UK

Soaps Give Working Class Actors a Chance – And They’re Disappearing

It's Benedict Cumberbatch or bust.

by Polly Smythe
31 May 2024

Novara Media

Queen Elizabeth II visits the set of BBC soap Eastenders with actor Barbara Windsor, November 2001. Fiona Hanson/Reuters

The 2022 Oscars proved unlucky for England’s actors. Its four nominees – Andrew Garfield, Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman, and Judi Dench – failed to win. Two days after the awards ceremony and to much less fanfare, BBC’s Holby City aired its final episode after 23 years.

The fictional town of Wyvern might seem a long way from the ritzy glamour of Hollywood. But the death of the British soap opera and the fact that all four Oscar nominees were privately educated are part of the same story.

New research from the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre has found that across film, TV, and radio, just over 8% of creatives are from working-class backgrounds. That figure is the lowest in a decade. Earlier this year, an analysis by the Labour party found that almost half of British award nominees in the last decade were privately educated.

Soaps have historically been an exception to this elitism. Emerging from the public service ethos of the BBC and ITV, alongside broadcasting’s turn towards social realism in the 1960s, they have employed working-class people on both sides of the camera to create and portray the lives of working-class characters.

In a memorandum to Granada executives, Coronation Street creator Tony Warren wrote in 1960 that the show’s purpose was to explore “the driving forces behind life in a working-class street in the north of England”. For Phillip Ralph, a screenwriter who has worked on the BBC’s Doctors for 19 years, “Soaps are one of the last bastions of drama storytelling focusing on working-class life.” But now, they are collapsing in slow motion.

18 months after the BBC axed Holby City, it cancelled Doctors. In March, Channel 4 announced Hollyoaks is moving from five episodes a week to three. Collecting a Bafta for best soap last week, the Casualty cast found itself fielding questions about the show’s future.

The bursting of the soap bubble has largely been framed as a cultural phenomenon, with the shows’ decline understood as indicative of their inability to keep pace with changes in viewing habits in a streaming world, comeuppance for their sensationalist plotlines, or part of a natural progression to the soap graveyard, joining Brookside and The Bill.

Culture is contracting at all levels except the very top. Whether the result of local authority cuts killing regional theatre, the trimming of Arts Council England’s budget, or an attack on funding in the school classroom, opportunities in the arts have become fewer, in turn privileging those with access to the “right” networks, or those who don’t need the money.

In television, that contraction results in part from increased commercial pressure on television, coupled with an attack on the BBC licence fee. That’s left executives asking “Can we sell this show internationally? Can we get the biggest names? Can we get the high-end production values?” Ralph told Novara Media. “Making a hit for as little money as you possibly can: that’s what matters now, not telling stories about the country we live in.”

Soaps offer “opportunity and experience,” said Ralph. Continuing dramas are labour-intensive operations – Doctors employs up to 600 guest actors and a writing team of 60 – and have given numerous writers, actors, directors, and technicians that crucial first credit and chance to cut their teeth.

Those opportunities aren’t limited to younger actors. The camp matriarchs – Dot Cotton, Pat Butcher, Peggy Mitchell, Kat Slater ­- that are stock-in-trade for soaps are played by older actresses.

Annie Wallace was 50 when she was cast in her first regular television gig as Hollyoaks’ Sally St Claire back in 2015, making her the first transgender actress to play a regular transgender role in a soap. Wallace’s involvement with the industry began three decades ago, working as a research assistant on Coronation Street’s introduction of Hayley Cropper, the first transgender character in a UK soap.

“If people who already have money are the only ones getting arts jobs, then it becomes a vocation rather than a career,” said Wallace. “We’re getting a gradual elimination of raw working-class talent.”

“The arts are criminally underfunded. This is a tipping point. Is it only for kids with rich parents, or parents willing to shoulder debts? We are seeing less and less working-class people across the industry, as writers, directors, or actors. We’re seeing posh kids play poor kids.”

“You can’t become Russell T Davies or Sally Wainwright overnight,” said Ralph. “The majority of people need to learn the craft by doing it day in and day out. When there isn’t work to do, how do you learn?”

Lynda Rooke’s soap career has had it all: landlady of the Dog in the Pond, girlfriend of a murderer, a prison stint for perverting the course of justice. Now president of the performing arts trade union Equity, Rooke told Novara Media that when she began acting in the 1970s, “television was just people talking with plum received pronunciation.”

Before soaps, regional accents were scarcely heard on television, she added. “In the 1980s and 90s, lots of nostalgic historical films were being made, the Merchant and Ivory kind of thing. The posh actors were employed in those,” she said. “Most of my mates were playing as servants.”

The daughter of a nurse and a school dinner lady, Rooke “had no contacts, no network” when she began acting. “If you’re not coming from somewhere where you know X, Y, and Z person in the industry, then soaps are the space to consolidate your craft. Being on set week in, week out, learning lines and maintaining a discipline gives you a grounding in the industry.”

“But it’s not just a question of getting into the industry,” Rooke said. “It’s surviving and staying in the industry.” Soaps provide stable employment in a notoriously unstable industry and one of the few steady careers in the arts.

And while London continues to hoard arts and culture jobs, soaps come from all over the country: Casualty and Pobol y Cwm in Cardiff, Hollyoaks in Liverpool, Emmerdale in Leeds, River City in Dumbarton, and Coronation Street in Salford.

Filmed in Birmingham, Doctors has been a vital part of the Midlands’ cultural sector. In September – just a month before the BBC announced its decision to axe the soap – Birmingham council declared itself bankrupt. Desperately looking to balance the books, the council plans to scrap all funding to local arts organisations, including the Birmingham Rep Theatre and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, by 2025.

Opportunities for working-class professionals are rapidly evaporating. “There is no longer a career ladder,” said Ralph. “There is no way to go from being a newbie to being somebody who’s experienced. What you have is either extraordinary good fortune, or nothing.”


Polly Smythe is Novara Media’s labour movement correspondent.

UK

From Ukraine to Palestine, occupation is a c

rime

The Ukraine Information Group previews an important discussion meeting on Tuesday June 11th

MAY 31, 2024
LABOUR HUB

The UK general election campaign is, unfortunately, likely to push the wars on both Ukraine and Palestine down the news agenda.

Already, the length of these conflicts has fuelled an acceptance in the mainstream media that continued abuse against the peoples of these oppressed nations will be inevitable for the foreseeable future.

Yet in the Middle East, there has been mounting opposition to the genocidal bombardment of Gaza. The arrest warrants applied for against the Israeli prime minister and his defence secretary by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor are based on a devastating set of allegations about the conduct of the war.

Meanwhile, the decision by Norway, Ireland and Spain to recognise the state of Palestine, to the fury of Israel’s leaders, marks a significant shift in international opinion, the fruits of relentless campaigning.

Ukraine, on the other hand, is facing some of its toughest days since the Putin regime unleashed its murderous invasion in February 2022. Once-supportive voices are now floating solutions that would compromise Ukrainian sovereignty and reward Russia’s unprovoked aggression. This pressure may intensify with the expected shift to the right in the upcoming European elections.

Although the forces internationally claiming to support the Palestinians and the Ukrainians appear to be quite different, the two conflicts have much in common. Both Ukraine and Palestine are small nations resisting a vicious colonial power. Their needs, circumstances, and allies are different, but their causes stand on the same foundation.

Both Ukrainians and Palestinians have a right to be free, and to resist genocide and occupation through all legitimate military means. Both peoples deserve committed international solidarity.

The Western political class supports Ukraine, albeit inconsistently and insufficiently, but not Palestine. This hypocrisy is founded in racism and in the legacy of the Cold War. We reject this hypocrisy – and also reject its mirror image, articulated by some on the left, who blend Russian imperialist myths with nostalgia for the Soviet Union, as a basis for denying Ukrainians their basic rights.

