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Pope Benedict XVI celebrated an outdoor mass for 46,000 at the baseball stadium of the Washington Nationals and later met in private at the Vatican Embassy with five adults from Boston who were sexually assaulted by priests when they were children. ABC and CBS both led with the papal visit--CBS' Byron Pitts focused on the mass event; ABC's Dan Harris on the pedophile angle, calling the meeting "historic." Some activists countered that it was "insufficient" noting that Cardinal Bernard Law, "who allegedly covered up priest abuse as head of the Boston Archdiocese, now enjoys a prominent perch in Rome." At the meeting, the Pope was presented with a book with the names of 1,000 children who had been sexually abused by priests. The meeting was brokered, NBC's Tom Costello pointed out, by Law's successor in Boston, Cardinal Sean O'Malley.
On Tuesday, CBS displayed a glaring conflict of interest by hiring Thomas Williams, a Roman Catholic priest, as its in-house Vatican analyst. Now ABC shares the error. Its expert is Professor Keith Pecklers (no link), a priest and theologian, from Gregorian University in Rome. So how are we to interpret Pecklers' analysis of his leader's outreach on the pedophile priests scandal? He heard a Pope who is "speaking out very forthrightly, very prophetically, very directly and concretely." That may or may not be true--but Pecklers would say that, wouldn't he?
As for Pitts on CBS, he too mentioned the private meeting, but he concentrated on the Holy Father's scheduled events instead: the baseball stadium mass and interfaith outreach with Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and Moslems. Pitts also noted that His Holiness had "thrilled a whole new generation of young followers"--the keys were his "red shoes" and his "iPod."
It was a heavy day for religion coverage. CBS' John Blackstone offered a sidebar on the papal trip, profiling the Catholic Church's efforts to recruit priests. Nationwide, the clergy numbers just 41,000, down from 58,000 some 40 years ago. To make up the shortfall, Blackstone looked at the efforts at vocationmatch.com to attract mid-career seminarians such as former schoolteachers and pharmaceuticals workers. The average age of a newly ordained priest is now 37, up from 28 half a century ago.
ABC's religion closer turned to the Protestants of Christ Church Unity in Kansas City. The ministry of its pastor Will Bowen is to try to persuade 60m people worldwide to stop complaining. He runs complaintfreeworld.org complete with no-whining books, no-whining T-shirts and no-whining ocean cruises. Barbara Pinto (embargoed link) explained Bowen's behaviorist technique: wear a purple bracelet on one wrist; every time you complain switch it to the other wrist; count the days between switches; when you reach 21 you are living complaint free. Bowen has shipped 5.3m bracelets on track to his 60m target.
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