- Pope’s previous referral to Abbas as a man of peace is unrefuted
- We hope Abbas is a man of peace, but don’t mistake that for manipulation
- Our previous post stands, for reasons you might surmise by reading our response to the article set forth below
In this PJ Media post Stephen Kruiser makes some fair points about being circumspect about the devotion to accuracy by the AP and that they can be purposely manipulative. He goes on to relate that another publication reported a different translation (see his article) of Pope Francis’ words. But the story yesterday from AP, to our knowledge unrefuted by official Vatican sources, that Pope Francis referred to Abbas as an “angel of peace” struck us as credible because it fit with what we understand to be Pope Francis’ proclivity for extravagant, unguarded, and irresponsible remarks.
We think the liberal media misrepresents the remarks of conservatives as a matter of course, but when it is someone they like, they care more about being in tune, except when there is a matter they do not want to give any mileage to. And so they are willing to largely ignore the Pope’s occasional orthodox comments but expound on and give much play to his comments that fit into their liberal bias but not necessarily misrepresent them. In other words if the AP quotes Obama saying something would we doubt them?
Kruiser here critiques a colleague of his at PJ Media who commented on the AP report (presuming it to be accurate) that Pope Francis referred to Mahmoud Abbas as an “angel of peace.” Read his PJMedia post here.
Contrary to Popular Outrage, Pope Francis Didn’t Call Mahmoud Abbas ‘an Angel of Peace’
Another day, another misquote.
I hate to get into a public disagreement with a colleague here, but the outrage du jour seems to be based on a translation that may or may not be deliberately wrong. As the BBC and the Associated Press are at the root of it, I’m leaning towards the former.
A BBC reporter in the room claimed that Pope Francis said “you are an angel of peace” while presenting a gift (which is Vatican tradition) to Abbas.
The Vatican reporter for the Italian newspaper La Stampa has it differently:
As is tradition with heads of State or of government, Francis presented a gift to the Palestinian leader, commenting: “May the angel of peace destroy the evil spirit of war. I thought of you: may you be an angel of peace.”
Calling someone something and exhorting him to be that something are two entirely different things.
What has befuddled me and several of my conservative friends who are also devout Roman Catholics is the willingness of our conservative friends to take news about this pope at face value from MSM outlets that aren’t trusted for anything else.
I can tell you this: MSM reporting on the Vatican, the Church or whomever is pope at the time almost always needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The media have an obsession with Francis because they’ve convinced themselves that he’s the pope who will make the Church become a gay marriage, abortion loving free-for-all. This, even though barely six months into his tenure, Francis excommunicated a priest for supporting women priests and gay marriage.
As with any political agenda supported by the MSM, it is willing to bend facts to shoehorn stories into the narrative.
We responded directly to Kruiser in the comment section of PJ Media as follows: *
Mr. Kruiser has a problem with quotations himself, perhaps out of eagerness “to bend facts to shoehorn stories into the narrative (in his case an apologia). The information in Kruiser’s link to the Catholic World Story “Francis excommunicated a priest for supporting women priests and gay marriage” does not support that assertion.
Quoting the article verbatim, “A blog operated by New Ways Ministries (“Building Bridges Between the LGBT Community and the Catholic Church”) expressed confusion as to why a (former) priest who repeatedly and publicly rejected Church teaching, openly disobeyed clear rules (ah, there’s that word), and scorned correction would suffer such a fate:
‘Archbishop Denis Hart did say the excommunication is a consequence of Fr. Reynolds continuing to preach and celebrate Mass after he resigned from the priesthood.'”
So it is clear that the individual in question was not excommunicated for “supporting women priests and gay marriage” as he had already resigned the priesthood, the excommunication was for continuing to preach and celebrate Mass. The article Kruiser links to lends no credence to his thesis about Pope Francis. Maybe he misunderstood it because the players speak Australian.
There is a bizarreness to the Pope’s recognizing a state that does not exist and not being a lot more circumspect of Abbas, who was schooled in Moscow and trained by the KGB in disinformation, and a holocaust denier by the way. We can agree to be cautious of AP reports as agenda driven but when does Pope Francis develop a responsibility to be careful and clear and in such a controversial matter, issue timely written statements not off the cuff remarks.
Kruiser’s first link to La Stampa, is not overwhelmingly comforting either as it contains an English grammatical lapse. Kruiser offers no evidence that the AP reporter was not fluent. Regardless, in the final analysis it is the Pope and his apparat’s responsibility to speak clearly and issue accurate written statements. When he speaks in front of reporters he is pastoring to the world. There is no excuse for his laxity. R Mall
Our illustrious senior editor, first drew our attention to the PJ Media article and had this comment:
There are too many other incidents and events that cannot be explained away as “misquotes” or efforts to distort. The left no doubt wants to promote the Marxist image of Pope Francis, but it doesn’t mean he hasn’t given them a lot to work with, much of it certainly not disavowed or repudiated by Francis or his minions.
DLH followed up with a link to this article reporting extolling Pope Francis’ involvement in matters political and offered a few pungent remarks:
Precisely the kind of supportive puff piece one expects of Yahoo News. I guess we can expect to see an increasing volume of “progressive” media lauding, promoting, lionizing (Pope Francis)
Castro, Abbas, the corrupt UN, the climate change hoax, the redistribution agenda, etc, etc all matters of interest to or the result of Marxist thought.
And we wonder, who will he named as our first openly gay bishop?
Who will be the next Chicago Cardinal, Father Pfleger would seem to have an inside track
R Mall and DLH
* There are a number of excellent responses by others in the comment section