Some Ukrainians see this clearly and express it keenly. A recent Ukrainian letter of solidarity with the Palestinian people, signed by more than 300 scholars, activists and artists, said:

“Our solidarity comes from a place of anger at the injustice, and a place of deep pain of knowing the devastating impacts of occupation, shelling of civil infrastructure, and humanitarian blockade from experiences in our homeland…

“Watching the Israeli targeting civilian infrastructure in Gaza, the Israeli humanitarian blockade and occupation of land resonates especially painfully with us. From this place of pain of experience and solidarity, we call on our fellow Ukrainians globally and all the people to raise their voices in support of the Palestinian people and condemn the ongoing Israeli mass ethnic cleansing…

“We strongly object to equating of Western military aid to Ukraine and Israel by some politicians. Ukraine doesn’t occupy the territories of other people; instead, it fights against the Russian occupation, and therefore international assistance serves a just cause and the protection of international law. Israel has occupied and annexed Palestinian and Syrian territories, and Western aid to it confirms an unjust order and demonstrates double standards in relation to international law.”

The need to call out these double standards is obvious, but the next steps might not be. We need to move to positive solidarity without borders; to forging political and practical links between diverse struggles; and to challenging the narratives that undermine this unity.

Please join us at our meeting on Tuesday 11th June to discuss the next steps.

The meeting will be held in person, and on line. Register on eventbrite here. Download a PDF flyer for the meeting here.

Discussion meeting: From Ukraine to Palestine, occupation is a crime – Tuesday 11th June, 7.0pm

Marchmont Community Centre, 62 Marchmont Street, London WC1N 1AB, and on line. Register on eventbrite here! Organised by the Ukraine Information Group.

The Ukraine Information Group produces a weekly bulletin of news and analysis, available here.

The Beatles ‘would not have existed’ if fab four had been forced to do National Service

Rishi Sunak says his favourite band of all time were The Beatles - but they only existed because National Service had been scrapped

David Maddox
Political editor

Rishi Sunak’s controversial plan to reintroduce National Service for school leavers has hit more criticisms after it was revealed it was out of tune with some of Britain’s greatest cultural successes, Labour has claimed.

It has emerged that both The Beatles and Rolling Stones, who transformed music around the world in the 1960s, probably would never have started up if Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Mick Jagger and others had been forced to National Service.

The revelation has raised questions about whether Mr Sunak’s plans could hurt the UK’s future young music stars’ opportunities.

In 2022, Sir Paul McCartney said: "We were the generation that grew up fully expecting to go in the National Service. And then the second we qualified, it was as if God came down...and said, ‘You don’t have to go in.’ Without that, there wouldn’t have been ‘The Beatles’.

Rishi Sunak – who told Sky News in November 2022 that The Beatles were his favourite band – announced on Saturday that he wants to require every young person in Britain to enlist in the Army for a full year as soon as they turn 18, or spend one weekend a month until age 19 completing compulsory community service activities in their local areas.

The Beatles may never have got together if they had to do National Service (PA) (PA Wire)

Paul McCartney was 18 years and two months old when The Beatles started their legendary tour to Hamburg in August 1960, playing 104 consecutive nights at the Indra and Kaiserkeller clubs. His bandmate George Harrison turned 18 a month before the second tour began in April 1961.


Under Rishi Sunak’s proposals, The Beatles duo would never have been able to take part in those breakthrough gigs in Germany, and would have been forced instead to spend one weekend in four doing community work in Liverpool instead.

Not content with wrecking just one of Britain’s greatest cultural exports, Sunak’s plan would also have destroyed The Beatles’ great rivals, The Rolling Stones.


Speaking to the BBC in 2016, Stones guitarist Keith Richards said: "My generation, you grew up automatically expecting to go National Service at 18… there was no reason to suppose it was going to change but then, my luck, right on the cusp, they knocked it on the head.

"And so suddenly this horizon opens up. These two years that you thought [you’d be] peeling spuds in Catterick or something, suddenly open up with this vista of possibilities. If I’d have had to go in the army there’d have been no Rolling Stones and probably no Beatles either."

The Rolling Stones were spared National Service in the early 1960s (AP)

Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were both aged 18 when The Rolling Stones played their first gig under that name at the Marquee Club in London in July 1962, following their chance encounter at Dartford Railway Station in October 1961, which led to the formation of the band.

Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s shadow paymaster general, said: "Not only would Rishi Sunak’s desperate, last-ditch manifesto pledge cost billions more than he has said, we now discover it would have destroyed both The Beatles and The Stones as well – even Yoko Ono couldn’t manage that. No wonder voters are telling Sunak it’s time he took the long and winding road to California.”

The criticism follows questions about the cost of the scheme set by Mr Sunak at £2.5 billion and the source of funding from the levelling up funds. Defence chiefs have also said it will harm morale and there have been questions over whether the army has the training capacity needed for 30,000 recruits.

Added to that tory ministers openly argued over the plan.

However, Mr Sunak has insisted that the scheme will “help keep kids out of trouble” as well as “give them some structure”.

He said: “I think it will be really brilliant for young people to have this rite of passage that they go through with everything that it teaches them andjust keeps them out of trouble.

“I’ve talked to so many parents worried about what their kids are doing in the evenings, at the weekends. So I think this will be wonderful for young people, but I also think it'll be great for our country."

The scheme would offer school leavers a choice of a year in the military paid or doing community work at weekends.

London's Evening Standard axes daily print edition 

1 day ago
Ian Youngs,Culture reporter

BBC
PA Media


The Evening Standard newspaper has announced plans to drop its daily print edition and go weekly.

The London paper launched in its original incarnation in 1827, and became free of charge in 2009.

An email to staff on Wednesday said more home working, and the availability of wi-fi on the Tube, were among the factors that had harmed its fortunes.

It said "a proposed new weekly newspaper would replace the daily publication".

The paper's circulation has dropped from 850,000 to 275,000 in the past five years, and it has lost £84.5m over the latest six years.

There has been speculation about its future for some time.

The paper's forerunner, named the Standard, launched 197 years ago, with an evening version added in 1859.

The Evening Standard was bought by businessman and former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Lebedev and his son Evgeny in 2009.

When they took over, the circulation shot up from about 250,000 after they decided to make it free and rely on income from advertising instead of the cover price.

Despite remaining free, the circulation has dropped to just above 2009 levels.

Last year, Bloomberg reported that new Standard editor Dylan Jones said he took the job on the condition that its owners didn't shut down the print edition.

However, earlier this month he admitted he "never" read a print newspaper, according to the Press Gazette.

The Lebedevs also bought the Independent in 2010, and scrapped that paper's print edition entirely six years later.

Wednesday's email to Standard staff said: "Although, this process may be unsettling, our goal is to replicate our previous success with our sister title, The Independent, which has seen enduring growth in readership and commercial success following its own strategic transition in 2016."

Twelve million people access the Standard's digital platforms every month, with half of that traffic coming from outside London and overseas, it said.

It added that a "new commercial approach would reinforce the relationship between our 24/7 digital platforms and our weekly publication.

"This new combination would place more emphasis on delivering our world-class content to the broadest readership possible, while collaborating with advertisers to reach this audience in the most accessible, creative, and relevant manner."

The company has not given details of any job losses.

Evening Standard to drop daily edition in favour of weekly newspaper

Anna Wise, PA Business Reporter
Wed, May 29, 2024 



London’s Evening Standard newspaper is set to scrap its daily editions in favour of a weekly publication.

The newspaper is currently circulated free of charge at the capital’s Underground stations from Monday to Friday.

But in a memo sent to staff and seen by the PA news agency, the company said it has been making “substantial losses” with its current operation, which has prompted the need for a change of direction.


Fewer commuters travelling through London following the pandemic, changing consumer behaviours, and the introduction of wifi on parts of the London Underground have all affected the newspaper, it said.

“Therefore, we plan to consult with our staff and external stakeholders to reshape the business, return to profitability and secure the long-term future of the number one news brand in London,” the email read.

The same memo, sent by the Evening Standard’s chairman, Paul Kanareck, proposed introducing a weekly newspaper to replace the daily publication.

This would be shaped by more in-depth analysis and relevant lifestyle, sports and culture guides and news.

The business said it needs to “change with the times”, but switching to a weekly publication means it can retain its printed newspaper in an increasingly digital world.

“Although this process may be unsettling, our goal is to replicate our previous success with our sister title, The Independent, which has seen enduring growth in readership and commercial success following its own strategic transition in 2016,” Mr Kanareck wrote.

The Evening Standard said that it was currently in consultation with its staff following the announcement.

It did not give details about any potential job reductions, but said the number of employees going forward will partly depend on its discussions with staff, and as it hones in on its digital platforms.

