...according to the New York Times
and Crux News!
'Saint' Charlie B. Barkin
NY Times 17 December 2014
Francis' theology of creatures?
Not so fast! The
New York Times' motto should be changed to
"all the propaganda that's not fit to be print" and
Crux News should rename themselves
Crooked News. In an article,
Dogs in Heaven? Pope Francis Leaves Pearly Gates Open, published on 11 December 2014 there were several glaring errors made.
"Trying to console a distraught little boy whose dog had died, Francis told him in a recent public appearance on St. Peter’s Square that “paradise is open to all of God’s creatures.” While it is unclear whether the pope’s remarks helped soothe the child, they were welcomed by groups like the Humane Society and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who saw them as a repudiation of conservative Catholic theology that says animals cannot go to heaven because they have no souls."
We at
Call Me Jorge... cannot fathom how Rick Gladstone made these 'errors'. Can he not read Italian? Are there not fact checkers at the
New York Times? Or was he projecting his progressive desires onto Francis? After the
NY Times published his story many media outlets echoed it around the world. Included in these was the
Crux News outlet which published an edited version of Gladstone's story,
Dogs — and all animals — go to heaven, pope says, which shares the quote below with the NY Times' article.
"Citing biblical passages that assert that animals not only go to
heaven, but get along with one another when they get there, Francis was
quoted by the Italian news media as saying: “One day, we will see our
animals again in the eternity of Christ. Paradise is open to all of
God’s creatures.”
Theologians cautioned that Francis had spoken casually, not made a doctrinal statement."
Crux News has many on staff who are fluent in Italian and keep up with the minutiae of Francis. What a joke these people are!
James Martin the editor of
America Magazine wrote an entire article,
Is Heaven Open to Animals?, which justifies the alleged comments attributed to Francis.
"First of all, it’s important to note that this was an apparently
off-the-cuff remark from the Pope to a child...it was essentially a pastoral response to a child, and needs to
be understood as such. It was also notable that, as far as I can tell,
the Vatican did not release the Pope’s official remarks."
..."Pope Francis’s comments, though “pastoral” and though off-the-cuff,
offer an important insight into the Pope Francis’s mind and also seems
to reflect a change in what many Catholics believe—myself included."
..."To my mind, however, what Pope Francis said is clear. He's not trying to
obfuscate and he does not say anything to children that he does not
believe: The Pope believes, in his own heart, that paradise is open to
all creatures."
Apparently if you can fog a mirror, the Novus Ordo church wants you as an editor.
This has probably been stirred up by something Pope Francis said recently in the press:
“One day, we will see our animals again in the eternity of Christ. Paradise is open to all of God’s creatures.”
First and foremost, this was not – good grief… do I have to write this? – a definitive statement.
Thankfully Zuhl$dorf, even though he took the Francis quote at face value, rejected the idea that animals may go to heaven in his blog entry because as he correctly points out,
"Animals don’t have immortal souls...They
don’t need a Savior."
"Paradise is open to all creatures": thus Pope Francis on animals. "The apostle Paul states this explicitly when he says that" the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God '"
and clearly says a little later,
Francis is preparing an encyclical 'greening' the protection of Creation. Certainly the issue is recurring and sometimes controversial, in the Church. It is said that Paul VI had comforted a child in tears for the death of his dog and said: "One day we will review our animals in the eternity of Christ."
This article was written on 27 November 2014. The English language articles were published starting on 11 December 2014. That's two weeks worth of time to get the story correct. As if that isn't enough, the Paul VI quote was written of in 2008 at
La Stampa and
Corriere della Sera as well as in a 2010 book,
La Leggende del Ponte Arcobaleno (Legends of the Rainbow Bridge). We at
Call Me Jorge... found all this in several minutes by using an internet search engine, surely there must be more out there.
What's going on here?
We have no idea. One can
read Francis' prepared remarks for his general audience of 26 October 2014 or watch
Rome Reports' piece on his audience below. Do you dear reader see where any of this
'confusion' came from?
It says something that a reporter writes a story which isn't sourced and has several glaring mistakes in it. These mistakes repudiate Catholic theology and Novus Ordo prelates take it at face value that Francis actually said these things. None of these prelates is surprised but they take or argue different sides of the statement. In our opinion, that's the story!
The media shifts the blame to Corriere della Sera, when it is clearly their own fault.
Since we had written this entry (but not published it on
Call Me Jorge...), the
NY Times came out with
this retraction:
Correction: December 12, 2014
An earlier version of this article misstated the circumstances
of Pope Francis’ remarks. He made them in a general audience at the
Vatican, not in consoling a distraught boy whose dog had died. The
article also misstated what Francis is known to have said. According to
Vatican Radio, Francis said: “The Holy Scripture teaches us that the
fulfillment of this wonderful design also affects everything around us,”
which was interpreted to mean he believes animals go to heaven. Francis
is not known to have said: “One day, we will see our animals again in
the eternity of Christ. Paradise is open to all of God’s creatures.'’
