Muslim Uighurs

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Top religion-beat story of 2020? There were several COVID-19 stories to choose from ...

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Top religion-beat story of 2020? There were several COVID-19 stories to choose from ...

There was never any question whether the global coronavirus pandemic would be named the most important religion-news story in 2020.

The question was which faith-driven COVID-19 story -- out of a dozen or so -- would top the Religion News Association's Top 10 list.

According to journalists who cover religion, this was the year's biggest story: "COVID-19 pandemic claims lives of many religious leaders and laity, upends death rituals, ravages congregational finances, spurs charitable responses, forces religious observances to cancel or go online and stirs legal fights over worship shutdowns."

But there was a problem on my ballot. The RNA list included another coronavirus item focusing on religious liberty. In some cities and states, officials created pandemic regulations that claimed many institutions -- from grocery stores to casinos -- provided "essential services." Meanwhile, other institutions -- like churches and synagogues -- were deemed "non-essential."

The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled that religious institutions shouldn't face tougher rules than secular groups and activities. It was wrong, for example, to ban masked priests from hearing confessions -- outdoors, 10 feet away from masked penitents -- while consumers were lined up at liquor stores.

These conflicts continued. In a symbolic pre-Christmas press conference, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam explained why he thought religious groups should be willing to move their activities online and stay there -- for now.

"This year we need to think about what is truly the most important thing," Northam explained, in a Richmond press conference. "Is it the worship or the building? For me, God is wherever you are. You don't have to sit in the church pew for God to hear your prayers."

Bishop Robert Barron of the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles was not amused. The problem with this"secularized, Protestant-ized" view of worship, he said, is that it doesn't work for believers with ancient traditions that don't work online, such as offering communicants consecrated bread and wine.

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Survey of Millennials and Gen Z: Many young Americans just don't get the Holocaust

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Survey of Millennials and Gen Z: Many young Americans just don't get the Holocaust

It was the kind of open-ended question researchers ask when they want survey participants to have every possible chance to give a good answer.

Thus, a recent 50-state study of Millennials and younger "Generation Z" Americans included this: "During the Holocaust, Jews and many others were sent to concentration camps, death camps and ghettos. Can you name any concentration camps, death camps or ghettos you have heard of?"

Only 44% could remember hearing about Auschwitz and only 6% remembered Dachau, the first concentration camp. Only 1% mentioned Buchenwald, where Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel was a prisoner when the American Third Army arrived.

Another question: "How was the Holocaust carried out?" While 30% knew that there were concentration camps, only 13% remembered poison-gas chambers.

"That was truly shocking. I have always thought of Auschwitz as a symbol of evil for just about everyone. … It has always been the ultimate example of what hate can lead to if we don't find a way to stop it," said Gideon Taylor, president of the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

It was a sobering "wake-up call," he added, to learn that half of the young Americans in this survey "couldn't name a single concentration camp. … It seems that we no longer have common Holocaust symbols in our culture, at least not among our younger generations."

Popular culture is crucial. It has, after all, been nearly 30 years since the release of Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List," so that landmark movie isn't a cultural reference point for many young people. And it's been 20 years since the original "X-Men" movie, which opens at the gates of Auschwitz, and almost a decade since "X-Men: First Class," which offered a variation on that concentration-camp imagery.

Old movies and school Holocaust-education materials, said Taylor, are clearly being buried in information from social media and Internet search engines.