The Evening Standard is owned by Evgeny Lebedev, who is also a shareholder in The Independent and the son of oligarch Alexander Lebedev.

He was appointed to the House of Lords in November 2020.

Rival publisher Reach, which owns the Daily Mirror and the Express newspapers, earlier this year revealed plans to cut costs and reduce jobs as part of efforts to boost its online presence.

It said it needed to evolve to meet an “increasingly fast-paced, competitive and customer-focused digital world”.


Evening Standard scraps daily print paper as it blames work from home

James Warrington

TELEGRAPH
Wed, May 29, 2024 


The Standard was founded in 1827 but has been struggling for direction in recent years - HOLLIE ADAMS/AFP via Getty Images


The Evening Standard is to stop printing a daily newspaper, blaming working from home and increased wifi on the London Underground.

The London freesheet told staff on Wednesday it will scrap its daily print edition and become a weekly title instead.

The future of the glossy ES Magazine, which currently comes out once a week, has also been thrown into doubt with executives saying they will consult on reducing the frequency of its publication.

Bosses said the plans and any impact on staff levels would be subject to a consultation, sparking fears of job losses.

In a memo, seen by The Telegraph, the Standard said its current losses were not sustainable and that it would now “reshape the business” to secure its long-term future.

Bosses told staff: “In this process, we will consult on the launch of a brand-new weekly newspaper later this year and consider options for retaining ES Magazine with reduced frequency.

“A proposed new weekly newspaper would replace the daily publication, allowing for more in-depth analysis of the issues that matter to Londoners, and serve them in a new and relevant way by celebrating the best London has to offer, from entertainment guides to lifestyle, sports, culture and news and the drumbeat of life in the world’s greatest city.”

Owner Lord Lebedev has pumped loans of at least £29m into the newspaper over the last two years - Justin Tallis/AFP

The Standard, which is owned by Russian-born billionaire Lord Lebedev, has been struggling for direction in recent years after being hammered by a collapse in commuting and a deep advertising downturn during Covid lockdowns.

The rise of home working and increased mobile and wifi signal on the London Underground have also hit its readership.

In October, print circulation dropped below 300,000 for the first time since it became a free newspaper in 2009. Its circulation peaked at more than 900,000 in 2016.

Surging inflation and print costs have also hurt the publication’s bottom line. The paper has shrunk to an average of around 30 pages, down from roughly 70 a decade ago.

Bosses have attempted to diversify the company away from advertising by pushing into sponsored content and live events.

The company says it has a monthly UK audience of 12 million people, with over half its total traffic coming from outside London and overseas. However, ad sales still make up the vast majority of its revenues.

The Standard has been a fixture on the streets of London for nearly 200 years

Lord Lebedev has been forced to pump loans of at least £29m into the newspaper over the last two years, while losses ballooned to £16.4m in 2022.

The freesheet has acknowledged it requires additional funding to stay afloat, which the peer last year agreed to provide for a further 12 months.

Lord Lebedev, who bought the Standard in 2009 for just £1, has raised eyebrows by using the title to wage a freedom of speech campaign, penning a number of articles railing against cancel culture.

The Standard, which was founded in 1827, has also been rocked by turmoil in its senior management in recent months.

The media group is still without a chief executive after the abrupt departure of Charles Yardley, who left last summer after three years. Rich Mead took up the role on an interim basis but also stepped down in November.

The newspaper’s editorial direction has also come under scrutiny. Lord Lebedev last year brought in Dylan Jones, the former editor of men’s magazine GQ, as editor-in-chief.

Former GQ editor Dylan Jones was brought in to replace Emily Sheffield as the paper's editor-in-chief last year - Dave Benett/Getty Images

Mr Jones, a well-known journalist and socialite who helped David Cameron write his 2008 biography, filled a lengthy vacuum at the top of the paper after Emily Sheffield, Lord Cameron’s sister-in-law, stepped down as editor in 2021 after just 15 months in the role.

Under his tenure, the newspaper has hired a number of high-profile columnists including artist Tracey Emin and American journalist Michael Wolff.

Meanwhile, Lord Lebedev has become an increasingly controversial figure in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The billionaire, who also co-owns the Independent, was nominated for a peerage in 2020 by then-prime minister Boris Johnson, a long standing friend.

The move triggered outrage – and later national security concerns – when Lord Lebedev’s father Alexander, a former KGB agent, was sanctioned by Canada.

Lord Lebedev has insisted he has no links to the Kremlin and penned an article for the Evening Standard early on in the war calling for Vladimir Putin to stop his assault on Ukraine.

The Evening Standard has been contacted for comment.

The Evening Standard Plans to Scrap Daily Print Edition Due to Substantial Losses

Tianwei Zhang

WWD
Wed, May 29, 2024 


LONDON — British newspaper The Evening Standard — a staple in many London commuters’ daily routines — said Wednesday that it plans to axe its loss-making daily print edition.

Instead it plans to launch a weekly edition later in the year to replace the daily publication, “allowing for more in-depth analysis of the issues that matter to Londoners, and serve them in a new and relevant way by celebrating the best London has to offer, from entertainment guides to lifestyle, sports, culture and news and the drumbeat of life in the world’s greatest city,” said Paul Kanareck, the newspaper’s chair, in a memo sent to staff.

ES Magazine, the weekly fashion, culture and lifestyle supplement of the newspaper under the supervision of Ben Cobb, may be retained with reduced frequency, added Kanareck.

Following the rise of home working post-pandemic and the arrival of free Wi-Fi and 5G connection in most central London tube stations by the end of 2024, the paper’s print circulation dropped below 300,000 last year for the first time since it became a free newspaper in 2009, after being purchased for a nominal 1 pound by Russian businessman and former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev.

Kanareck added that the newspaper’s substantial losses — 84.5 million pounds, or $107 million, in the past six years — are not sustainable.

“We plan to consult with our staff and external stakeholders to reshape the business, return to profitability, and secure the long-term future of the number-one news brand in London,” he said.

The newspaper said more than 12 million people access its digital platforms every month, with more than half of them traveling in and out of London.

The top management wants the 197-year-old The Evening Standard to adopt a similar digital transformation its sister publication The Independent, which was acquired by Lebedev in 2010, went through six years ago.

“Although this process may be unsettling, our goal is to replicate our previous success with our sister title, The Independent, which has seen enduring growth in readership and commercial success following its own strategic transition in 2016,” Kanareck said.

He added that a “new commercial approach would reinforce the relationship between our 24/7 digital platforms and our weekly publication.”

“This new combination would place more emphasis on delivering our world-class content to the broadest readership possible, while collaborating with advertisers to reach this audience in the most accessible, creative and relevant manner.”

It’s not clear how many jobs will be impacted from journalists and designers working for the print edition to distributors who hand out the newspaper across London daily.

A separate email from the Evening Standard HR team told staff that “at this stage, [we] do not yet know the exact impact of the changes” and said the business is pre-emptively seeking “to put in place a sound consultation structure for when further details are announced.”


Decision to end Evening Standard's daily edition is heartbreaking but its history proves the power of news

Sky News
Wed, May 29, 2024 



For anyone who cares about newspapers, the announcement that London's Evening Standard is to close its daily print edition and replace it with a weekly freesheet is heartbreaking - and not just because half of the editorial staff look set to lose their jobs.

People outside London may not care very much.

But this supposed regional title punches well above its weight and, to this day, influences what they read.

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People think the term 'rolling news' only applies to TV channels like Sky News.

At the height of its powers, though, the Standard published six editions daily - including the Metro and News Extra editions in the morning, the City Prices edition at lunchtime and the West End Final edition in the evening.

It is no exaggeration to say that by publishing so many editions - the title dropped to a single edition at the end of 2009 - the Standard would set the news agenda, whether that was in Westminster, the Square Mile or elsewhere.

That era was brought to mind in the recent obituaries of Charles Reiss, the Standard's political editor from 1985-2004, which served to remind how the Standard's take on a big story would be the one that, frequently, informed how Fleet Street would cover it the following morning.

In the pre-internet age, Reiss was, for example, the first newspaperman to report to readers that Margaret Thatcher was set to resign as prime minister.

