The orthodoxy police
Feuerherd, Peter
THE ORTHODOXY POLICE Peter Feuerherd ast autumn, I found myself L up against the vast Catholic orthodoxy police, which operates in silence, making secret charges and convicting...
...I make articles for the Catholic press...
...Some people make widgets...
...My Kafkaesque thoughts raced to those Soviet histories where out-of-favor commissars were airbrushed from the photos...
...And, while the editorial page and columnists were tilted toward the conservative/orthodox view, Register news writers were held to the highest standards of professional journalistic objectivity...
...Oops, sorry...
...Perhaps it was because I wrote favorably about ABC-TV's "Nothing Sacred...
...I still have no idea...
...The powers-that-be were silent...
...It was Kafkaesque...
...I phoned the Register powers-that-be...
...Rarely were my articles questioned...
...Don't scoff: opposition to the now-canceled Father Ray and his parish team has become an orthodoxy litmus test among some groups...
...Let me explain...
...Peter Feuerherd/s assistant editor of the Long Island Catholic and a free-lance writer...
...Just tell me why I am no longer fit to write for the Register," I pleaded...
...Or maybe it had to do with comments I made about Long Island Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, prochoice and a strong gun-control advocate (her husband had been shot and killed, along with several others, by a crazed gunman on the local commuter train...
...My weekly stories--explaining vital national issues, such as welfare reform, abortion, school reform, the role of Catholics in electoral politics--consisted of "rounding up the usual suspects," providing quotes and perspectives from a wide array of Catholic opinion...
...Too many unclear antecedents...
...The answers were deliberately vague...
...Don't lump me with dissident theologians...
...Commonweal 3 | May 22, 1998...
...Two years ago, the Register was sold to the Legionnaires of Christ, a community of priests with a decidedly conservative (oops, orthodox) reputation...
...For seven years, I wrote as national affairs writer for the National Catholic Register...
...We wanted to go in another direction," I was told...
...I was utterly astonished...
...Was my article about the United Parcel Service strike too pro-labor...
...No, they said, my writing style was considered pretty good (I was praised for making complex subjects understandable...
...I mean it is orthodox...
...There were entire subject areas, I was told, where I was considered unfit for the Register style...
...Did I dangle too many prepositions...
...I got a regular byline, my name was etched in the staff box, and, with some occasional yelling and screaming, I would get a check...
...Its editorial stance is strongly propope, befitting a publication that prides itself on orthodoxy, and often pro-conservative Republican, which is another matter altogether...
...Well, those are some of the theories that spin around in my head whenever I ask myself, "But why...
...Did I include too many diverse opinions on the abortion controversy...
...The Register is a conservative weekly newspaper with a circulation of some 20,000...
...What was this all about...
...Only theories...
...I am an orthodox Catholic in agreement with basic church teachings on sex, social justice, and just about everything else...
...When I began working for the Register, it was based in California and was owned by the Frawley family...
...All I said was that some Catholics had good reasons to vote for her, and that others had good reasons to be against her, an observation that made some abortion foes angry...
...Were there people unhappy with opinion pieces I wrote for Commonweal and for my regular job with a diocesan newspaper...
...Without a word, I had been blotted out of the Register...
...Still, most of the time my articles continued to be a regular part of the paper, often appearing on the front page...
...I appear on a cable television talk show: Had I said something to tick off some wellconnected person...
...The paper's offices were moved to Connecticut and its editorial tone also began to shift in a more rightward direction...
...All I ask is for him---or them??--to step forward and explain how...
...THE ORTHODOXY POLICE Peter Feuerherd ast autumn, I found myself L up against the vast Catholic orthodoxy police, which operates in silence, making secret charges and convicting without allowing the accused to know what the accusations are...
...What had happened...
...Maybe I had crossed a line by quoting from New Ways Ministry in a gay-rights story...
...Changes were made in the top echelons of the paper...
...What areas...
...Had I violated some tenet of orthodoxy...
...One day last fall, my copy of the Register came in the mail...
...What had I written...
...Was there a sugar daddy supporting the Legionnaires, disturbed to find a pro-labor sentiment in their paper...
...But someone, somewhere, believes I don't quite measure up...
...It was an enjoyable part-time gig...
...I considered my stories to be right down the middle---never deviating from Catholic doctrine, but always expressing the many sides to the question at issue...
...The paper had a new national affairs writer and my name had been deleted from the staff box...
Vol. 125 • May 1998 • No. 10
