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Al Smith dinner 2020: Trump and Biden make pitches to very different Catholic voters

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Al Smith dinner 2020: Trump and Biden make pitches to very different Catholic voters

During a normal White House race, the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner allows the candidates to don formal attire, fire snappy one-liners and make subtle appeals to Catholic voters.

But nothing is normal in 2020. Thus, Joe Biden and President Donald Trump used this year's virtual dinner to preach to Catholic voters in swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Florida. The event produced few headlines, coming a mere six hours before Trump announced his positive test for COVID-19.

Saluting Catholic progressive, Biden offered a litany about the pandemic, race, the recession and climate change. He warned that many Americans have lost faith "in one another, in truth, in science and reason."

The current pope, Biden stressed, embraced him during a 2013 White House visit, offering comfort shortly after brain cancer took his son Beau's life.

"Pope Francis took the time to meet with my entire family to help us see the light through the darkness," said Biden. "I live in an amazing country … where an Irish Catholic kid like me from Scranton, Pennsylvania, would one day befriend a Jesuit pope. But that's who we are as a country -- where anything is possible when we care for one another, when we look out for one another, when we keep the faith."

While stressing that he is guided "by the tenets of Catholic social doctrine" -- helping the "least of these" -- Biden didn't mention his vow to codify Roe v. Wade if the Supreme Court overturns that decision or his promise to reinstate policies requiring the Little Sisters of the Poor to cooperate in providing birth control and abortifacients to staff. He didn't mention his decision to officiate at the same-sex wedding of two White House colleagues, an action clashing with church doctrine.

It was logical for Biden to avoid providing fresh ammunition for critics. But the speech, once again, trumpeted his Catholic credentials.

"Joe Biden's choice to run explicitly on the claim that he is a faithful Catholic squarely places on the table his claim to be a faithful Catholic," stressed legal scholar Robert P. George of Princeton University, writing on Facebook. He is a Catholic conservative who has also been a consistent critic of Trump.

“No way out of this, folks," he added. "It's not, or not just, Biden's critics who have raised the issue. It's the Biden campaign. …

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Icons, heroes and even one superhero: Chadwick Boseman was an unusual film star

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Icons, heroes and even one superhero: Chadwick Boseman was an unusual film star

Early in the coronavirus crisis, and this summer's wave of chaos in American streets, Rachel Bulman began paying close attention to the faces in news reports.

She also found herself thinking about a hero -- the Black Panther.

Born in the Philippines before being adopted, the Catholic writer has -- as a daughter, wife and mother -- lived her life in White America. As a child, she didn't look like her family. Now, her children are growing up "knowing that they just don't look like everyone else. … Our family has its own story," she said.

Bulman responded by hanging images of saints from Africa, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere in their home. There was St. Josephine Bakhita from the Sudan and an icon of St. Augustine with darker skin, since his mother was from North Africa's Berber tribe. There was St. Juan Diego of Mexico, who encountered Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Sister Thea Bowman of Mississippi, the granddaughter of slaves, whose cause for sainthood has been endorsed by America's bishops.

"I wanted my children to see all kinds of saints and heroes, including some with faces kind of like their own," she said.

Bulman had also become interested in the Marvel Comics universe and the symbolic role of King T'Challa -- the Black Panther -- for millions of Black Americans, especially children. She was stunned when actor Chadwick Boseman died at age 43 after a long, private fight with colon cancer. He endured years of chemotherapy and multiple surgeries while filming "The Black Panther" and related Avenger movies.

Searching through press reports, Bulman noted colleagues referring to Boseman as a "man of faith," a "beautiful soul" and someone with a "spiritual aura" about his work with others -- including children with cancer.

At a memorial rite for Boseman, his former pastor at Welfare Baptist Church in Anderson, S.C., said the actor remained the same person he knew as a young believer.

“He's still Chad," said the Rev. Samuel Neely. "He did a lot of positive things. … With him singing in the choir, with him working the youth group, he always was doing something, always helping out, always serving. That was his personality."

Digging deeper, Bulman said she "cried all the way through" a video of Boseman's 2018 commencement address at Howard University, his alma mater.

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Culture wars are about demographics: Thus, fertility has become a controversial issue

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Culture wars are about demographics: Thus, fertility has become a controversial issue

It was one of those happy social-media pictures, only this time the pregnant mother was celebrating with her nine children.

