NYC Letter: Pope Quote Makeover

Here is the AP headline:

POPE REITERATES CHURCH'S MORAL POSITIONS

This is pretty strong meat from the secular press and we want to thank Mr. Frances D'Emilio, the AP writer, for this intrepid bit of reporting. Let's take a look at those reported moral positions. Oh, but first this tangental, but obligatory, beat-up on Mr. Bush:

While the pope was delivering his annual speech to the ambassadors, the Italian cardinal he sent to the White House in March 2003 in a last-hour bid to dissuade President Bush from invading Iraq war told TV viewers in Italy the president had promised the prelate the American intervention would be wrapped up quickly.

Cardinal Pio Laghi said Bush "told me, `Don't worry, your eminence. We'll be quick and do well in Iraq.'"

Laghi, who was speaking on Telepace, a Catholic TV station, was the Vatican's first envoy to the United States in the 1980s and established a friendship with Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush.

"Unfortunately, the facts have demonstrated afterward that things took a different course — not rapid and not favorable" in Iraq, the cardinal said.

"Bush was wrong" about Iraq, the prelate, now retired, said of the current U.S. leader.

John Paul, who had vigorously opposed what the United States called "preventive war," said in his speech that "arrogance of power must be countered with reason, force with dialogue, pointed weapons with outstretched hands, evil with good."

Ok, now, on to those moral positions. (A red light suddenly flashes. A klaxon sounds. Huge powerful gears turn.) Wait a minute!

Mr. D'Emilio's truncated quote is not the Pope commenting on the invasion of Iraq. Here is the whole context of the Pope's remarks (item No.7):

There is also the challenge of peace. As a supreme good and the condition for attaining many other essential goods, peace is the dream of every generation. Yet how many wars and armed conflicts continue to take place - between States, ethnic groups, peoples and groups living in the same territory. From one end of the world to the other, they are claiming countless innocent victims and spawning so many other evils! Our thoughts naturally turn to different countries in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where recourse to arms and violence has not only led to incalculable material damage, but also fomented hatred and increased the causes of tension, thereby adding to the difficulty of finding and implementing solutions capable of reconciling the legitimate interests of all the parties involved. In addition to these tragic evils there is the brutal, inhuman phenomenon of terrorism, a scourge which has taken on a global dimension unknown to previous generations.

How can the great challenge of building peace overcome such evils? As diplomats, you are men and women of peace by profession but also by personal vocation. You know the nature and extent of the means which the international community has at its disposal for keeping or restoring peace. Like my venerable predecessors, I have spoken out countless times, in public statements - especially in my annual Message for the World Day of Peace - and through the Holy See's diplomatic activity, and I shall continue to do so, pointing out the paths to peace and urging that they be followed with courage and patience. The arrogance of power must be countered with reason, force with dialogue, pointed weapons with outstretched hands, evil with good. [Mr. D'Emilio's money quote.]

[The Pope here lists a number of successful or promising peace initiatives in 2004.]

Bringing about an authentic and lasting peace in this violence-filled world calls for a power of good that does not shrink before difficulties. It is a power that human beings on their own cannot obtain or preserve: it is a gift from God. Christ came to bring this gift to mankind, as the angels sang above the manger in Bethlehem: "peace among men with whom he is pleased" (Lk 2:14). God loves mankind, and he wants peace for all men and women. We are asked to be active instruments of that peace, and to overcome evil with good. Vince in bono malum.

The American liberation of Iraq is also strangely missing from the Pope's specific enumeration of evil armed conflicts, though terrorism in Iraq -- and the Pope calls it "barbarous terrorism" -- gets prominent mention.

Mr. D'Emilio has not reported the Pope's sentiments but his own hobbyhorse. But whereas the Pope is a recognized moral authority, Mr. D'Emilio, well, he is an AP reporter, which puts him somewhere at the opposite end of the spectrum. Conflating the good cardinal's interview, who was speaking in no official capacity and, of course, is not a competent military observer, with the Pope's speech was necessary to tell the only story Mr. D'Emilio knows how to write on morality -- No Blood For Oil. This is apparent from his at times breezy, at times sloppy, at times both, reporting of the other moral positions promised in his headline.

John Paul also reasserted the church's opposition to abortion, assisted procreation and scientific research on human embryonic stem cells.

What the Pope actually said:

The Church's position, supported by reason and science, is clear: the human embryo is a subject identical to the human being which will be born at the term of its development. Consequently whatever violates the integrity and the dignity of the embryo is ethically inadmissible. Similarly, any form of scientific research which treats the embryo merely as a laboratory specimen is unworthy of man. Scientific research in the field of genetics needs to be encouraged and promoted, but, like every other human activity, it can never be exempt from moral imperatives; research using adult stem cells, moreover, offers the promise of considerable success.

Where the Pope delivers a rich message, Mr. D'Emilio reports a yawn.

Mr. D'Emilio:

In an obvious reference to laws permitting marriage between homosexuals or equating the social rights of unwed couples to married ones, John Paul said that in some countries, the family's "natural structure" has been challenged.

The Pope:

The challenge to life has also emerged with regard to the very sanctuary of life: the family. Today the family is often threatened by social and cultural pressures which tend to undermine its stability; but in some countries the family is also threatened by legislation which at times directly challenge its natural structure, which is and must necessarily be that of a union between a man and a woman founded on marriage. The family, as a fruitful source of life and a fundamental and irreplaceable condition for the happiness of the individual spouses, for the raising of children and for the well-being of society, and indeed for the material prosperity of the nation, must never be undermined by laws based on a narrow and unnatural vision of man. There needs to prevail a just, pure and elevated understanding of human love, which finds in the family its primordial and exemplary expression. Vince in bono malum.

[Emphasis in the original.]

In an article running 537 words, 181 (34%) are devoted to Mr. D'Emilio's disapproval of America's Iraq project. Reporting all the other moral positions combined merit a mere 139 words (26%). The Pope's speech ran to 2,774 words of which 605 (22%) directly or elliptically address world peace, a larger subject than Mr. D'Emilio's Iraq hobbyhorse.

We do not expect moral subtlety from newspaper reporters, but we do expect the gist of the reporting to capture the gist of the Pope's speech.

As for Iraq, the Pope, like most modern Popes, objects to war in principle. But we dare say that Karol Józef Wojtyła can make a distinction between, say, the necessity of fighting WWII and the folly and injustice of fighting to hold onto Algeria, for example. We also believe His Holiness understands the world's partnership with Saddam was an intrinsic evil and Mr. Bush's coalition's removal of this evil is an intrinsic good.

Posted by Damian at January 11, 2005 01:00 PM