It remains invaluable to hear and read the viewpoints of Catholics across the doctrinal spectrum. Whether those people are writing for religious news outlets or have their own social media channels, the reaction to The Atlantic piece was swift and widespread — exactly the type of viewpoints and opinions that should have been contained in the original article.
They weren’t included, of course.
If anything, this article highlights the rise of one-sided reporting to spotlight a trend or issue. But reporting just one side of any story often portrays an inaccurate picture — again exactly the case when you read other viewpoints on the rosary. Here at GetReligion, this is called “Kellerism” (click here for background).
Catholic News Agency, in its coverage of the rosary story, reported this:
The article set off a frenzy of reactions among Catholics, ranging from amusement to grave concern over what some see as anti-Catholic sentiment.
The magazine later changed the article’s headline from “How the Rosary Became an Extremist Symbol” to “How Extremist Gun Culture is Trying to Co-Opt the Rosary.” Among other edits to the text, an image of bullet holes forming the shape of rosary was replaced with a picture of a rosary.
These editorial changes, nonetheless, left the article’s thesis that there is a connection between the rosary and extremism intact. The author’s contention was based, in part, on his observations about the use of the rosary on social media and rosaries sold online.
And yes, the article actually quotes experts that professionals at The Atlantic could have easily consulted with a few clicks of a computer mouse and a smartphone. Here is a sampling, starting with a Catholic scholar with an impeccable resume:
Asked to comment on the article, Robert P. George, professor of political theory at Princeton University and former chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), told CNA:
“It looks to me like the guy who is politicizing the rosary and treating it as a weapon in the culture war is … Daniel Panneton. I know nothing about the guy other than what he says in the article. I hadn’t heard of him before. Although it’s hard to miss the classic anti-Catholic tropes in the piece, perhaps he isn’t actually a bigot. Maybe he just overwrought and needs to take an aspirin or two and lie down for a while.”
Chad Pecknold, theology professor at Catholic University of America, told CNA the publication of the article points to a “theo-political” conflict in the culture.
“The politically elite core in left-liberal media hate Western civilization and they mean to topple every natural and supernatural sign of it. That’s why it’s not sufficient to simply run a piece on right-wing gun cultures, but they must tie it to something which is theologically central to the civilization they feel most threatens their progressive ziggurat. It’s a sign of the theo-political conflict which now grips us; even still, they severely underestimate the power of Our Lady to reign victorious over evil,” Pecknold said.
Fr. Pius Pietrzyk, OP, a Dominican priest of the Province of St. Joseph, told CNA, “The article is a long-running stream of inaccuracies, logical fallacies, and distortions.”
Over at Catholic Culture, the always quotable conservative Phil Lawlor wasn’t so forgiving in his assessment. Here’s the key section:
The intent of the article by Daniel Panneton is, quite obviously, to introduce the notion that a traditional Catholic prayer is a sign of extremism, with the corollary that people who pray the Rosary should be viewed with suspicion. Panneton hopes to alarm readers by reporting that many traditional Catholics, in addition to praying the Rosary, also use military metaphors to describe the struggle against evil, and some of them also own guns. Which more or less proves, he hints, that these people are a danger to society:
On this extremist fringe, rosary beads have been woven into a conspiratorial politics and absolutist gun culture. These armed radical traditionalists have taken up a spiritual notion that the rosary can be a weapon in the fight against evil and turned it into something dangerously literal.
Unpack those two sentences, and you notice that Panneton is first stapling together the Rosary culture and the “absolutist gun culture,” and then drawing the conclusion that the Rosary culture is dangerous. Non sequitur. How, I wonder, could a prayer pose a threat to society?
To answer that question, Panneton invokes the ubiquitous Massimo Faggioli, who complains about a “Catholic cyber-militia that actively campaigns against LGBTQ acceptance in the Church.” Aha! So the grave threat to society is posed by a cyber-militia, which presumably uses such dangerous weapons as Tweets and Instagram posts, rather than AR-15s and firebombs. And notice that the campaign is not aimed against anyone’s life or property; it is aimed against efforts to change the teaching of the Church. Thus the “rad-trad” Catholics portrayed by Panneton (in very vague terms; the article does not name names) are not a threat to anyone’s security; they are a threat to an ideology.
And yet that is enough. The custodians of liberal ideology cannot tolerate resistance, and so the rad-trads must be defeated, banished, isolated. And Panneton is not alone is taking this stand; the editors of The Atlantic must have been sympathetic; otherwise they would not have allowed the appearance of such an ignorant and illogical article.
Bishop Robert Barron, a theologian and author, took to his YouTube channel to dismiss the article. The takeaway from another frequent voice in media reports: This was “offensive” for “the insinuation that somehow the rosary as Catholics pray it is caught up in some sort of, you know, mindless militancy.”