Los Angeles comedian and actor Kai Choyce was not amused and tweeted the photo with this comment: "this is environmental terrorism. … In the year 2020 literally no one should have ten kids."

The result was a long chain of sweet or snarky comments, as well as photos of large families. One tweet quoted a Swedish study claiming that having "one fewer child per family" can save an average of 58.6 tons of "CO2-equivalent emissions per year."

Debates about fertility often veer into fights about religion and other ultimate questions, such as the fate of the planet.

Parents with two-plus children are often making a statement about the role of religious faith in their lives. People on the other side of this debate have frequently rejected traditional forms of religion.

"What we call 'culture wars' are wars about demographics, but we have trouble discussing that," said historian Philip Jenkins, who is best known for decades of research into global religious trends, while teaching at Pennsylvania State and Baylor University. His latest book is "Fertility and Faith: The Demographic Revolution and the Transformation of World Religions."

In the 1970s, researchers thought the link between secularization and falling birth rates was a "Protestant thing" in Europe, but then this trend spread into Catholic cultures in Europe and in Latin America, he said. Fertility rates are now collapsing in Iran and some Islamic cultures. Meanwhile, Orthodox Jews and traditional Catholics continue to have larger families than liberal believers in those ancient faiths.

America's 2019 birth rate fell to 1.71, its lowest level in three decades, and well under the replacement rate of 2.1. This took place before the coronavirus pandemic and the Brookings Institute recently predicted a "COVID baby bust" next year, resulting in up to half a million fewer births.

Researchers frequently argue about which comes first -- secularization or declining fertility.

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Faith after COVID-19: How many flocks will survive digital 'worship shifting' trends?

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Faith after COVID-19: How many flocks will survive digital 'worship shifting' trends?

Television professionals who survived the past decade have made their peace with terms like "binging" and "time-shifting."

But how, pray tell, can clergy embrace "worship-shifting"?

The coronavirus crisis has plunged pastors into digital technology while trying to replace analog community life with online worship, classes and fellowship forums. These changes have frustrated many, especially believers in ancient traditions built on rites requiring face-to-face contact. But many worshippers have welcomed online worship.

These changes have altered the "fundamental relationship that many young adults have with their churches," said David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group, which does research with a variety of religious groups. "We're hearing about worship-shifting, as people use all the tech in their homes to fit services into their own schedules, just like everything else they watch on all those screens.

"This is another way people are using social media to renegotiate the role the church plays in the lives of their families."

The question religious leaders are asking, of course, is how many people will return to their pews when "normal" life returns. But it may be several years before high-risk older believers decide it's safe to return, even after vaccines become available. Younger members may keep watching their own local services, switch to high-profile digital flocks elsewhere or do both.

In talks with clients, Kinnaman said he is hearing denominational leaders and clergy say they believe that, in the next year or so, some churches will simply close their doors. Early in the pandemic the percentage of insiders telling Barna researchers they were "highly confident" their churches would survive was "in the high 70s," he said.

“Now it's in the 50s. … Most churches are doing OK, for now. But there's a segment that's really struggling and taking a hit, week after week."

After reviewing several kinds of research -- including patterns in finances and attendance -- Kinnaman sent a shockwave through social-media channels with his recent prediction that one in five churches will close in the next 18 months.

In "mainline" churches, he is convinced this number will be one in three, in part because these rapidly aging Protestant denominations have lost millions of members -- some up to 50% -- since the 1960s.

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Memory eternal: Farewell to the sharp pen of Father Paul 'Diogenes' Mankowski

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Memory eternal: Farewell to the sharp pen of Father Paul 'Diogenes' Mankowski

For millions of Americans, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is as familiar as the national anthem and much easier to sing.

Few would need help with: "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. He has loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on! Glory, glory, Hallelujah! … His truth is marching on!"

During 1990s fights over updated Catholic liturgies, a Semitic languages professor at Rome's Pontifical Biblical Institute wrote a Battle Hymn for modernists.

This "sanitized" text -- "chanted to no tune in particular" -- declared: "I see God's approach; it is good. God makes wine with God's feet. … Brightness flashes from the decision-making apparatus. God's worldview is currently earning widespread respect. Give honor repeatedly to the god of our tradition. We have owned our values."

Father Paul V. Mankowski put his own name on that First Things piece, since it didn't lance specific institutions or leaders. For decades, Catholics seeking his satirical work learned to look for "Diogenes" at CatholicCulture.org or "Father X" elsewhere.

