Shek figurine.
That seems to be the Question of the Moment for some in this comments thread on a recent story of mine. As I started noodling a “brief” response I wound up going on too long (my editor is familiar with that habit) for the comments box so I’m posting the response here, for reference.
My comment was largely in response to Richard, but no doubt anyone who cares can profit from it — or not.
I had been meaning to respond earlier, but of course work gets in the way … And Matthew Schmitz, who enjoys critiquing me, has been writing about my work especially, ahem, assiduously of late. So it’s hard to keep up.
As for the Arcus issue, I think my editor, Kevin Eckstrom, has responded in that regard here and in the Crux story. I think some of my critics were obviously not pleased that I reported Cardinal Burke’s latest remarks, but that story didn’t have anything to do with the Arcus grant. In fact none of my work has (so far) had anything to do with that grant, which I didn’t know much about.
Also, the Burke story was only partly about gay Catholics. It was also about divorced and remarried and cohabiting Catholics, which Arcus doesn’t concern itself with, as far as I know. Cardinal Burke’s remarks also did not seem to comport much with what Arcus wants to highlight, so I’m not sure that they would be happy with that story – even if that were a concern of ours. (I’d also note that a few days later Crux did a story on other remarks from the Cardinal decrying the “gay agenda,” which we did not do.)
As for Matt’s main issue, (among many) charging that, as you say, I “fabricate anonymous sources,” well, I don’t normally respond to such accusations, in part because I don’t have time and because it seems especially pointless when the claims are obviously distorted and any explanation is unlikely to change minds with preexisting conclusions.
But sometimes it is good to set the record straight. Let me try:
First, I have to admire Matt’s industriousness in scouring my archived work. He found 10 examples of my use of the phrase “critics say” out of what are probably 700-800 stories over the past five years. He says my work is “laced” with the repellent phrase, though the number doesn’t seem to amount to a particularly outrageous percentage, especially when Matt himself notes that the phrase can be bona fide shorthand if used properly.
His concern is that I misuse it, and effectively invent my own critics or cite myself as a critic.
Yet he commits his own journalistic sin in that he takes those phrases out of context, nowhere more egregiously than in his prime example, a Jan. 30 story of mine about the controversy over the Koch Brothers’ donation to Catholic University of America.
As you can see in the story, I cite many of the critics repeatedly, and provide links to them – contrary to what Matt states. He is especially exercised over the following sentence:
“Critics of the CUA gift say it is ironic that the school would seek such massive support from a social liberal when Catholic charities are not allowed to take any money from any person or group that supports abortion rights or gay rights.”
Matt believes that this is something I made up on my own. In fact it was a fairly commonplace comment in the discussions surrounding the gift, and I linked to one of them, by Michael Sean Winters of NCR.
For whatever reason, Matt chose to overlook that as well.
Matt also generously (to himself) noted that he corrected me on this point before I ran my article, during one of our periodic appearances on “In the Arena,” a radio and television program operated under the aegis of the Diocese of Brooklyn.
In fact, I had already written my story before we taped, and it was published before that episode aired. That’s clear from the date of my story so I’m not sure how he got that wrong.
But, more important, I had written on the Koch-CUA story over the course of some 15 months by that point, and had reported that same criticism on several occasions. I offered my comments on “In the Arena” during a free-wheeling discussion. But even there, as his transcription shows, I was citing the criticism (valid, I think) that there was a double-standard at work:
“For years [I said], conservative Catholics have been arguing the very same thing: that CCHD, Catholic Charities, and Catholic social groups cannot take a dime from somebody who has even the remotest connection to the gay rights agenda or Planned Parenthood. This is like Planned Parenthood funding a Catholic bioethics center.”
In yet another post about me, Matt elaborated on that issue, believing he had caught me peddling a falsehood—namely that Catholic charities don’t take money from gay rights groups or abortion supporters.
I certainly could have been more expansive in that paragraph (space is always an issue—reporters have word limits and deadlines) to include a range of Catholic organizations and related circumstances. It seemed a fairly obvious point to the extent that I shorthanded it.
But anyone familiar with (or who cares to Google) the longstanding controversies surrounding issues related to Catholic donors and donees.
The Catholic Campaign for Human Development is criticized for funding groups with even the remotest association with gay rights or abortion rights can get a sense of the depth and breadth of this controversy. Catholic Relief Services is often dinged (from rightwing groups) for either funding groups or for taking government money with strings that would require engaging immoral practices, and CRS, like CCHD, has policies to safeguard against both possibilities. The bishops of North Dakota are one example of those who have a “Do Not Donate” list of groups that they want parishioners to avoid supporting in any way.
Moreover, as Doug Milford pointed out to Matt on Twitter, Pope Benedict XVI issued an Apostolic Letter in 2012 on Catholic organizations and donations that explicitly made this very point:
“In particular, the diocesan Bishop is to ensure that charitable agencies dependent upon him do not receive financial support from groups or institutions that pursue ends contrary to Church’s teaching. Similarly, lest scandal be given to the faithful, the diocesan Bishop is to ensure that these charitable agencies do not accept contributions for initiatives whose ends, or the means used to pursue them, are not in conformity with the Church’s teaching.”
In addition, there are numerous stories about Catholic groups or figures being scrutinized for taking money from organizations or individuals that promote abortion rights or gay rights.
In my own diocese, after a call by our bishop to cut ties with those who take positions against Catholic teaching, a Catholic school rejected a $50 donation (not a typo) from a politician who had voted for gay marriage. That story was in fact covered by Thomas Peters of CatholicVote.org. He has been one of my more persistent critics on Twitter, demanding that I respond to Matt and account for how I could justify reporting false information. Does he read his own stories?
He doesn’t seem to read mine before he tweets.
how so? the claim is WRONG & you can't go back to the "critic" for clarification b/c the "critic" is YOU @GibsonWrites @RNS prove me wrong
— Thomas Peters 🤦♂️ (he/hehaha) (@AmericanPapist) April 15, 2015
Certainly, policies on taking donations and funding groups can vary from Catholic organization to organization. And it is easier to accept a gift from a group or individual that may have some remote connection to an objectionable policy. But I can’t imagine a Catholic diocese or university taking a large gift to establish an entire freestanding school from, say, Planned Parenthood or the Human Rights Campaign.
Universities in particular tend to scrutinize large gifts before they accept them, and that was the case for CUA. Indeed, in all the stories I wrote CUA officials (and donor Tim Busch, in the story Matt referred to) went out of their way to note that the Koch-funded research “into principled entrepreneurship…is fully consonant with Catholic social teaching.”
CUA officials at every step of the way made it clear that they had reviewed these issues and were clear that this money was from donors, and for a purpose, that comported with Catholic teaching.
BTW, I also noted in my stories that the criticism went both ways – conservatives ripped the CUA-Koch critics for being affiliated with a groups that takes money from liberal philanthropist George Soros.
Naturally, we could have all been spared much of this if Matt had bothered to take the basic – and professional and ethical – step of contacting me with his concerns, or simply allowing me a chance to respond before he went on a public campaign to accuse me of “unethical and irresponsible” behavior. That he didn’t do that really undermines his effort to sit in judgment, almost as much as his spurious charges do.
I know Matt and we have been on friendly terms in our collegial way. Apparently he has another mode of operating when he gets to his keyboard.