His exclusive in September 2002, headlined '45 minutes from attack', also set the tone for the national coverage as then prime minister Tony Blair prepared to take the country to war in Iraq.

Influential in the world of business and beyond

The Standard was no less influential with its coverage of business and the City.

Financial public relations executives would make a point of ensuring that Standard journalists got to speak with company chief executives on the day of a major announcement and probably fretted over that particular meeting or phone call more than any other.

They knew that the Standard's coverage was likely to influence that of every other Fleet Street business desk and especially if Anthony Hilton, one of the most influential City editors of the last 40 years, were to pen something particularly acerbic.

It was not just in the fields of politics and finance where the Standard carried weight.

It also applied to fields like the arts and entertainment. The Evening Standard Theatre Awards, launched in 1955, are the UK theatre industry's longest-running awards and retain huge influence and prestige.

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Angering dictators and shaping the national conversation

While the title had built a reputation in the 19th century for covering conflicts such as the American Civil War, it was the 1930s and 1940s when the national influence of the Standard - whose daily edition closes just three years before it was due to celebrate its 200th anniversary - was probably forged.

Banned by Benito Mussolini in 1936, for a cartoon by the legendary David Low that incurred the Italian dictator's wrath, in 1940 it published a series of thundering editorials by the future Labour Party leader Michael Foot - who became the Standard's editor in 1942 - that savaged the slow pace of re-armament in the 1930s in the face of Hitler's aggression.

It shaped the national conversation.

More than 80 years on, the reputations of former prime ministers such as Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain have yet to recover.

A home for great writers

It has also long enjoyed a reputation for classy writing.

The Standard was the title, for example, for which the novelist George Orwell penned his famous 1946 essay 'The Moon Under Water' in which he described his perfect pub - which years later influenced the entrepreneur Tim Martin as he launched his JD Wetherspoon pub chain.

Other great writers who have graced its pages down the years include John Betjeman and Harold Nicolson.

The Standard was also where a number of future editors of national titles - among them Sir Simon Jenkins, Geordie Greig, Stewart Steven and, arguably the greatest of them all, Paul Dacre - built their reputations.

Its influence and prestige were such that it could attract someone of the calibre of Sir Max Hastings to the editor's chair when he left the Daily Telegraph.

Incredibly profitable

It is not that long ago that the Standard was incredibly profitable.

Those profits were defended when, for example, Robert Maxwell sought in 1987 to encroach on its turf with the London Daily News, recruiting journalists such as Alan Rusbridger, the future editor of the Guardian.

The Standard's then owners, Associated Newspapers, responded by exhuming the long-dead Evening News and selling it for just 5p-a-copy - half the price of Maxwell's title. When Maxwell was forced to close the London Daily News, five months later, the Evening News was quietly reburied.

A similar tactic was deployed when, in September 2006, Rupert Murdoch's News International launched the London Paper, a colour freesheet aimed at attracting younger readers for whom the Standard was too right-wing.

Associated responded with a freesheet of its own, London Lite, whose content was mainly drawn from the Standard. Both London Lite and the London Paper were closed in 2009.

The rise of online news

Like all newspaper titles, though, the Standard has found its profitability weakened and then eliminated by the rise of online news.

The title has responded in various ways to this. For example, dropping to a single edition and, in October 2009, becoming a freesheet.

By then, the title was owned by the Russian-born businessman Evgeny Lebedev, whose stewardship of the title is blamed by numerous Standard journalists, past and present, for its demise.

His purchase of the Independent and Independent on Sunday in 2010, and the merger of editorial desks of those titles with those of the Standard, was seen as particularly damaging to the latter.

As unpopular with Standard journalists was his frequent use of the Standard's pages to promote his pet causes and, frequently, himself.

There was also discontent when, shortly after he bought the title, the Standard launched an advertising campaign in which it apologised to younger Londoners, in particular, for being out-of-touch with their views - a key reason News International had launched the London Paper.

Standard journalists saw the campaign as denigrating their work. Ironically, the paper was still making similar mistakes years later, such as backing the unpopular Zac Goldsmith and later, Shaun Bailey, in London mayoral elections.

In fairness to Lebedev, his willingness to bear losses probably kept the title alive for longer than might otherwise have been the case.

Since he acquired it, the Standard has only been profitable for four years, from 2013 to 2016.

Those losses spiralled when, in 2020, most people were prevented from commuting to London by the COVID-19 lockdowns and forced it to resort to home delivery.

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A well-trodden path to online only

Those losses have now forced the Standard down the path announced today. Even that may not be enough.

Time Out, for decades London's leading weekly 'what's on?' magazine, went free in 2012 but was forced to go online-only in 2022.

The Standard's management told employees today that going online-only in 2016 had helped the Independent to trade profitably and that this was the aspiration for the Standard.

Many newspapers have turned going online to their advantage.

Launching a paywall and subscription services have helped titles that have at times in the recent past been loss-making, like The Times and Daily Telegraph, consistently turn a profit.

Print still packing a punch

But it is instructive that, even as print circulations drift and online audiences grow, Fleet Street's print editions still pack an enormous punch.

The current election campaign has seen eye-catching announcements made by the parties not at 10pm, for the main evening TV bulletins, but at 10.30pm for the Fleet Street print deadlines. The print format retains its power.

It is probably why, even as the vast majority of its output heads online, the Standard is looking to retain the format at least once a week.

'Plastic floats on ocean like confetti' - explorer

Zac Sherratt,

BBC News, South East

Eleanor Church/Lark Rise Pictures
Sally Earthrowl is a geography teacher at Ewell Castle School

A geography teacher from Surrey said she was shocked to see plastic floating on the water “like confetti” when she sailed across the North Pacific Gyre.

Sally Earthrowl, from Byfleet, joined the first leg of the X Trillion expedition in 2018, sailing through what is thought to be the patch of world ocean most densely populated with plastic.

“You really are in one of the most remote places in the planet, yet over the side of the boat you see a stream of plastic waste,” Ms Earthrowl told BBC Radio Surrey.

A documentary of the all-female crew's journey through the area dubbed "the Great Pacific Garbage Patch" will premiere at Curzon Soho, in London, on Thursday.

Eleanor Church/Lark Rise Pictures

Ms Earthrowl said she was shocked to see the quantity of plastics in water samples take from the ocean

Ms Earthrowl said she was inspired to join X Trillion after watching “piles of plastic making their way to the ocean” when she was teaching in Indonesia during monsoon season.

She said plastic waste gathers together in five parts of the world’s oceans due to surface currents.

The expedition, where 14 women covered 3,000 miles from Hawaii to Vancouver then onto Seattle, aimed to help people understand the true scale of the problem.

The crew dragged a fine-mesh net, about 60cm (23.6in) wide, through the water for one nautical mile.

“We were picking up hundreds of bits of microplastics. They are smaller than your little finger nail. The bigger plastic items fragment into hundreds of smaller pieces. It’s like confetti across the water,” said Ms Earthrowl.

Eleanor Church/X Trillion Film
Microplastic samples in a sieve collected from the trawl in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

It took three weeks for the crew to sail from Hawaii to Vancouver, during which time they saw just three other boats.

Eleanor Church, the director of the X Trillion film, said: “We were a crew of women with different skills, goals and motivations, brought together to witness and record the true extent of the plastic pollution crisis – with a focus on micro plastics and their toxic impact on female bodies in particular.

“We all emerged transformed by the experience and are committed to telling the story of what we witnessed and working to find solutions.

“The film is about this global crisis, but more than that it highlights the crucial role women play in helping to change systems and find solutions to the big problems facing humanity.”

Opinion

How the anime Demon Slayer films are driving ‘pop religion’ in Japan

The recent anime film both draws inspiration from Japanese religions and functions as a source of inspiration for religious practices.

(Photo by Kadyn Pierce/Unsplash/Creative Commons)

May 14, 2024
By Bruce Winkelman

(Sightings) — Visitors to movie theaters across the United States recently had the opportunity to see one of the most popular Japanese anime sensations of the last decade — not the Oscar-winning Hayao Miyazaki film “The Boy and the Heron,” but the film “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no yaiba — To the Hashira Training,” the third cinematic installment in the Demon Slayer franchise.

