{"id":505,"date":"2008-03-27T08:46:56","date_gmt":"2008-03-27T08:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/03\/pen-in-hand.html"},"modified":"2008-03-27T08:46:56","modified_gmt":"2008-03-27T08:46:56","slug":"pen-in-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/03\/pen-in-hand.html","title":{"rendered":"Pen in hand"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s the point about press coverage. Perhaps you could call it my manifesto on the subject.
\nAmerican press coverage of the papacy has had a single overriding theme for twenty-five years: the dissonance between what the Pope represents and the way American Catholics actually live their lives.
\nThere are numerous variations of this, but that’s the essence of it.
\nAnd there is, of course, truth to that. Much truth. It’s newsworthy, certainly.
\n(I would suggest, though that it’s not a truth limited to the issue of contraception. Most of us <\/em>don’t live our lives in total faithful response to the radical call of the Gospel. “Most American Catholics,” if you look at the way we live, certainly seem to “disagree with” Jesus Christ when it comes to that whole two coats<\/a>\u00a0and lilies of the field business<\/a>. But somehow that’s not newsworthy. )
\nBut I’m going to suggest that there’s more to the story, and that an over-dependence on that meme, as well as, in the present context, the “God’s Rottweiler softens his image and preaches about Jesus and stuff” meme are tired, overused and not useful for exploring the complexities and realities of this papacy and the response to it.
\nIt’s worth talking about those who disagree with Pope Benedict. But it’s also worth, in the reporting of those differences, pushing those who disagree to account for the specifics of their reasoning, in the context of an understanding of what the role of the papacy actually is vis-a-vis <\/em>Catholic teaching.
\nAnd it’s also worth – and perhaps pretty interesting – talking to those who are inspired by Pope Benedict and are learning from him: laity, religious, priests and bishops alike. Seminarians. Book-buyers. Internet-discussion participants.
\nI’m not saying there’s not a gap in understanding. There is.\u00a0 But what’s lacking is an informed, critical examination of that gap, as well as a look at the other side – who’s buying all those Pope Benedict books…and why? Who are these people who are shifting their thinking on liturgy because of what they’re reading and seeing from Pope Benedict? There are Protestants who have appreciated Pope Benedict’s theological work for decades. Who are they and what do they appreciate in him?
\nThrow the old template away. It’s worn out and obscures more than it clarifies. Clean out the Rolodex and replenish it with new names. Tell us something we don’t already know.
\nThat is, I think what it’s called, isn’t it?
\nNews?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s the point about press coverage. Perhaps you could call it my manifesto on the subject. American press coverage of the papacy has had a single overriding theme for twenty-five years: the dissonance between what the Pope represents and the way American Catholics actually live their lives. There are numerous variations of this, but that’s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nPen in hand - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/03\/pen-in-hand.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pen in hand - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here’s the point about press coverage. Perhaps you could call it my manifesto on the subject. American press coverage of the papacy has had a single overriding theme for twenty-five years: the dissonance between what the Pope represents and the way American Catholics actually live their lives. There are numerous variations of this, but that’s…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/03\/pen-in-hand.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-03-27T08:46:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Pen in hand - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/03\/pen-in-hand.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Pen in hand - Via Media","og_description":"Here’s the point about press coverage. Perhaps you could call it my manifesto on the subject. American press coverage of the papacy has had a single overriding theme for twenty-five years: the dissonance between what the Pope represents and the way American Catholics actually live their lives. There are numerous variations of this, but that’s…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/03\/pen-in-hand.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2008-03-27T08:46:56+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/03\/pen-in-hand.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/03\/pen-in-hand.html","name":"Pen in hand - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-03-27T08:46:56+00:00","dateModified":"2008-03-27T08:46:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/03\/pen-in-hand.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/03\/pen-in-hand.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/03\/pen-in-hand.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Pen in hand"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}