TIME: Sorry, But Media Coverage of Pope Francis is Papal Bull

[theHandpuppet]

It appears that at least some in the media have either tired of being messenger boys for the PR firm or a few have decided to actually do their jobs.

TIME Magazine
Sorry, But Media Coverage of Pope Francis is Papal Bull
The "Pope Francis supports evolution" story is just the latest example of the press getting the Catholic Church completely wrong
Elizabeth Dias
Oct. 29, 2014

It is official: the media has gone bananas in its coverage of Pope Francis.

The OMG-Pope-Francis-Supports-Evolution story of the past two days is just the latest example. Almost every news outlet, major and minor, has plastered Pope Francis’ name across the interwebs and proclaimed he has finally planted the Catholic Church in the evolution camp of the creation-evolution debate. The only problem? Almost every outlet has got the story wrong, proving once again that the mainstream media has nearly no understanding of the Church. And that madness shows no signs of stopping...

...Wednesday morning the stories continued with new, analytical twists. The New Republic came out with a story titled, “The Pope Has More Faith Than the GOP in Science.” The Washington Post posted a piece, “Pope Francis may believe in evolution, but 42 percent of Americans do not.” It doesn’t seem to matter that Pope Benedict XVI called the debate between evolution an creation an “absurdity” in 2007. MSNBC opened its piece saying, “Pope Francis made a significant rhetorical break with Catholic tradition Monday by declaring that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real.” NBCNews called the Pope’s statement, “a theological break from his predecessor Benedict XVI, a strong exponent of creationism.”

This embarrassing narrative repeats itself over and over in Francis coverage. It happened last week when the Pope, again, voiced the Church’s long-standing opposition to the death penalty (having also done so in June, and after John Paul discussed the topic at length in an entire encyclical on being consistently pro-life in 1995). It happened at the Synod of the Bishops on the family, when the bishops talked about welcoming gays and the media whipped that up into an inaccurate story about an enormous policy shift toward gay marriage.... MORE at http://time.com/3545844/pope-francis-evolution-creationism/

[rug]

1. Irresponsible journalism.

[beam me up scottie]

4. And who was their 2007 Person of the Year?

Your post makes no sense.

[rug]

16. Your post makes no relevance.

But here's your answer.

[theHandpuppet]

2. The Atlantic: The Pope's Views on Evolution Haven't Really Evolved

The Pope's Views on Evolution Haven't Really Evolved
The media frenzy over the Catholic Church's "revolutionary" stance on science is misplaced.
Kara Gordon
Oct 30 2014

As Time points out, the majority of headlines are grossly sensational and embarrassing. The Daily Beast: “Even the Pope Isn’t a Hard-Core Creationist.” The Washington Post: “Pope Francis says evolution is real and God is no wizard.” MSNBC: “Pope Francis take a stand for evolution, against ‘magic wands.’”

But this doesn’t change anything.

This is what the Catholic Church has been saying for years. Despite the reputation of the Church for being anti-science—everyone keeps citing Galileo—the Catechism of the Catholic Church states there is no contradiction between faith and science:

“…methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God.”

Misleading headlines are exactly that: misleading. Those who know little about Catholic history are shocked. The sad part is that some of these articles actually do mention theistic evolution has been a part of Catholic teachings for at least six decades. The Washington Post casually mentions Pope Pius XII, but fails to recognize the close relationship between the pope and Georges Lemaître—the man who proposed what would become the Big Bang theory and would become president of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. (Yes, the Big Bang was first theorized by a Catholic priest.) The Pontifical Academy of Sciences has roots that go back centuries—the Accademia dei Lincei was the first exclusively scientific academy in the world. Galileo was even appointed a member in on August 25, 1610....

MORE at http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/10/pope-francis-evolution/382143/

[theHandpuppet]

3. NEWSWEEK: Pope Francis’s Remarks on Evolution Are Not That Controversial Among Roman Catholics

NEWSWEEK
Pope Francis’s Remarks on Evolution Are Not That Controversial Among Roman Catholics
By Taylor Wofford
Filed: 10/30/14

...To some, Francis’s remarks could be seen as a departure from the position of his predecessor, Pope Benedict, who, before resigning the papacy in 2013 was known for his consistent orthodoxy on issues ranging from birth control, to abortion, to homosexuality. In a speech delivered the day before he was elected pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as Benedict was then known, described moral relativism—the idea that “right” and “wrong” may change according to circumstances—a “dictatorship...that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.”