Although not nearly as familiar on these shores as Miyazaki’s critically acclaimed masterpieces, the Demon Slayer franchise is more popular in Japan than virtually any other pop cultural brand. The first Demon Slayer film, 2020’s “Mugen Train,” is the highest grossing film of all time in Japan — with a revenue of over 40 billion yen, it beats not only Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away,” but also “Titanic” and “Frozen.”

“Demon Slayer” is famously inspired by a wide range of religious traditions and practices. Much of its aesthetics and world-building derive from forms of mountain asceticism, worship of local spirits called Kami, and demon lore. What is less obvious are the ways in which this pop culture phenomenon itself is spurring on innovative religious practices of its own — what we might call “pop religion.”

The Demon Slayer franchise revolves around the story of Tanjirō Kamado, a youth in 1910s Japan. One day he comes home to find his family slaughtered by demons. The only survivor is his sister, Nezuko, who has been turned into a demon (not unlike how vampire bites turn victims into vampires). In an effort to restore his sister’s humanity, Tanjirō sets out into the world and finds himself amid a centuries-long war between humans and the demons that feed on them.

While this story began as a manga comic from the pen of graphic novelist Koyoharu Gotouge in 2016, it has since exploded into other media, including an award-winning animated series as well as the aforementioned films.

“Demon Slayer”’s depiction of demons, which also draws on global pop cultural tropes about vampires, is rooted in the demon lore of Japan’s religious traditions. For example, the prominent demon Hantengu is a reference, in name and in image, to mythical creatures called tengu, man-bird hybrids that have a millennia-long history in East Asian folklore. Tanjirō’s special technique for fighting demons, the hinokami kagura, is similarly inspired by Japanese religious practices. It is an adaptation of a real-life form of ceremonial dance also known as kagura that is frequently conducted at Shinto shrines across Japan.

Film poster for “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no yaiba — To the Hashira Training.” (Courtesy image)

Finally, “Demon Slayer” draws inspiration from Japan’s traditions of mountain asceticism. Since ancient times, mountains have played a crucial role in Japanese religious traditions as sites of power and arduous spiritual practices, such as standing under waterfalls while chanting mantras. In order to learn to fight demons, Tanjirō goes through a similar training regimen in the mountains, including waterfall training.

However, the influence between “Demon Slayer” and Japanese religions is not a one-way street. The franchise has also inspired new popular religious practices. Fans are making visits to existing shrines and other spiritual sites associated with the franchise. The Kamado shrine in the city of Dazaifu, from which Tanjirō’s last name is said to derive, is located on a mountain that in the past was an important center for ascetic practice. Fans now flock to this location in large numbers, and the shrine has begun to sell a new range of protective talismans directly inspired by “Demon Slayer.”

Another shrine, the Shōhachiman shrine in the city of Kitakyūshū, is home to a cleft boulder that is said to have been the inspiration for a similar boulder in “Demon Slayer.” This shrine, too, has become a popular destination among fans. Oftentimes, fans visit both in a single trip.

One may ask whether this pop fandom is really “religious” or not, but the terminology used to talk about these visits places them among millennia-old traditions of religious pilgrimage on the archipelago. They are referred to literally as “visits to the sacred sites” (seichi junrei).

The “Demon Slayer” phenomenon has also spurred new religious practices at these shrines. As part of traditional Japanese shrine visits, it is common practice to purchase a votive tablet called an ema, upon which one may write a wish or request to be granted. These wishes range from averting disaster in one’s personal life, to healing sickness, to passing important school exams. This tablet is then left at the shrine, in the hopes that the unseen powers will look favorably upon it and make it come true.

At shrines that fans associate with “Demon Slayer,” one increasingly finds ema tablets containing not just wishes, but drawings of characters or elements from the series. This is not simply a case of fan art in a new location. In Japanese religions, diseases and pandemics have a long history of being associated with demons. Including a drawing of a demon slayer like Tanjirō alongside, for example, a request to “vanquish COVID-19” can thus be said to constitute a new twist on centuries-old religious practices.

RELATED: Anime is packed with spirituality and gaining popularity among Gen Z

This is not to say that “Demon Slayer“ is a religion; rather it serves as a reminder that people’s religious practices don’t occur in a vacuum totally separated from their consumption of fictional media. It is well-known that franchises such as “Dune,” “The Avengers” and “The Good Place” draw inspiration from real-world religions. Yet in focusing on this one-way influence, we may well have overlooked the traffic that runs in the other direction.

Bruce Winkelman is a teaching fellow at the University of Chicago Divinity School. This commentary originally appeared in Sightings, a publication of the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion at the divinity school.

 The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.

DEMONSLAYER IS AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX

US Catholics more polarized than ever about still-popular Pope Francis, survey says

The Republican and Republican-leaning favorability rating represents a decline, creating the largest partisan gap in approval of Francis since his papacy began.

Pope Francis smiles at the end of his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, April 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

April 12, 2024
By Aleja Hertzler-McCain

(RNS) — U.S. Catholics are more polarized than ever in how they view Pope Francis, even though majorities on both ends of the political spectrum have a positive view of the pope, according to a new survey.

Pew Research Center, in a report released Friday (April 12), found that three-quarters of U.S. Catholics (75%) have a favorable view of Francis, with nearly 9 in 10 Catholic Democrats and those who lean Democrat (89%) expressing favorable views, and just under two-thirds of Catholic Republicans and those who lean Republican (63%) saying the same.

While the favorability rating from the Democratic camp was roughly in line with recent years, the Republican and Republican-leaning favorability rating represented a decline, creating the largest partisan gap in approval of Francis since his papacy began.

Of the 14 times Pew has asked about Francis’ popularity, the new survey records the pope’s second lowest favorability rate. The only time he received lower scores was in September 2018 — a factor possibly influenced by the survey being taken right after Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò alleged that he had warned Francis of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s sexually predatory behavior and that Francis had ignored the warning.

Francis’ highest favorability rating reached 90% in February 2015, just months after he had confirmed he would be visiting the U.S. during 2015.

“Three-quarters of U.S. Catholics rate Pope Francis favorably” (Graphic courtesy of Pew Research Center)

According to the Pew survey, Catholics who view Francis unfavorably were more likely than Catholics who view him favorably to say he represents a major change in direction for the church, with just over half of Catholics who view Francis unfavorably (54%) holding that view compared with 4 in 10 Catholics who view him favorably (41%).

In the days before last October’s Synod of Bishops, Francis prayed the assembly would be a place where the Holy Spirit would “purify the church” from “polarization.” The October assembly followed a multiyear global consultation of the Catholic faithful, a process that church reformers hoped and traditionalists feared would lead to sweeping changes in the church.

Last month, the Vatican announced that, instead of addressing controversial issues at the concluding assembly next October, study groups have been formed to address those issues, and they will finish their work by June 2025.
RELATED: Vatican puts the brakes on Synod on Synodality, pushes ‘controversial’ topics to 2025

The Pew survey revealed that majorities of U.S. Catholics supported church reform measures, although Catholics who attend Mass weekly or more supported these reforms at lower rates than Catholics who attend less frequently. Just over a quarter of U.S. Catholics (28%) said they attend Mass weekly.

More than 8 in 10 U.S. Catholics (83%) expressed support for the church to allow birth control use, with 62% of weekly Mass attenders saying the same. Three-quarters (75%) expressed support for allowing unmarried Catholics who are living with a romantic partner to receive Communion, with 57% of weekly Mass attenders agreeing.

In terms of reform to the priesthood, 69% of adult U.S. Catholics expressed support for allowing married priests, with a little more than half of weekly Mass attenders (53%) saying the same. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. Catholics (64%) supported ordaining women priests, with 41% of weekly Mass attenders saying the same.

As for recognizing the marriages of gay and lesbian couples, more than half of U.S. Catholics (54%) expressed support, including a third of weekly Mass attenders (33%).

Beyond the divides in responses based on Mass attendance, there were differences in support for church reform based on partisan affiliation, with Democrats and those leaning Democratic showing significantly higher support for church reform. While smaller majorities of Catholic Republicans and those leaning Republican supported all church reforms studied, the exception was in recognizing the marriages of gay and lesbian couples, with only 36% of Catholic Republicans expressing support.

