Denver, Colo., Sep 29, 2010 / 11:30 am
Commentator Mark Silk’s description of Denver’s Archbishop Charles Chaput as "pretty white" is being described as "astonishing" and in "bad form." The Denver prelate is a registered member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi tribe, America’s first Native American archbishop, and chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Subcommittee on Native American Affairs.
In a blog posting on Beliefnet, Silk, a Harvard graduate and professor of religion in public life at Trinity College, criticized Archbishop Chaput's recent address to the Religion Newswriters Association held last week in Denver.
Archbishop Chaput delivered "a classic culture-war critique of the news media's coverage of religion: Journalism is composed of knowledge-class professionals who make secularist assumptions about American society that shows they are out of touch with real Americans. Coverage of Christianity in particular is negative, focused on stories about fundamentalism and decline and infighting and repression. This kind of thing was a lot more common back in the 1990s than it is today – but then, Chaput has never been known for being up to date," Silk wrote in his blog.
Chaput had based his "knowledge-class" comments on material released in 2003.