Mankowski died on September 3 at age 66, felled by a ruptured brain aneurysm. Raised in a middle-class Rust Belt family, he worked in steel mills to pay tuition at the University of Chicago. His advanced degrees included a master's from Oxford and a Harvard University doctorate.

Many researchers, politicos and journalists (like me) knew him through telephone calls and emails, usually seeking documents and statements from nearby Catholic leaders. He was a rarity in the modern age -- a Jesuit conservative -- and his superiors eventually ordered him not to address church controversies. Much of his work was published anonymously or using pen names.

Princeton University's Robert P. George blitzed through years of emails, after hearing about Mankowski's sudden death.

"There are some doozies -- especially the spoofs, send ups and parodies," said George, on Facebook. "His wit was a massive quiver full of poison-dipped arrows, and he was a master archer. … He would not give a pass to fools, frauds, charlatans, hypocrites, rent seekers, time servers, racketeers, manipulators, corrupt scholars, false teachers or weak or craven leaders, especially in the Church."

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Philosophy, politics and money: What comes next for Liberty University?

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Philosophy, politics and money: What comes next for Liberty University?

Liberty University's decision to close its philosophy department didn't make big headlines in May 2020, at least not when compared with the its coronavirus policies and the latest comments from President Jerry Falwell, Jr.

After all, liberal arts programs were shrinking while Liberty's online education programs prospered, along with job-friendly undergraduate degrees. Christian colleges everywhere are wrestling with similar issues.

But the philosophy department was symbolic because it once was crucial to "what made Liberty unique" -- an emphasis on blending faith with core academic disciplines, said Karen Swallow Prior, who taught there for 20 years. This summer she moved to Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., to teach English literature, as well as Christianity and culture.

"That department was top notch and produced students who went straight to the Ivy League and had great success," she said. "Philosophy was larger when I first got there, and it was clear this discipline was seen as part of Liberty's mission. Then things started changing."

Now, Liberty leaders are wrestling with the undeniable impact Falwell Jr. had as president, after the 2007 death of his father, the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Facing years of red ink, the founder's heir soon pushed for $500 million in campus updates and expansions, along with profitable online programs. The university now has 15,000 on-campus students and roughly 100,000 online. Liberty claims an endowment of $1.6 billion.

At the same time, Falwell Jr. developed a swashbuckling style that caused heat, especially when linked to race, guns, jets, politics, yachts and his specialty -- real estate. Controversies about his de facto partnership with President Donald Trump thrilled many Liberty donors, alumni, parents and students, while deeply troubling others.

Many Christian college presidents are super-pastors who provide ties that bind to denominations, churches and networks of believers. Falwell Jr. -- a lawyer -- turned into a dynamic entrepreneur who courted powerful conservative politicos.

On regular Christian campuses, there "are higher expectations for presidents than members of the faculty, and members of the faculty live with greater expectations than students," noted religious-liberty activist David French, writing at The Dispatch.

"Liberty flipped this script. The president lived life with greater freedom than his students or his faculty. The message sent was distinctly unbiblical -- that some Christian leaders can discard integrity provided their other qualifications, from family name to fund-raising prowess, provided sufficient additional benefit."

All of this led to a soap-opera collapse, after flashes of risqué social media.

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Pro-Catechism Catholics are watching Joe Biden's actions, not just listening to his words

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Pro-Catechism Catholics are watching Joe Biden's actions, not just listening to his words

In the summer of 2016, two White House staffers -- Brian Mosteller and Joe Mahshie -- tied the knot in a rite led by one of America's most prominent Catholics.

The officiant was Vice President Joe Biden, who later proclaimed on Twitter: "Proud to marry Brian and Joe at my house. Couldn't be happier … two great guys."

Leaders of familiar Catholic armies then debated whether Biden's actions attacked this Catholic Catechism teaching: "The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman form with each other an intimate communion of life and love, has been founded and endowed with its own special laws by the Creator. … Christ the Lord raised marriage between the baptized to the dignity of a sacrament."

Conflicts between bishops, clergy and laity will loom in the background as Biden seeks to become America's second Catholic president. Combatants will be returning to territory explored in a famous 1984 address by the late Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York, entitled "Religious Belief and Public Morality."

Speaking at the University of Notre Dame, he said: "As a Catholic, I have accepted certain answers as the right ones for myself and my family, and because I have, they have influenced me in special ways, as Matilda's husband, as a father of five children, as a son who stood next to his own father's death bed trying to decide if the tubes and needles no longer served a purpose.