But before he became pope, Ratzinger delivered an address at the Vatican in 2002 in which he stated that “converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on Earth.”

While the church may be out of step with society on some issues, evolution is not one of them. In 1950, the church haltingly dipped its toe into the water when Pope Pius XII, in an letter to bishops titled Humani Generis, wrote, “[The] Church does not forbid...research and discussions...take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter…” It was fine for Catholics to think about and debate about evolution, as long as they kept the soul out of it, the document implied. The soul, Pius said, was injected into human beings by God, and could not arise from natural processes.

Almost half a century later, in a 1996 letter to bishops, Pope John Paul II came out more strongly for Darwin’s theory, calling evolution “more than a hypothesis.” On the subject of the soul, however, John Paul agreed with Pius. The soul, John Paul agreed, could not emerge “from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter.”....

MORE at http://www.newsweek.com/pope-franciss-remarks-evolution-are-not-controversial-among-roman-catholics-281115

[Cartoonist]

5. Great Journalism

Keep 'em coming HandPuppet. The truth shall set you free!

[beam me up scottie]

6. Freakin nailed it.

MSNBC opened its piece saying, “Pope Francis made a significant rhetorical break with Catholic tradition Monday by declaring that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real.” NBCNews called the Pope’s statement, “a theological break from his predecessor Benedict XVI, a strong exponent of creationism.”

Even though it was NBCNews' OWN fucking 2007 report that quoted Benedict saying:

Pope Benedict XVI said the debate raging in some countries — particularly the United States and his native Germany — between creationism and evolution was an “absurdity,” saying that evolution can coexist with faith.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/19956961/ns/world_news-europe/t/pope-creation-vs-evolution-clash-absurdity/

That was beautiful, keep it coming.

[theHandpuppet]

7. It's wishful thinking to believe Pope Francis is against the teachings of his own church

The Independent (Irish Republic)
It's wishful thinking to believe Pope Francis is against the teachings of his own church
It is an amazing thing to read and listen to reports that essentially pit Pope Francis against the teachings of his own church.
David Quinn 
Published 24/10/2014

Pope Francis is certainly not a 'conservative' in the sense John Paul II was. Is he a liberal? If that word has to be used, he is so only to the extent that John XXIII was.

John XXIII, who was Pope from 1958 until 1963, was happy enough to see various aspects of church life and teachings discussed openly and a new approach adopted in certain areas but he was in no way a radical who supported a radical transformation of the church's essential message.

The public are receiving an extremely skewed version of Francis. They hear that he said he does not judge gay people who are "seeking God", but they do not hear that in the very next breath he said the Catechism explains the church's teaching on homosexuality very well.

Whenever he criticises people in the church who are "rigid" it is widely reported. But when he criticises the opposite tendency, it receives far less coverage....

MORE at http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/david-quinn/its-wishful-thinking-to-believe-pope-francis-is-against-the-teachings-of-his-own-church-30688768.html

[okasha]

8. I interpret this differently.

I read these stories as pointing out media bull. Francis, as they note, has continued the endorsement of evolution that goes back at least as far as Pius XII and has affirmed the work of a Catholic astronomer and priest in acknowledging the proof of the Big Bang theory.

The problem seems to be that much of the media conflates all of Christianity with fundamentalism, an error we also see frequently in this group and elsewhere on DU. They assume that Pat Robertson's opinions are also the Pope's opinions, because hey, they're both big Christians, right? No research necessary. That's laziness, and it's ignorance. It's also pathetc stupidity in the assumption that it's journalism.

[cbayer]

10. That's a really good point.

There are assumptions made about the RCC and the pope that conflate them with fundamentalists at times. So when he states (or reiterates) something that is in opposition to the usual positions of fundamentalists, the press picks it up and presents it as new.

I'm not sure that is such a bad thing. Anything we can use to push back against the religious right is a good thing for us, imo.

