Pope Francis corrects Pope Francis; will media correct media?

Update: An ear­li­er ver­sion of what is below stat­ed, incor­rect­ly, that Adam Shaw’s arti­cle neglect­ed to men­tion a change in the offi­cial tran­script of Pope Fran­cis’s remarks. In fact, Mr. Shaw did make note of the change.

ere is a good rule of thumb. When some­one says, “I mis­spoke, here is what I meant to say”: Believe him. Mis­s­peak­ing is a known phe­nom­e­non. If you haven’t known about this phe­nom­e­non for some time, I don’t know what you know. Even popes can mis­s­peak. It’s true. I have checked, and rechecked, the dog­mat­ic def­i­n­i­tion of papal infal­li­bil­i­ty, and I find nowhere that the Holy Spir­it pro­tects the Roman Pon­tiff from mis­s­peak­ing. Check it your­self if you like, but do not waste too much of your time. That is what I am here for.

But if you do find any such state­ment, dear read­er, I beg you, of your char­i­ty, to kind­ly let me know where it is.

In the mean­time, here is why all this mat­ters. On June 16, Pope Fran­cis remarked, fol­low­ing an address to the pas­toral con­gress of the Dio­cese of Rome, that “the great major­i­ty of our sacra­men­tal mar­riages are null.” Catholic News Agency report­ed on it that wery day.

Then what hap­pened is that, not twen­ty-four hours lat­er, the pope him­self approved a cor­rec­tion to the offi­cial tran­script to read “a por­tion of our sacra­men­tal mar­riages,” with no ref­er­ence to how large or small that por­tion is.

Catholic News Agency updat­ed its post to reflect this change right away. It report­ed the facts and made no judg­ment. It wrote no alarmist, click­bait head­lines with words like “bomb­shell remarks”. (Yes, dear read­er, LSD News does write click­bait.)

But what do I find else­where when I make the rounds of the online media?

On June 20, three days after the cor­rec­tion from the pope him­self, Michael Bren­dan Dougher­ty at The Week quotes the orig­i­nal state­ment, and then poo-poos the cor­rec­tion, attribut­ing it to “the Vat­i­can” and not Pope Fran­cis. He spec­u­lates, with much extrav­a­gance, that the Vat­i­can, like Noah’s sons, was act­ing to cov­er the pope’s naked­ness. You may pause to laugh here before you read on.

On June 20, at Lyser­gic Acid News, Claire Chre­tien and John Jal­se­vac quote the orig­i­nal state­ment and cast a cer­tain doubt on whether the pope approved the cor­rec­tion, by their sly use of the word “report­ed.” The pope is “report­ed” to have cor­rect­ed the tran­script. There are reports that say he did, but maybe he did­n’t. Who knows? Do you know? I don’t know.

LSD News is not sat­is­fied with this cor­rec­tion to the offi­cial tran­script. In their view, a cor­rec­tion to the offi­cial tran­script does not con­sti­tute “a for­mal retrac­tion.” And what would? Per­haps if the pope stood on the log­gia with a bull­horn and beat his breast and tore out his gray hairs with sor­row to the grave?

On June 17, the very same day the tran­script was cor­rect­ed, Adam Pshaw of Fox News demand­ed that the pope resign, quot­ed the orig­i­nal state­ment, and dis­missed the cor­rec­tion as the Vat­i­can’s attempt to mit­i­gate the “dam­age.”

So there is a habit, among some, of cast­ing skep­ti­cism upon a change approved by the pope him­self, rel­e­gat­ing it to an after­thought or paren­the­sis, and con­tin­u­ing to beat the ham­mer about the orig­i­nal word­ing (“great major­i­ty”), even though for all we know the pope, hav­ing an affin­i­ty for the impromp­tu, did noth­ing more than mis­s­peak.

Is the char­i­ty of assum­ing he misspoke—particularly since a cor­rec­tion was made to the tran­script with­in twen­ty-four hours—too much for some of us to grant the Holy Father?

I have heard time and again peo­ple’s impa­tience and demands that it be Pope Fran­cis himself—not Fr. Lom­bar­di, not Car­di­nal Schön­born, not pope­s­plain­in bloggers—who clar­i­fies state­ments when eye­brows are raised.

This time the pope has, and it is still not enough.

Let he who has not mis­spoke among you cast the first stone.