Identity Crisis? What Identity Crisis?

Every Catholic journalist covering a papal Mass will face a little dilemma: Are you there as a Catholic or as a journalist?

Of course, this is a trick question. The answer is that you’re there as a Catholic journalist — a specimen in a phylum whose DNA is more hybrid than chimera. You need to divide your attention between covering and participating while compromising on neither. You don’t want to shortchange your readers. And you can’t cut yourself off from Christ.

For me — I’ll be in the pews of St. Patrick’s Saturday morning, God willing — this will mean, among other things, forsaking my reporter’s notebook for silent mnemonic techniques. I don’t want to distract or be distracted by pen and pad when I could be committing observations and quotes to memory. I can brain-dump immediately after the liturgy.   

After all, this is the holy sacrifice of the Mass. The Pope is the celebrant but Christ is the star. He’s really present in his word and in the Eucharist, and he’s not giving interviews. I don’t imagine St. Matthew took notes during the Last Supper, yet he did just fine recounting events later on.

Our brother and sister journalists on assignment with secular outlets will take a completely different approach. That’s fine; they’ve been invited. What’s important along these lines to me, and what I think should be important to all Catholic reporters covering the papal Masses in America, is letting these fellow travelers see us live out our faith right there alongside them in the proverbial press box. Later, when they compare their coverage with ours, they’ll see that we’re no less dedicated to the principles of good journalism than they are. We’ll have had all the excitement of covering a big event with professionalism and polish. And we’ll have had Christ.

We’re Catholic journalists. Witnessing is in our genetic makeup, too.

— David Pearson