“61% of White Catholics align with Republican Party; 60% of Hispanic Catholics favor Democratic Party” (Graphic courtesy of Pew Research Center)

The study also showed racial and ethnic differences in party affiliation among U.S. Catholics. Six in 10 Hispanic Catholics (60%) said they were aligned with the Democratic Party, while a similar percentage of white Catholics (61%) said they were aligned with the Republican Party.

While majorities of white and Hispanic Catholics across age demographics supported every church reform surveyed, older Catholics (aged 50 and older) and white Catholics were more likely to support church reform measures than the younger cohort and than Hispanic Catholics — except when it came to recognizing gay and lesbian marriages. On that question, Catholics aged 18-49 and Hispanic Catholics were slightly more supportive, with 56% and 57% supporting respectively compared to 53% supporting among the age 50+ group and 52% supporting among white Catholics.

The question on recognizing the marriages of gay and lesbian couples also revealed a substantial gender gap — under half of Catholic men (47%) supported recognizing those marriages, while 6 in 10 Catholic women (60%) expressed support.

Catholic men were a few points higher than Catholic women across most other church reform questions, except for on the question of allowing birth control, where 86% of Catholic women expressed support compared with 79% of Catholic men. Majorities of Catholic men and women supported every surveyed church reform, aside from the minority support among Catholic men for recognizing the marriages of gay and lesbian couples.
RELATED: Study: Unaffiliated Americans are the only growing religious group

On a question highly contested in U.S. politics, the difference between weekly Mass attenders and all Catholics was also visible in support for legal abortion in all or most cases. While 6 in 10 U.S. Catholics (61%) said they supported legal abortion, only about a third of weekly Mass attenders (34%) said the same.

“6 in 10 U.S. Catholics say abortion should be legal in most or all cases” (Graphic courtesy of Pew Research Center)

There was also a substantial Catholic partisan divide in support for legal abortion, with Catholic Democrats supporting legal abortion at much higher rates. However, Catholic Democrats and those who lean Democratic were more likely to oppose legal abortion (22%) than all U.S. Democrats (15%), while Catholic Republicans and those who lean Republican were slightly more likely to support legal abortion (43%) than all U.S. Republicans (40%).

The differences between white and Hispanic Catholics on legal abortion views were narrower, with 63% of Hispanic Catholics supporting legal abortion in all or most cases compared to 59% of white Catholics. Pew did not report the views of Catholics of other racial and ethnic groups.

The Pew survey also reaffirmed previous research about the changing demographics of U.S. Catholics, who represent 20% of U.S. adults. A third of U.S. Catholics (33%) are now Hispanic, a 4 percentage point increase since 2007. White non-Hispanic Catholics, who represent 57% of U.S. Catholics, have declined 8 percentage points in the same time frame. Black non-Hispanic Catholics make up 2% of the Catholic population and Asian non-Hispanic Catholics make up 4%.

Hispanic Catholics are also younger on average than their white counterparts — only 43% of Hispanic Catholics are 50 or older, compared with 68% of white Catholics. Hispanic Catholics are the majority group in the western U.S., while white non-Hispanic Catholics make up the majority in the Northeast and the Midwest. In the South, 49% of Catholics are white non-Hispanic and 40% of Catholics are Hispanic.

White Catholics are much more likely to be college graduates than Hispanic Catholics. Four in 10 white Catholics (39%) have a bachelor’s degree, while only 16% of Hispanic Catholics do.

While roughly the same percentage of white and Hispanic Catholics said they attend Mass weekly, Hispanic Catholics were more likely to say religion is important in their lives (48%) and that they pray daily (55%), compared with white Catholics, where 44% and 49% agreed respectively.

The survey included 2,019 adult U.S. Catholics and was fielded from Feb. 13-25. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

SCIENCE VS FAITH

Carbon-dating of ancient tunics of Saints Peter and John separates legend from reality

Carbon-dating done by the Vatican Museums shows that the relics could not have belonged to the saints.

The interior of Sancta Sanctorum in Rome. (Photo by Antoine Taveneaux/Wikipedia/Creative Commons)

May 24, 2024
By Claire Giangravé

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Once shrouded in history and legend, the so-called tunics of St. Peter and St. John the Evangelist have been subjected to a full restoration and carbon-dating analysis by experts at the Vatican Museums. They will be displayed in a new and permanent exhibition that aims to shed light on the mysteries of these treasures of Catholicism.

The work on the garments, sponsored by the Vatican Patrons of the Arts, found that the tunic said by church tradition to belong to St. Peter dates to a period between the sixth and seventh centuries C.E., while that allegedly belonging to St. John the Evangelist, a type of religious robe known as a dalmatic, was dated to sometime in the first or second centuries. Both saints lived in the first century after the birth of Christ.

The head of the Vatican Museums, Barbara Jatta, said at a press conference on Thursday (May 23) that while the tunics may not have belonged to St. Peter or St. John, they still carry “devotional significance” for believers and that further studies will attempt to bring clarity to the provenance and long history of the artifacts.

The tunics, especially the one said to have belonged to St. Peter, were in a terrible state of disrepair. “The fibers would dissolve with a simple touch,” said Emanuela Pignataro, who worked on the restoration effort. The relics also had signs of “smearing,” with dark spots signaling a rapid decomposition process.

RELATED: Despite pope’s clear ‘no’ on CBS, promoters of women deacons hold out hope

For centuries, the tunics were kept in a cypress case inside the Sancta Sanctorum, or Holy of Holies, a chapel located near the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome and named after the sacred site in Jerusalem that allegedly once housed the ark of the covenant. The basilica, built in the mid-300s, was the papal residence for much of the first millennium, before the papacy moved to Avignon, in France. As the city’s cathedral, it is the episcopal seat of Pope Francis in his capacity as bishop of Rome.


The newly restored tunic of St. Peter, right, and the dalmatic of St. John the Evangelist, left, are displayed at the Vatican Museums in Rome. (RNS photo/Claire Giangravé)

The site contained “a collection of the most relevant relics in the history of Christianity,” said Luca Pesante, who heads the decorative arts department at the Vatican Museums, at Thursday’s press conference. “To look at them is like reading 2,000 years of history of the Roman Church.”

A visit to the Holy of Holies, where early popes went to make personal devotions, requires a climb to the top of 28 marble steps. It has been used to store relics at least since 772, according to documentation created under Pope Stephen III, though some historical documents mention relics being moved to a holy site in Rome centuries earlier.

It wasn’t until 816 that Pope Leo III had a reliquary box placed under the altar of the chapel on top of the stairs. Above the altar, the phrase “There is no holier place than this in the entire world” is engraved in Latin, and famed artists competed to decorate its walls.

The secrets of the Holy of Holies remained unknown until 1903, when Pope Leo XIII allowed experts to investigate its treasures just before his death.

“Until the 20th century the chapel’s vault had been an absolutely mysterious object that had never been seen by anyone,” said Alessandro Vella, expert of Christian antiquity at the Vatican Museums at the press conference, adding that they were “wrapped with a halo of sacredness and the object of devotion.”

The election of the anti-modernist Pope Pius X in 1903, however, slowed the unveiling process, but in 1905 the French Jesuit scholar Florian Jubaru and the German Jesuit historian Hartmann Grisar were allowed to plunder its secrets. It took several attempts to reach the treasures, which were kept in a massive iron cage with two bronze doors covered with 13th-century reliefs. A blacksmith was finally able to break the chains on the doors and open the vault.


Faithful kneel on the Holy Stairs (Scala Sancta), which, according to the Catholic Church, is the stair on which Jesus Christ stepped on his way to the crucifixion, during a special opening, in Rome, on April 11, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Soon, however, the rivalry that broke out between the French and German scholars, Vella said, “led to the loss of important historical data.”

The Holy of Holies contained an immense collection of sacred objects made in silver and gold, pearls and ivory. Priceless relics from the most venerated saints, including St. Praxedes and St. Agnes, were kept in the vault, along with relics said to be the cradle and foreskin of Jesus, the chair Christ sat on at the Last Supper and his sandals. Purported pieces of Christ’s cross were also kept there, as well as keys allegedly forged from the chains that bound St. Peter during his captivity in Rome

The vault also contained the Uronica icon, an image of Christ as ruler of the universe, which, according to legend, was made by St. Luke, author of the Gospel with his name, and completed “by inhuman hands” — meaning it was crafted by angels. It also held the alleged vestments of St. Peter and St. John.

