When I first was put on the religion beat for the Los Angeles TImes, I was the fourth full-time reporter covering faith for the newspaper. Today, there is one reporter — who months past — has often been pulled to cover other types of stories.
Terry Mattingly of GetReligion.org has an interesting blog post headlined: RIP: The religion beat? Worth checking it out.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Jerry // Aug 29, 2008 at 4:22 am
well, given that holy water is now a terrorist threat.. the LA Times is only doing what it can.
Thu Aug 28, 12:42 PM ET
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican has warned journalists who will travel with Pope Benedict to Lourdes next month not to put the revered water from the shrine in their hand luggage on the papal plane or it may be confiscated.
The pope will travel Sept 12-15 to Paris and the site in southern France where the Madonna is said to have appeared to a peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous, 150 years ago.
The millions of pilgrims who visit the shrine each year drink from its fonts, many believing its water to be potentially miraculous and healing. Most take bottles of it away with them.
“In order to avoid their confiscation during security controls at the airport, Air France recommends putting any bottles of Lourdes water in baggage what will go into the hold of the plane,” a Vatican advisory to reporters said.
While the water from Lourdes is not strictly considered “holy” — holy water is found in churches and must be blessed by a priest — many websites about Lourdes describe it as “holy.”
Security measures limiting liquids allowed in carry-on baggage have been in effect since 2006 when a plot to bring down planes with liquid explosives was discovered.
2 Wholely water // Sep 4, 2008 at 3:23 am
Is it OK to drink holy water?
3 Iron Pol // Sep 5, 2008 at 12:00 am
First, it’s not holy water.
Second, I sure hope so since priests put holy water into the wine at every mass.
4 Voice from the Desert » Blog Archive » A rocky period for religion writers // Sep 23, 2008 at 3:00 am
[...] Lobdell, a former religion writer at the LA Times, recently wrote (in a blog item headlined, “The death of the religion beat“), “When I first was put on the religion beat for the Los Angeles Times, I was the [...]
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