Troubling News from Catholic Magazine

By Tom Deignan

In 1997, when I was a mere graduate student stuck in the barren flatlands of Ohio, I read a wonderful novel about the joys of reading amidst a hard life in Belfast.

The novel was called Reading in the Dark and was written by Seamus Deane, who later went on to run the Irish studies program at Notre Dame. The novel was so interesting that I decided to write up a review and send it to a magazine that I had started to read, and to which I hoped one day to contribute.

America magazine was unabashedly Catholic, was run by the Jesuits, and was an interesting mix of spirituality, politics and the arts.

In short, these people know their Irish stuff, so it was an honor to be given the chance to write for the magazine.

And so, it was with some surprise this Saturday when I looked on the front page of The New York Times and saw that America’s editor, Father Thomas Reese, was leaving the magazine.

Why is this front page news? Well, it appears that the new pope more or less forced him to.

As the Times article said, “The order to dismiss ... the Rev. Thomas J. Reese was issued by the Vatican’s office of doctrinal enforcement — the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — in mid-March when that office was still headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (said officials) who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter.”

Of course, Cardinal Ratzinger was later elected pope.

America is a weekly magazine and is viewed by most observers as moderate to liberal-leaning. Even when the magazine does question Church doctrine, it usually runs another article in defense of church doctrine. Father Reese has appeared on TV dozens of times, and he comes across as wise and undeniably faithful.

The Times continued, “In recent years America has featured articles representing more than one side on sensitive issues like same-sex marriage, relations with Islam and whether Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should be given Communion.

“Church officials said it was the publication of some of these articles that prompted Vatican scrutiny. Some Jesuits said that within the last two years they had received spoken or written warnings from then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s office about articles or books they had published.”

Stephen Pope, a moral theologian at Boston College, told the Times, “If this is true, it’s going to make Catholic theologians who want to ask critical questions not want to publish in Catholic journals. It can have a chilling effect.”

This is not the only bit of bad press the new pope received in the U.S. this week. The latest issue of The New Yorker suggests, in a profile, that the pope is apparently willing to give up on many of the moderate to liberal Catholics in the U.S., and focus on conservatives, here and around the world.

Now, let’s be honest. It is not exactly shocking to find a little bit of papal bashing in publications such as The New York Times and The New Yorker. They’ve been doing that stuff for decades.

That, however, does not make what happened at America magazine any less disturbing.

I was raised a devout Catholic, then went through a seemingly inevitable phase as (if you will) a doubting Thomas. But one of the things that eventually brought me back to the church was an understanding that, even within the church, there are always people asking vital questions about life, death, love and God.

Of course, there is understanding that, in the end, church law is church law. But it is also clear that church law does not become church law until, well, some people ask some questions.

America was the kind of place that asked those questions. Not just to mock Catholicism, as so many anti-Catholic bigots do. But because there was a genuine interest in making sure the religion was always alive and breathing and relevant to people’s lives. It made me proud to be Catholic.

The new editor of America, the Rev. Drew Christensen, is surely a bright and wise man. He may, however, want to be careful about the kinds of questions he asks.

(Contact Sidewalks at tomdeignan@earthlink.net.)