[theHandpuppet]

11. I believe that's the point of all those stories, isn't it?

Lazy journalism. The Pope created by the media via the use of sensationalist (and inaccurate) headlines, failure to do even the most elementary research, etc is evidence of both sloppy journalism and a woeful lack of understanding of even the most basic religious tenets or history. We live in a celebrity culture and that's what the media fashioned for its audience: a celebrity Pope. It matters not whether that image is an accurate portrayal or pure fantasy - it sells. This has been one of my biggest beefs all along and what drives me absolutely nuts. Even the LGBT media has, for the most part, fallen into this same trap.

I would disagree, however, that the media conflates all of Christianity with fundamentalism. You're not going to see Pat Robertson get the same treatment from the media as Francis, for instance. Robertson and his ilk have their role to play as well, albeit as the kooks and clowns, an image rightly deserved. But dismissing them as merely a comedic sideshow spilling out of an evangelical clown car is also irresponsible. Where the media have really underplayed their hand is in reporting the very real and nefarious influence of these evangelicals in global politics, be it Robertson's ties to Charles Taylor and blood diamonds or the terrible rise of homosexual persecution in Africa, fueled by the likes of a Rick Warren or Scott Lively.

Bottom line is, we as readers and consumers of news cannot afford to be as sloppy in lapping up whatever we're fed by the media. The parroting of sensationalist headlines or press releases does nothing to further honest dialogue; if anything, its intent is to discourage it.

[theHandpuppet]

17. This thread illustrates exactly what I'm talking about

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5725853

This is a headline, a PR stunt. It is not news, though it is being circulated as such and there seems to be plenty of folks willing to bite. (That is not intended as an attack on the poster, but the piece.)

I've seen similar, misleading threads... folks posting quotes from others and attributing them to the Pope... circulating published rumors that the Pope sneaks out of the Vatican at night to feed the poor, even though Francis himself stated he would never even consider such a thing.

There are lazy journalists and there are desperate readers. As I stated before, the parroting of sensationalist headlines or press releases does nothing to further honest dialogue and has the opposite effect by exacerbating the level of tension and frustration on all sides.

[trotsky]

13. What a bunch of crap.

Pat Robertson and the pope have completely different opinions, of course. I mean, look at the issue of abortion... oh wait. Well on the topic of marriage equality.... whoops, never mind.

No, seriously, that's bunk, okasha. The media has fawned over Frank since he ascended the throne. Many of us have been pointing this out ever since, and being slammed and insulted by individuals such as yourself for DARING to see through the PR image.

This article - and the truth, of course - are vindication.

[cbayer]

9. Interesting article on this. Elizabeth Dias is an interesting person.

I think she makes some really good points. The press is clearly reporting some things and making it sound like Francis is voicing a new position, when he is actually reiterating an already held position.

Ms. Dias is a product of Wheaton College (IL) and has a degree in divinity.

So I think she is not just attacking the RCC. Her criticism is aimed at the press, not the popel

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. The question is: who started the breathless "pope acknowledges evolution!" coverage?

A speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences is not normally something that many media outlets would cover. Something set them off; after a bit, they're covering it because the rest of the media is.

Using the rather blunt tool of ordering the Google news stories by date, I find (oh, what a surprise) the first was the British Daily Mail: "The Big Bang and evolution ARE real but they were carried out by God, says the Pope as he embraces modern science ". But the byline is shared with Associated Press, so AP has some involvement in this too.

Also getting in early was Huffington Post, taking its article from 'Religion News Service': http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/27/pope-francis-evolution_n_6057378.html . But that's not so sensationalistic, though it does start by saying he "waded into the controversial debate over the origins of human life".

Maybe the moral of the story is: ignore the Catholic church, unless they actually do something.

[trotsky]

14. If only we could just ignore them.

They're quite busy trying to interfere in everyone's life.

As you pointed out in another thread, it's interesting how the "pope believes in evolution" story came out at the exact same time he praised exorcists for their work. Convenient, isn't it?

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. It would be interesting to know how often the Vatican press office draws attention to speeches

either to news services (I'd guess the 'Religion News Service' does cover his speeches regularly; I don't know if AP does), or to the publishing outlets like Huff Post or the Daily Mail.