Despite 13th-century security measures, the items showed signs of tampering, and Pius X, in part to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Italian government, had the relics moved from the basilica to the Vatican Library, where they were eventually placed under the patronage of the Vatican Museums.

The recent investigation shows that the core artifacts date to the sixth and seventh centuries and mostly came as offerings from the sacred sites in the Holy Land, Vella explained. But he cautioned that in establishing the authenticity of the treasures, “there are few certainties, and confusion reigns supreme.”

Main altar of the Sancta Sanctorum in Rome. (Photo courtesy Wikipedia/Creative Commons)

The tunics’ condition suggests that they had a long career as gifts and showpieces for dignitaries and prelates. Relics have often been used in the church’s history as diplomatic instruments to forge alliances and build trust, Vella said.

A letter written by Pope Pelagius II in the sixth century dictated that any common object placed in contact with the grave of a saint would acquire its sanctifying power. This might explain why the tunics were attributed to the saints, even if they never actually wore them, Vella explained.

Jatta said the Vatican Museum is committed to preserving the relics and digging deeper into the secrets they hold. Whether the tunics, or the other relics in the Holy of Holies, are authentic remains a mystery, but the 1,000-year-old history that they contain is yet to be discovered.

Jesuit scientist who bridged faith and science recounted in PBS documentary

It is not surprising that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, an eminent paleontologist, got himself in trouble with church officials and his Jesuit superiors.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who developed the Omega Point concept. (Illustration by Prisma/UIG photo)

May 13, 2024
By Thomas Reese

(RNS) — In the history of the Catholic Church, too many innovative thinkers were persecuted before they were accepted and then embraced by the church.

The list includes St. Thomas Aquinas (whose books were burned by the bishop of Paris), St. Ignatius Loyola (who was investigated by the Spanish Inquisition) and St. Mary MacKillop (an Australian nun who was excommunicated by her bishop for uncovering and reporting clergy child sex abuse).

It’s not surprising, then, that a French Jesuit scientist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who tried to bridge the gap between faith and science, got himself in trouble with church officials and his Jesuit superiors in the 20th century. Only after his death was he recognized as the inspired genius that he was.

His story is magnificently told in a new PBS documentary, “Teilhard: Visionary Scientist,” which was produced by Frank Frost Productions in a 13-year labor of love. It took Frank and Mary Frost to four countries on three continents, a total of 25 locations, and included more than 35 interviews.

RELATED: Excommunication is not the church’s equivalent of capital punishment

Teilhard was born in 1881, entered the Jesuits in 1899 and was ordained a priest in 1911. His father nurtured in him a scientific curiosity, and he studied geology, botany and zoology at the University of Paris, ultimately becoming an eminent paleontologist who was involved in the discovery of the Peking Man.

If he had stuck to science, he would have led the quiet life of a scholar, but it was his attempt to bring together science and faith that got him in trouble. He went beyond the traditional argument that faith and science were not in conflict and used science as an input to theology and spirituality. Thus, his writings on Christ were enhanced by an evolutionary perspective.

He was not allowed to publish during his lifetime, although some manuscripts did circulate among friends and colleagues. Luckily, his literary executors were laypeople, not Jesuits, or his papers would have been buried in the archives.

After his death in New York City, “The Phenomenon of Man” (1955) and “The Divine Milieu” (1957) were published, leading to a condemnation of his writing by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1962.

His influence grew at and after the Second Vatican Council. Even Benedict XVI picked up on his thinking in an Easter homily where the pope spoke of the risen Christ as the next step in human evolution.



Teilhard believed that “(s)omeday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for the second time in the history of the world, we will have discovered fire.”

“Teilhard: Visionary Scientist” tells this story well, with historical photos and onsite video of places where Teilhard lived and worked, including China. His important influence on theology is revealed through interviews with theologians and others who have been touched by his writings.

The film is a great opportunity to learn about a man who is still influencing the development of theology today.

“Teilhard: Visionary Scientist” will premiere on Maryland Public Television on May 19 and be available for national and international streaming for two years, beginning on May 20, on the free PBS app.
RELATED: New Vatican document combines modern transparency with eternal teaching

Another PBS documentary being released this month is “Hollywood Priest: The Story of Fr. ‘Bud’ Kieser” by Paulist Productions, which is also working on “Statue of Limitations: Father Serra and the California Natives.”



Silicon Valley bishop, two Catholic AI experts weigh in on AI evangelization

Catholic leaders who have worked with the Vatican on AI say that a recent experiment from Catholic Answers illustrates the ways AI evangelization can go wrong.

Justin, formerly Father Justin, is an artificial intelligence virtual apologist created by Catholic Answers. (Screen grab)

May 6, 2024
By Aleja Hertzler-McCain


(RNS) — It took a little more than a day for Father Justin, an artificial intelligence avatar posing as a priest, to be defrocked. After Catholic Answers, a site devoted to evangelizing for Catholicism, introduced the character to answer questions about the faith, Catholics on social media called the character a “scandalizing mockery of the sacred priesthood” that offered only “a substitute for real interaction.”

On April 24, Catholic Answers apologized for the experiment, and Justin was reintroduced as a lay theologian.

Catholics close to the Vatican’s work on artificial intelligence say that Justin captures the possible problems with AI evangelization and the reasons for caution in Pope Francis’ and other church officials’ attempts to tackle AI, even as the technology is becoming an increasingly buzzy topic at the Vatican.


The Rev. Philip Larrey. (Photo courtesy Boston College)

The Rev. Philip Larrey, a professor in the department of formative education at Boston College, said that while he thinks Catholic Answers are a good group, “they were a little bit too quick to enter into something which is extremely complicated, and that is interactive artificial intelligence.”

San Jose, California, Bishop Oscar Cantú, who leads the Catholic faithful in Silicon Valley, said that AI doesn’t come up much with parishioners in his diocese. Nonetheless, as a leader in the computing capital of the world, Cantú said he has engaged with AI as a global and moral issue, even if he hasn’t “delved into it too much.”

Pointing to the adage coined by Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, “move fast and break things,” the bishop said, “with AI, we need to move very cautiously and slowly and try not to break things. The things we would be breaking are human lives and reputations.”
RELATED: The Catholic Church wants to have a say on the future of AI

Experts agreed that Father Justin’s imitation of the sacrament of confession was highly inappropriate.

Cantú said, “If we have some sort of a robot in the guise of a priest, it can confuse” people about the fact that the sacraments must be celebrated in person. “Just because Father Justin recites the formula, that doesn’t make it a sacrament,” he said.

The bishop cautioned that AI chatbots should make very clear that they are AI. “It’s so critical that we be as transparent as possible, for the sake of the people we’re trying to guide,” Cantú added.

Even Justin introducing itself as a lay theologian is problematic. “A person who may be incredibly knowledgeable of Scripture and of church teaching but is not a person of faith does not do theology, because theology begins with faith,” the bishop said.


Bishop Oscar Cantú. (Photo courtesy Creative Commons)

Noreen Herzfeld, a professor of theology and computer science at St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict and one of the editors of a book about AI sponsored by the Vatican Dicastery for Culture and Education, said that the AI character was previously “impersonating a priest, which is considered a very serious sin in Catholicism.”

The leaders don’t dismiss the usefulness of AI when used properly. Cantú said that AI can do “tremendous work” as “a tool that can be used for good for doing research.” But, he added, “A person of faith doing theology then needs to judge the credibility of each source and the authority of each source.”

Larrey, who has worked closely with both Vatican and AI leaders on the ethical issues surrounding AI, emphasized that Pope Francis is interested in “person-centered AI,” meaning that AI must be used “for the good of human beings” and “not the detriment of people.”

The best example of AI being used for evangelization, Larrey said, is Magisterium AI, a chatbot developed by Longbeard, a digital strategy firm founded by a former seminarian named Matthew Harvey Sanders, a friend of Larrey’s. The bot explains church teaching in a format like ChatGPT, by drawing on official church teachings, as well as select writings such as the works of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, linking to the documents that informed its answer.

Larrey distinguishes such automated research from generative AI, which learns and experiments with its newfound knowledge. “When you have a generative AI, if you’re not careful, it gets out of hand,” he said.

