TORONTO (CNS) -- The very public faith convictions of U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have helped turn the media spotlight on religion, said one of Canada's best-known political columnists.
Richard Gwyn, an award-winning author and columnist for the Toronto Star, said the frank use of religious terms in the debate over the war on terror shocked many secular-minded journalists who were used to such arguments couched in more ambiguous language.
"When Bush used the word 'evil' -- it was, in fact, central to a lot of his arguments -- many people were shocked," Gwyn told some 40 religious journalists gathered for the annual Canadian Church Press convention May 6. "Here was a president of the United States using the phrase unaffectedly, indeed quite naturally."
Bush has made no secret of his born-again Christian convictions; Blair is an Anglican who sometimes attends Catholic Masses.
Yet the fact that political leaders have faith convictions is not new, not even in this most secular of ages, Gwyn said. In fact, Gwyn said, almost all Canadian prime ministers from Pierre Trudeau to Paul Martin have been practicing Catholics. The exception was Kim Campbell, whose Conservative government was defeated in 1993 after only five months in power by Jean Chretien's Liberals.
"This is extraordinary," Gwyn said of the string of Catholic prime ministers. "That has to say something about the role of faith in inspiring people to public duty."
Yet religious questions rarely surfaced in any attention given by the media to Canada's top political leadership. Until recent years, Trudeau's intense Catholic devotion was hardly known outside of a circle of close friends. When Michael Higgins, president of St. Jerome's University, delivered a paper on Trudeau and his faith to an academic conference at Toronto's York University a couple of years ago, Trudeau said to conference organizers, "At last!"
Today, religious convictions of political leaders are being scrutinized more as part of legitimate attention to what motivates these leaders in their public lives. By example, St. Jerome's, in Waterloo, Ontario, hosted a conference on Trudeau and faith a year ago, drawing journalists, scholars, politicians and others.
Gwyn, whose work covers almost five decades of Canadian history, cited other examples of religious issues that have broken onto the front pages of mainstream newspapers.
Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion of the Christ," has been a box-office hit and a newsmaker, drawing considerable debate over its gruesome violence and depictions of first-century Jews. And this year's Couchiching Conference, a prestigious summer gathering of scholars and politicians, is focusing on religion in a pluralistic society.
Yet religion is only one aspect of global diversity encroaching on public consciousness and changing the way journalists approach the news, Gwyn said.
The continual high level of immigration is bringing Canada closer to every country in the globe, he said. Newcomers to Canada bring their culture and problems from their home countries and push Canada to give attention to hotspots around the world that it once would have ignored, he said.
"We're becoming a nation of missionaries," he said. "We are getting more and more involved in the world."
Global terrorism has forced Canadians to look beyond their borders to try to understand the causes of terror.
Gwyn said he thought Bush had the right idea in trying to take democracy to Iraq, but that his administration had failed miserably since its successful military invasion.
"He did have good motives," he said, "but unbelievable hubris and arrogance have destroyed their chances."
Gwyn urged the audience -- mainly editors and writers from Christian publications across Canada -- to help secular journalists get the story on religion right by, in effect, helping them find stories and understand them.
"The solution (to ignorance of religion by secular journalists) is not to complain, not to whine or be defensive," he said. "The secular journalists will feel a kinship to you. You both speak the same language." Copyright (c) 2004 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service. |