Crossroads Podcast: CBS Plays Papal Softball With Francis

I am old enough to remember when “60 Minutes” was must-watch television for journalists.

In those days, this CBS News “magazine for television” had a crack research team that dug deep and found the documents and evidence needed to support tough questions for political, cultural and business leaders who granted interviews.

If controversial folks didn’t want to talk, the “60 Minutes” team chased them down, anyway.

This leads me to Norah O’Donnell’s recent interview with Pope Francis, which was the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast. How excited was the correspondent about this opportunity? Check out the Poynter.org feature that ran with this double-decker headline:

Behind the scenes of CBS News’ interview with Pope Francis

The pope gave Norah O’Donnell a historic, hourlong interview from the Vatican. No topic was off-limits.

After chasing this interview for a decade, O’Donnell said: “As a journalist, this is the biggest interview I think I could get.” It was the “interview of a lifetime.” Why? “This is a different kind of pope,” she said. Above all, “he has been much more progressive and inclusive.”

There were zero hostile or even aggressive questions in this show, even though nothing was “off limits” and Pope Francis granted CBS an hour of his time. For news consumers who follow Catholic publications — on the doctrinal left and right — the following exchange summed up this softball match:

Norah O'Donnell: You have done more than anyone to try and reform the Catholic Church and repent for years of unspeakable sexual abuse against children by members of the clergy. But has the church done enough?

Pope Francis (In Spanish/English translation): It must continue to do more. Unfortunately, the tragedy of the abuses is enormous. And against this, an upright conscience and not only to not permit it but to put in place the conditions so that it does not happen.

Norah O'Donnell: You have said zero tolerance.

Pope Francis (In Spanish/English translation): It cannot be tolerated. When there is a case of a religious man or woman who abuses, the full force of the law falls upon them. In this there has been a great deal of progress.

In terms of an essential follow-ups, journalist George Weigel (who wrote a famous biography of St. Pope John Paul II), offered this very, very fact-based “60 Minutes” worthy question:

Why has Father Marko Rupnik, whose sins and crimes of sexual abuse are among the vilest, most satanic on record, not been reduced from the clerical state, forbidden to function as a priest, and ordered to live a life of penance?

Who is Marko Rupnik? Check out this “On Religion” column that addresses that question: “Pope Francis thanks journalists for their silence about certain scandals.” For starters, many would note that Rupnik is an ally, or even a friend, of Pope Francis.

Weigel asked the Rupnik question, and many others, in this Catholic World Report feature: “What CBS should have asked Francis.” Here’s another Weigel question:

Have you ever thought it important to correct the false notion that Catholic teaching on the moral life, or on the structure of the Church, is not a matter of “policy” but of settled truths?

Yes, that would have been a valid follow-up question after the searing Pope Francis pronouncement that topped most mainstream media reports about the “60 Minutes” exclusive. Consider this example:

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Conservative opposition to this pontificate by bishops in the United States is “a suicidal attitude” that clings to the past and neglects reality, Pope Francis said in an interview with “60 Minutes”. …

“(A) conservative is one who clings to something and does not want to see beyond that,” the pope said. “Because one thing is to take tradition into account, to consider situations from the past, but quite another is to be closed up inside a dogmatic box,” he added.

Actually, that quote may have answered Weigel’s blunt question about “settled truths.”

Enjoy the podcast and, please, pass it on to others.