Sometimes, being in a Church community “is like being in a closed room. You get sick sooner or later. Of course, when you go out into the street accidents can happen, but I would far rather have an injured Church than a sick Church.”Is it "closed" or "sick" that the Pope really said? Does it make a difference? I think so. Is it too much to ask that a headline copy-writer at La Stampa, which runs Vatican Insider, report the Pope's actual words?
In 1867, Matthew Arnold wrote "Dover Beach", a haunting poem evoking the "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" of the Sea of Faith. As a boomer who finished Catholic elementary school in 1964 and then watched my Church falter, I've found the roar all too audible. So here I wait, listening for the whispers of that Sea's invincible return.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Vatican Insider trips over its own criticisms
After lauding the way that immediate access via the internet to Pope Francis' statements means that they are no longer subject to distortion from unreliable "intermediaries," you'd think that Vatican Insider would take care to get their own reporting exactly right. Yet on the day after that assertion, we see an article titled "Francis' Message to Catechists: 'An Injured Church is Better than a Closed Church.'" But what did the Pope really say? Quoted in the same article is the answer:
