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The Holy Work of Journalism
In a few weeks I start my graduate program at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, where I will specialize in Reporting and Writing. The aspiring writer in me is craving this impending grammatical exorcism. I know that I am fortunate to be in a program that allows me to focus so intently on a lifelong passion of mine: the telling of stories through words. Books like A Cloister Walk, which I have been reading this summer, have taught me about writing’s inherent spirituality. As the start of classes draws near, I am hearing a call.
In Catholic school, I was taught a broad definition for vocation, summarized here in an Online Pocket Catholic Dictionary:
VOCATION, (Noun): A call from God to a distinctive state of life, in which the person can reach holiness. The Second Vatican Council made it plain that there is a “Universal call [vocatio] to holiness in the Church” (Lumen Gentium, 39). (Etym. Latin vocatio, a calling, summoning; from vocare, to call.)
Now this call from God, of which so many Catholics speak, must have been muddled on its way to me, because for years now I have heard a call to be a ponytail-wearing, newspaper-toting, married priest/nun/deacon-writer with several well behaved children. And my unusual conglomeration of passions, according to the church at present, means that I must have been getting mixed messages from above, because in the Catholic Church married women are excluded from serving as priests and as women religious. (Remember that married men may serve as Deacons). Married women are the lone category of adults without the opportunity to serve within the church as men or women religious. They are much-burdened spiritual orphans. I will soon join their ranks.
But I still have my words. We still have our words. And over the past few years, I have been ministered to by writers Lauren Winner, Kathleen Norris, Anne Lamott and Sue Monk Kidd. Some are married, some are mothers. They are doing holy work. That is their vocation.
I am going to study and practice journalism because I care about storytelling, and I want to improve as a writer. But I know that, for me, reporting is more than getting the facts straight. Singer/Songwriter Jack Johnson, in his song, “The News,” asks an intriguing question:
Why don't the newscasters cry when they read about people who die ?
At least they could be decent enough to put just a tear in their eyes. . .
Well, tonight I watched NBC Nightly News’ report on three brothers who searched for –and found –the long lost WWII submarine on which their father died. Watch the video and try not to cry. There is holiness in a journalist’s work. There are stories that need to be told. And there are people who are desperate to help and to serve.
By
Elizabeth Tenety
|
August 28, 2007; 3:21 AM ET
| Category:
Campus Catholic
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Posted by: Roberrt M Kraus | September 21, 2007 11:36 AM
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another unthinking liberal feminist out for blood against traditional values and cultures...you should fit in well with the media/papers if they are still in circulation after you graduate.
propagandist is a more appropriate term than journalist, btw, didn't you see how the NYTs and Wasington Post cheerlead our way into this lastest war?
Posted by: Anonymous | August 30, 2007 12:59 AM
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Women spiritual orphans?
I guess they are if you don't consider delivering children to Christ a uniquely female vocation. Last time I checked it was married women who are the top candidates in the Church.
Posted by: Papal | August 28, 2007 11:41 PM
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&Diams;
Posted by: Anonymous | August 28, 2007 12:36 PM
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Good luck in your studies and your career.
Just don't ask the mother who has seen her beautiful four-year-old daughter run over by a garbage truck how she's feeling about that [as many of your colleagues would].
Best wishes.
Posted by: Norrie Hoyt | August 28, 2007 10:18 AM
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Ms Tenety
When are you going to join the married women who are unwanted in the church?
Uncle Bob
Akron Ohio