"As a governor, however, I am involved in defining policies that determine other people's rights in these same areas of life and death. Abortion is one of these issues, and while it is one issue among many, it is one of the most controversial and affects me in a special way as a Catholic public official."

It would be wrong to make abortion policies the "exclusive litmus test of Catholic loyalty," he said. After all, the "Catholic church has come of age in America" and it's time for bishops to recognize that Catholic politicians have to be realistic negotiators in a pluralistic land.

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Christian icons and art before the rise of the blue-eyed Jesus with blond hair

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Christian icons and art before the rise of the blue-eyed Jesus with blond hair

For modern skeptics, the 6th-century icon hanging in the Orthodox monastery in the shadow of Mount Sinai is simply a 33-by-18-inch board covered in bees wax and colored pigments.

For believers, this Christ Pantocrator ("ruler of all") icon is the most famous image of Jesus in the world, because the remote Sinai Peninsula location of St. Catherine's Monastery allowed it to survive the Byzantine iconoclasm era. The icon shows Jesus -- with a beard and long hair -- raising his right hand in blessing, while holding a golden book of the Gospels.

This Jesus does not have blond hair and blue eyes. "Christ of Sinai" shows the face of a wise teacher from ancient Palestine.

"When you talk about ancient icons, you are basically talking about images of Jesus with long hair, a beard and some kind of Roman toga. That's just about all you can say," said Jonathan Pageau of Quebec, an Eastern Orthodox artist and commentator on sacred symbols.

In the early church, he added, believers "didn't ask other questions -- about race and culture -- because those were not the important questions in those days. … Once you start politicizing icons there's just no way out of those arguments. You get into politics and dividing people and then you're lost."

In these troubled times, said Pageau, many analysts are "projecting valid concerns about racism and Europe's history of colonization and the plight of African-Americans back into issues of church history and art that are centuries and centuries old. It's a kind of category error and everything gets mixed up."

But that's what happened when debates about some #BlackLivesMatters activists toppling Confederate memorials -- along with attacks on Catholic statues and even insufficiently "woke" Founding Fathers -- veered into #WhiteJesus territory.

"Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. They are a form of white supremacy," tweeted Shaun King, author of "Make Change: How to Fight Injustice, Dismantle Systemic Oppression, and Own Our Future."

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Anglican debate in 2020 crisis: Can clergy consecrate bread and wine over the Internet?

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Anglican debate in 2020 crisis: Can clergy consecrate bread and wine over the Internet?

In the late 1970s, the Episcopal Ad Project began releasing spots taking shots at television preachers and other trends in American evangelicalism.

One image showed a television serving as an altar, holding a priest's stole, a chalice and plate of Eucharistic hosts. The headline asked: "With all due regard to TV Christianity, have you ever seen a Sony that gives Holy Communion?"

Now some Anglicans are debating whether it's valid -- during the coronavirus crisis -- to celebrate "virtual Eucharists," with computers linking priests at altars and communicants with their own bread and wine at home.

In a recent House of Bishops meeting -- online, of course -- Episcopal Church leaders backed away from allowing what many call "Virtual Holy Eucharist."

Episcopal News Service said bishops met in private small groups to discuss if it's "theologically sound to allow Episcopalians to gather separately and receive Communion that has been consecrated by a priest remotely during an online service."

Experiments had already begun, in some Zip codes. In April, Bishop Jacob Owensby of the Diocese of Western Louisiana encouraged such rites among "Priests who have the technical know-how, the equipment and the inclination" to proceed.

People at home, he wrote, will "provide for themselves bread and wine (bread alone is also permissible) and place it on a table in front of them. The priest's consecration of elements in front of her or him extends to the bread and wine in each … household. The people will consume the consecrated elements."

Days later, after consulting with America's presiding bishop," Bishop Owensby rescinded those instructions. "I understand that virtual consecration of elements at a physical or geographical distance from the Altar exceeds the recognized bounds set by our rubrics and inscribed in our theology of the Eucharist," he wrote.

However, similar debates were already taking place among other Anglicans. In Australia, for example, Archbishop Glenn Davies of Sydney urged priests to be creative during this pandemic, while churches were being forced to shut their doors.

During a live-streamed rite, he wrote, parishioners "could participate in their own homes via the internet consuming their own bread and wine, in accordance with our Lord's command."