Between a Special Report, Today, and the 3rd Hour of Today, NBC pulled out all the stops Monday in its coverage on the death of Pope Francis, unsurprisingly heralding him as a man of the people in the left’s sense of the term for being pro-LGBTQ, “brought the Catholic Church...away from the culture wars and back to Christ’s basic message,” and waged “clashes...with...conservative members” in favor of a “plainspoken manner.”
It all started during an NBC News Special Report in the 6:00 a.m. Eastern hour as longtime religion correspondent Anne Thompson said Francis’s legacy will be his “mercy and compassion,” adding:
Moments later, co-host Savannah Guthrie remarked to National Catholic Reporter’s Christopher White that “in some ways, Pope Francis was a reformer and clashed with more conservative members of — of the clerical order and the cardinals.”
“I think this is a pope that was unafraid to bring the church in dialog with the modern world, to answer and listen to hard questions and to not be afraid...[H]e really wasn’t interested in banging people on the head with doctrine, but he really wanted to accompany people and where they are in life,” he replied.
Guthrie also brought up Francis as righteous with those “conservative members” as more rigid, but conceded he also had “progressives” who “didn’t think” he “went far enough” on other issues (click “expand”):
GUTHRIE: Well, let’s talk about some of that orthodoxy. And I mentioned some of the clashes that had taken place with some of the more conservative members of the Catholic Church over doctrinal things like the Latin Mass, but also about social issues. And, you know, when you look at the whole picture of Pope Francis, there’s a little bit of something for everybody. I mean, in some ways, progressives were heartened by some of his stances, but didn’t think they would — went far enough. There are other ways in which, again, he clashed with conservative members of the church. So where does he fit when you look at the whole picture?
WHITE: You can’t really map Pope Francis onto certainly not American political categories. I mean, one of his, you know, famous lines in one of his early documents was that everything is connected. And so for Pope Francis, he began with a sort of dignity of the human person. And so, that’s what led him to oppose abortion, but also have a very strong defense of migrants and climate change. And so, I think that’s why some people often found him a bit puzzling. How do — how do you characterize this guy? Is he a progressive? Is he — is he a conservative? In a sense, he — he was both.
Melvin also tried this with Thompson on women in the Church, but she correctly pointed out he “did put women in leadership positions across the Vatican...but he would not go as far as to support women’s ordination to the priesthood” and left “unresolved” debate about women as deacons.
Thompson returned for Today with a taped obituary and again framed Francis as “a transformational figure” who supported gays and did away with those pesky “culture wars”:
In a repeat for the show’s second hour, Thompson boasted Francis as having chastised his fellow Catholic leaders of having “spiritual Alzheimer’s.”
Today also worked in a dig at President Trump with senior White House correspondent Garrett Haake taking care of that: “President Trump also met privately with Pope Francis at the Vatican back in 2017...The President afterwards calling the meeting, ‘the honor of a lifetime’ though, the two have since, at times, publicly disagreed on issues, most notably immigration.”
Foreign correspondent Raf Sanchez doubled down on Francis’s progressivism and framed him not solely a Christian, but “a moral and spiritual figure” that argued no one should judge someone on their sexuality and was revolutionary in “his plainspoken manner”:
Sanchez also implied Francis was someone who entertained the notion of atheists being in heaven:
Children brought out his best, nevermore so than when he met a young boy on a parish visit in Rome. The boy was nervous to ask if his father, an atheist, was in heaven. Come and tell me in my ear,” Francis says, and consoles him. “God has a father’s heart,” he tells the boy. The same could be said of Pope Francis.
Finally, Thompson made a third appearance on the 3rd Hour of Today and reiterated Francis wasn’t interested in those pesky “culture wars” (meaning abortion and marriage):
Pope Francis has been a progressive figure and don’t think of it in terms of progressive in American politics, but think of it this way. He is the one who threw open the doors wide of the Catholic Church. He moved the Catholic church away from the culture wars, the bedroom issues that have so dominated the church in the last few years and he went to Christ’s basic mission of mercy. Now, in throwing those doors open wide, he made some enemies, particularly among more traditional Catholics that feel there is — there are doctrines should be adhered to and adhered to strictly. Francis was much more willing to say, look, we are all sinners. We just want you to come back, and at your weakest time, we will show you mercy.
To see the relevant NBC transcript from April 21, click here.