Accuracy issues, Herzfeld said, is one of many reasons it should not be used for evangelization. “As much as you beta test one of these chatbots, you will never get rid of hallucinations” — moments when the AI makes up its own answers, she said.



The Magisterium AI interface. (Screen grab)

“The problem is actually built into how they work,” Herzfeld continued. “They work on statistics, on probabilities as to what words and phrases should follow, and they do not have internal mental models of the world. And without that, they will always get off track.”

Herzfeld said that an AI is only as good as the data it is trained on. On issues where the church is divided, she said, “I could see bots out there giving competing answers, for example, on the desirability of the Latin Mass or the role of women in the church.”

Herzfeld expressed concern, too, that people who are not well-versed in technology may believe computers have a “certain level of infallibility,” and she worries that turning to AI bots will lead to spiritual “de-skilling,” convincing young people to think “religion is just about answers.”

“When I was their age, I was shy, and if I’d had a bot to answer my questions, I’d have gone to a bot instead of going to my pastor or even going to my parents to ask questions about religion,” Herzfeld said, adding that forming relationships with AI instead of with other people or God could become a type of idolatry.

Larrey, who has been studying AI for nearly 30 years and is in conversation with Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, is optimistic that the technology will improve. He said Altman is already making progress on the hallucinations, on its challenges to users’ privacy and reducing its energy use — a recent analysis estimated that by 2027, artificial intelligence could suck up as much electricity as the population of Argentina or the Netherlands.

Larrey understands that Catholic Answers’ Justin was designed to “get people who would otherwise not be interested in the Catholic faith,” but also thinks chatbots should not vie with real priests. “Why don’t you just go down to your parish and talk to a priest? They’re not extinct, you know,” he said.

For evangelization, “I think you need people to contact and to attract other people,” said Larrey. “We will never eliminate that step.”

Cantú believes this is the ultimate lesson to be drawn from the ill-fated Father Justin. “The faith is not just about answers. It’s not just about information. It’s about encounter, a personal encounter with Christ, with real people,” he said.
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Just as rank-and-file Catholics should exercise caution with AI for evangelization, Cantú suggested similar care from priests who might turn to ChatGPT for an assist when writing their homilies.

While the AI’s suggestion can be a good starting point for priests who are “pressed for time,” Cantú said, the priest must make the homily his own.

“When anyone within the church, a person of faith, expresses the truth, to some degree, they’re opening a window to the mind of God because God is truth.” In the end, the bishop said, “It has to be my words and my act of faith.

“A robot can’t do that because it’s not an act of faith.”

Netanyahu frequently makes claims of antisemitism. Critics say he’s deflecting from his own problems

The war has reignited the long debate about the definition of antisemitism and whether any criticism of Israel amounts to anti-Jewish hate speech.

Pro-Palestinian Pasadena City College students walk out of class as they demonstrate against the Israel-Hamas war in Pasadena, Calif., on April 30, 2024. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly accused critics of Israel or his policies of antisemitism, including the U.S. college campus protests and the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. 

(Sarah Reingewirtz/The Orange County Register via AP, File)

May 29, 2024
By Tia Goldenberg


TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — After the International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defense minister and top Hamas officials, the Israeli leader accused him of being one of “the great antisemites in modern times.”

As protests roiled college campuses across the United States over the Gaza war, Netanyahu said they were awash with “antisemitic mobs.”

These are just two of the many instances during the war in which Netanyahu has accused critics of Israel or his policies of antisemitism, using fiery rhetoric to compare them to the Jewish people’s worst persecutors. But his detractors say he is overusing the label to further his political agenda and try to stifle even legitimate criticism, and that doing so risks diluting the term’s meaning at a time when antisemitism is surging worldwide.

“Not every criticism against Israel is antisemitic,” said Tom Segev, an Israeli historian. “The moment you say it is antisemitic hate … you take away all legitimacy from the criticism and try to crush the debate.”

There has been a spike in antisemitic incidents since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, according to researchers. And many Jews in North America and Europe have said they feel unsafe, citing threats to Jewish schools and synagogues and the pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations in the U.S., although organizers deny that antisemitism drives the protests.

The war has reignited the long debate about the definition of antisemitism and whether any criticism of Israel — from its military’s killing of thousands of Palestinian children to questions over Israel’s very right to exist — amounts to anti-Jewish hate speech.

Netanyahu, the son of a scholar of medieval Jewish persecution, has long used the travails of the Jewish people to color his political rhetoric. And he certainly isn’t the first world leader accused of using national trauma to advance political goals.

Netanyahu’s supporters say he is honestly worried for the safety of Jews around the world.

But his accusations of antisemitism come as he has repeatedly sidestepped accountability for not preventing Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. Hamas killed roughly 1,200 people and took 250 hostage, which many in Israel’s defense establishment acknowledge they shoulder the blame for.

Netanyahu has continued to face criticism at home and abroad throughout the war, which has killed 35,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between fighters and noncombatants. The fighting has sparked a humanitarian catastrophe, and ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan has accused Netanyahu and his defense minister of using starvation as a “method of warfare,” among other crimes.

Segev, the historian, acknowledged there is a rise in “violent hate” toward Israel and, speaking from Vienna, said he wasn’t sure if speaking Hebrew in public was safe. But he said Netanyahu has long used Jewish crises to his political benefit, including invoking the Jewish people’s deepest trauma, the Holocaust, to further his goals.

At the height of the campus protests, Netanyahu released a video statement condemning their “unconscionable” antisemitism and comparing the mushrooming encampments on college greens to Nazi Germany of the 1930s.

“What’s happening in America’s college campuses is horrific,” he said.

In response to Khan seeking the arrest warrants, he said the ICC prosecutor was “callously pouring gasoline on the fires of antisemitism that are raging across the world,” comparing him to German judges who approved of the Nazis’ race laws against Jews.

Netanyahu has compared accusations that Israel’s war is causing starvation in Gaza or that the war is genocidal to blood libels — unfounded centuries-old accusations that Jews sacrificed Christian children and used their blood to make unleavened bread for Passover.

“These false accusations are not levelled against us because of the things we do, but because of the simple fact that we exist,” he said at a ceremony marking Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day earlier this month.

Netanyahu previously made repeated allusions to the Holocaust while trying to galvanize the world against Iran’s nuclear program.

Israeli leaders and the country’s media also made such comparisons about Oct. 7, describing the Hamas attackers as Nazis, comparing their rampage to the historic violence inflicted on Eastern European Jews, and referring to the images of Jewish victims’ burned bodies as a Shoah — the Hebrew word for Holocaust.

Israelis have been jarred by the global rise in antisemitism, and many view the swell of criticism against Israel as part of the rise. They see hypocrisy in the world’s intense focus on Israel’s war with Hamas while other conflicts get much less attention.

Moshe Klughaft, a former advisor to Netanyahu, said he believes the Israeli leader is genuinely concerned over rising antisemitism.

“It is his duty to condemn antisemitism as prime minister of Israel and as head of a country that sees itself as responsible for world Jewry,” he said.

Many Israelis view the war in Gaza as a just act of self-defense and are befuddled by what many think should be criticism directed at Hamas — blaming the group for starting the war, using Palestinian civilians as human shields and refusing to free the hostages. The ICC warrant requests have likely bolstered such feelings.

When Netanyahu leans on accusations of antisemitism, he is doing so with the Israeli public in mind, said Reuven Hazan, a political scientist at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.

Hazan said Netanyahu has leveraged the campus protests, for example, to get Israelis to rally around him at a time when his public support has plummeted and Israelis are growing impatient with the war. He said Netanyahu has also used the protests as a scapegoat for his failure so far to achieve the war’s two goals: destroying Hamas and freeing the hostages.

“He deflects blame from himself, attributing any shortcomings not to his foreign policies or policies in the (Palestinian) territories, but rather to antisemitism. This narrative benefits him greatly, absolving him of responsibility,” Hazan said.

Shmuel Rosner, a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, a Jerusalem think thank, rejects the notion that Netanyahu stifles criticism by calling it antisemitic, pointing to just how much criticism the country receives. But he said using the antisemitic label to achieve political ends could cheapen it.

“I’d be more selective than the government of Israel in choosing the people and bodies they tag ‘antisemitic,’” he said.