He graciously shook hands with cabinet members and elected officials (Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, kissed his ring). The pope, who turned 81 on Wednesday, smiled winningly when the crowd broke out in a ragged version of "Happy Birthday." He looked pleased -- he smiled and stretched out his arms to well-wishers -- when the soprano Kathleen Battle led a more expert rendition of the song. But it provided, at best, a fleeting look at the pope. TV commentators tried to compensate, extolling the excitement of the crowds and the geniality of the guest of honor. One anchor declared that the pope looked "thoroughly overjoyed."

The challenge in covering a papal visit, then, is fairly enormous: don't make it an infomercial for the Vatican, explore the issues -- good and bad -- that have challenged the church and its followers, and don't come off looking anti-Catholic.

Consider this letter today in the Star Tribune:

The Star Tribune covers it by running an Associated Press article with 35 column inches of written copy (plus some pictures). The first 28 of those 35 inches deal with sexual abuse by Catholic clergy over the past half-century. Only the last 7 inches refer to other aspects of the pope's visit.

Some Americans feel the media are anti-Catholic. Where in the world might they ever get such an idea?

Peter Steinfels, a religion columnist for the Times and professor at Fordham University provided one of the more insightful comments on the visit last night on... of all places ... The Daily Show (Video here):

"I think he'll probably deliver messages that are complicated and deserve analysis and parsing, but he'll leave the country and we'll never pay any attention again to those complicated messages," he said

So maybe the visit is about us. Steinfels says we only discuss religion when it intersects with the culture wars. "We have a hard time dealing with genuine, religious, profound messages, and I think that this pope really does think that religion is not a set of propositions that you believe in some fundamental orientation toward the universe which he thinks is love, and we've got to find a political thing on page 82 when he writes an encyclical."

If you'd like to discuss the papal visit, be sure to listen to Midday today at 11.

(Photo: Mandal Ngan, AFP/Getty Images)

Sounds like more of a critique on the media than the pope. An old man dressed in archaic clothes waving at a crowd requires a hell of a lot less effort to cover than complicated theological issues.

Like I said, I think it's about US. And I think we're quite uncomfortable when it comes to us.

I think some of the discomfort with discussing the theological or spiritual issues around something like a papal visit is a result of far right/conservative Christians hijacking the discussion of religion. I remember my mother grumbling back in the Reagan/Moral Majority era that "those Christians" were making it difficult for her to express her far more liberal religious views without being lumped in with them, simply by virtue of not being Hindu (or Jewish or - fill in the blank). So we all got uncomfortable talking about religion and theology because it became clear that you would get branded with a scarlet C (or Anti-C, depending) if you did. So then we focused on the personalities and the heads of the churches and their actions (Jim Bakker? Pedophile priests?) rather than the beliefs of the folks sitting in the pews. The discussion of religion lost its nuance in the process, and now no one is comfortable talking about it.

I just heard an interesting point that one of the guest on Midday made... that America has come to view the terms "conservative" and "liberal" ONLY in a political context, not in a spiritual or religious context.

I find it very interesting that news outlets are stuggling with different ways to present and discuss the Pope's visit. It will create some good debate in the newsrooms across the country and I enjoy seeing the results of their descisions on television. These stories require some actual thought by news stations compared to the latest Brittney Spears arrest or the results of last nights American Idol.

How is the pope being discussed OUTSIDE the newsrooms and on the media. Or is it at all? We need a water-cooler report.

"How is the pope being discussed OUTSIDE the newsrooms and on the media."

the who?

Bob--

Full disclosure, I'm the communications director at Fordham University. The water cooler conversation around here is exactly what Peter said on The Daily Show: all the nuance, even some of the major points, in fact, are washed out when the American left-right template is applied to faith, and especially to the Pope's message.

Father McShane, our president, put it this way in Newsday today>/a>, "[The Pope's speech to educators] was a very complex and well-crafted speech, meant to be meditated on, wrestled with and discussed.":