[More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.]
Brian Williams and Chris Matthews couldn't resist the opportunity to harp on the lack of married and women priests in the Catholic Church as MSNBC provided live coverage of Pope Francis's open-air Mass in Philadelphia on 27 September 2015. Williams pointed out that one of the archbishops at the Mass is "from a family, [but] he cannot go home to one. He cannot have one, and be...of service to the Catholic Church. And it is still that thing that differentiates and separates the religion from so many others."
Matthews asserted that "if you're going to have ever women priests, you have to have the first step being married priests – because only in the case where you have wives...lobbying on behalf of women priests will it ever happen." Moments later, Bishop Robert Barron of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, a NBC News contributor for the papal visit, actually schooled the two MSNBC personalities on how their premise was faulty.