Why Did Catholic Bishops Oust CNS Editor?

Tony Spence, editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service (CNS) for more than a decade, abruptly resigned last month at the request of an official at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The reason? Spence had posted tweets about legislation to protect religious liberty passed in North Carolina, Mississippi, and Tennessee, which would deny legal protections to LGBT people. “Stupid evidently contagious,” Spence wrote in one tweet that linked to a Reuters article about a Tennessee law allowing mental health counselors to refuse treatment to patients on religious grounds. In response to Spence’s tweets, self-appointed Catholic watchdog groups that in the past have targeted other conference officials unleashed a flurry of blog posts accusing the editor of “promoting the LGBT agenda.” This proved too much for the USCCB, which has made religious-liberty issues a priority in recent years and puts significant institutional muscle into promoting its annual anti-Obamacare “Fortnight for Freedom” campaign.