On her Monday MSNBC show, host Andrea Mitchell gushed over Cuba's Communist dictator possibly heading "back to Church" and returning to "his Jesuit roots" after a meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican: "Cuba's president Raul Castro is praising Pope Francis for helping to thaw relations between U.S. and Cuba....he said that the Pontiff inspired him to consider returning to the Catholic Church."
Pope Francis
By Matthew Balan | May 4, 2015 | 6:43 PM EDT
Taylor Wofford spotlighted how Pope Francis "publicly affirmed his stance on so-called traditional marriage between men and women" in a Wednesday item for Newsweek. Wofford did his best to indicate that the pontiff was commenting about the recent oral arguments on same-sex "marriage" at the Supreme Court: "Though he made no specific mention of the case before the court during his daily general audience, the pope reiterated his position that marriage is only between one man and one woman."
By Matthew Balan | April 27, 2015 | 4:30 PM EDT
Bill Maher returned to bashing the Catholic Church on Friday's Real Time, as he discussed the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. After noting how the United States (more specifically, President Obama) would not use the word "genocide" to describe the mass murders, Maher pointed out, "You know who said it's a genocide? The Pope. The Pope was like f--- yeah, it's a genocide! The Pope has huge balls. You got to admit that. You would too if you were 78, and never had sex."
By Dan Gainor | April 24, 2015 | 8:43 AM EDT
Many historians call the Armenian Holocaust the first holocaust of the 20th Century, a dress rehearsal for the Nazi nightmare that followed. This April 24 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of roughly 1.5 million Armenian Christians at the hands of Turkish Muslims. That mass slaughter has gone virtually unreported by the broadcast networks.
By Matthew Balan | April 16, 2015 | 6:25 PM EDT
Laurie Goodstein spotlighted that "the Vatican abruptly ended its takeover of the main leadership group of American nuns" in a Thursday article for the New York Times. Goodstein played up that the final report of the supposed "takeover" was a "far cry from three years ago, when the Vatican's doctrinal office...issued a report finding that the [nuns] had 'serious doctrinal problems.' It said the sisters were questioning church doctrine on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood, and promoting 'radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.'"
By Mark Finkelstein | April 6, 2015 | 6:16 PM EDT
I hadn't before seen Will Leitch, the Deadspin creator who now writes on politics for Bloomberg, in action. But on today's With All Due Respect, I found him funny and affable.
Even so, he made one left-leaning assertion so absurd it was too much even for show host John Heilemann. Running parallel with the NCAA tourney, Bloomberg has been running a bracket of 64 non-presidential candidates. In the Final Four, Jon Stewart defeated the Pope and Tina Fey took out Warren Buffett. Asked to explain the results, Leitch alleged that Fey and Stewart have a "universality that maybe not everybody has, frankly including the Pope."
Writer Garry Wills: Right-Wing, Anti-Francis Catholics ‘Are Not Used to Having a Pope Who Is a Christian’
By Tom Johnson | March 29, 2015 | 3:27 PM EDT In a Sunday blog post on the New York Review of Books site, historian Wills, who’s written extensively about both the United States and Catholicism, rebuked conservative Catholics who’ve “suggested that [Pope Francis] is not truly Catholic,” asserting that such critics of the pope “are right to be in a panic. They are not used to having a pope who is a Christian. They call Francis a radical because he deplores the sequestration of great wealth for a rich few and deprivation of the many poor. But Francis is a moderate. Jesus was the radical.”
Wills, who is Catholic, noted that Francis is hugely popular among rank-and-file Catholics and commented that any “perception of great resistance to the pope in his own church” is “largely the product of noise. Extremists get more press coverage than blander types.”
By Matthew Balan | March 28, 2015 | 10:40 AM EDT
Andrea R. Jain bemoaned how a "growing number of individuals and institutions oppose yoga, and actively encourage fear of it" in a Thursday item on Quartz, an online magazine from the parent company of The Atlantic. Despite passing mentions of opposition from evangelical Christians, such as Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler, the Indiana University-Perdue University Indianapolis professor devoted the bulk of her attention on high-profile "yogaphobia" in the Catholic Church.
By Melissa Mullins | March 12, 2015 | 4:47 PM EDT
Right on the heels of the New York Times piece on Pope Francis being “strikingly tone-deaf toward the sensitivities and needs of women” in the Catholic Church, The Daily Beast ran a story on Monday that wrongfully suggests Pope Francis has permitted a priest to speak out about the supposed confession of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro.
Before Moro was killed by a terrorist group called the Red Brigades in 1978, a priest by the name of Antonio Mennini allegedly heard Moro’s confession, then was said to have performed the sacrament of extreme unction – similar to the last rites given to danger of dying.
By Melissa Mullins | March 9, 2015 | 8:49 PM EDT
Pope Francis will be celebrating his second anniversary to the papacy on March 13. What started off as a liberal media lovefest with the newly elected pope has now tapered off with the media realizing he’s “just another pope” (that’s code for “liberals are upset that he’s not going to change anything in the structure of the Catholic Church.”)
Once plastered on the pages of The New York Times in a favorable light, the paper decided to remember Pope Francis’ anniversary with an article by Elisabetta Povoledo titled “Women See Themselves as Left Out Amid Talk of Change in Catholic Church.”
By Ken Shepherd | January 16, 2015 | 4:38 PM EST
"OLD SCHOOL POPE" blares the teaser headline at msnbc.com. "Francis finds fault with gay marriage," notes the subheader promoting Michele Richinick's story on the pontiff's remarks made during a visit to the Philippines.
By Matthew Balan | January 6, 2015 | 4:51 PM EST
David Letterman couldn't resist taking a jab at the Catholic Church on Monday's Late Show on CBS. Letterman highlighted how Pope Francis recently appointed forty bishops to be cardinals, and noted how the pontiff personally calls each of the new designees. The host jokingly claimed to have video of one of the clerics receiving the phone call. He then played the much-hyped footage of former NFL player Michael Sam receiving word that he had been drafted, and then tearfully kissing his boyfriend.