(Those remarks were once made by Pope Paul VI to a distraught child, and
were cited in a Corriere della Sera article that concluded Francis
believes animals go to heaven.) An earlier version also referred
incompletely to the largest animal protection group in the United
States. It is the Humane Society of the United States, not just the
Humane Society.
And today 13 December 2014,
Crux News republished ,
Pope Francis says all dogs go to heaven? Not so fast by David Gibson of
Religion News Service.
When Pope Francis recently sought to comfort a distraught boy whose
dog had died, the pontiff took the sort of pastoral approach he is
famous for — telling the youngster not to worry, that he would one day
see his pet in heaven.
“Paradise is open to all of God’s creatures,” Francis said reassuringly.
It was a sparkling moment on a rainy November day, and the setting in
St. Peter’s Square only burnished Francis’ reputation as a kindly
“people’s pope.” The story naturally lit up social media, became instant
promotional material for vegetarians and animal rights groups, and on
Friday even made it to the front page of The New York Times.
There’s only one problem: apparently none of it ever happened.
Yes, a version of that quotation was uttered by a pope, but it was
said decades ago by Paul VI, who died in 1978. There is no evidence that
Francis repeated the words during his public audience on Nov. 26, as
has been widely reported, nor was there was a boy mourning his dead dog.
So how could such a fable so quickly become taken as fact?
Part of the answer may be the topic of the pope’s talk to the crowd that day, which centered on the End Times and the transformation of all creation into
a “new heaven” and a “new earth.” Citing St. Paul in the New Testament,
Francis said that is not “the annihilation of the cosmos and of
everything around us, but the bringing of all things into the fullness
of being.”
The trail of digital bread crumbs then appears to lead to an Italian
news report that extended Francis’ discussion of a renewed creation to
the question of whether animals too will go to heaven.
“One day we will see our pets in the eternity of Christ,” the report quoted Paul VI as telling a disconsolate boy years ago.
The story was titled, somewhat misleadingly: “Paradise for animals?
The Pope doesn’t rule it out.” It wasn’t clear which pope the writer
meant, however.
The next day, Nov. 27, a story in the Italian daily Corriere della
Sera by veteran Vaticanista Gian Guido Vecchi pushed the headline
further: “The Pope and pets: “Paradise is open to all creatures.”
Vecchi faithfully recounted the pope’s talk about a new creation, and also cited Paul VI’s remark.
But the headline put those words in Francis’ mouth, and that became the story.
The Italian version of the Huffington Post picked it up next and ran an article quoting
Francis as saying “We will go to heaven with the animals” and
contending that the pope was quoting St. Paul – not Pope Paul – as
making that statement to console a boy who lost his dog. (That story, by
the way, is nowhere in the Bible.)
The urban legend became unstoppable a week later when it was translated into English and picked up by the British press,which
cited St. Paul as saying that “One day we will see our animals again in
(the) eternity of Christ,” while it has Francis adding the phrase:
“Paradise is open to all God’s creatures.”
Fueling the meme was the fact that Francis was photographed accepting a gift of two donkeys from
a company promoting the use of donkey milk for infants allergic to
cow’s milk – and Francis said his own mother gave him donkey’s milk as a
baby.
Social media and other media outlets then picked up the story, further conflating the statements and
the chronology. It became a hot mess of a story that was also sparking
another theological debate by a pope who was known for prompting
controversy.
When The New York Times went with the story, along with input from ethicists and theologians, it became gospel truth.
Television programs discussed the pope’s theological breakthrough, news outlets created photo galleries of popes with cute animals, and others used it as a jumping off point to discuss what other religions think about animals and the afterlife. At America magazine, the Rev. James Martin wrote an essay discussing
the theological implications of Francis’ statements and what level of
authority they may have. It was all very interesting and illuminating,
but based on a misunderstanding.
A number of factors probably contributed to this journalistic train wreck:
- The story had so much going for it: Francis took his papal name from
St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of environmentalism who
famously greeted animals as brothers and sisters.
- Pope Francis is also preparing a major teaching document on the
environment, and almost since the day he was elected in 2013 he has
stressed the Christian duty to care for creation.
- Francis also blessed a blind man’s guide dog shortly after he was elected, an affecting image that was often used in connection with these latest reports of his concern for animals.
- Moreover, the media and the public are so primed for Francis to say
novel things and disregard staid customs that the story was too good to
check out; it fit with the pattern.
In most accounts, Francis’ comments were also set against statements
by his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who insisted that animals did not have
souls. That apparent contrast fit a common narrative pitting the more
conservative Benedict against the ostensibly liberal Francis.
That may be true in some areas, but probably not when it comes to animals.
Adding insult to injury, the Times article cited St. John Paul II as
saying in 1990 that animals have souls and are “as near to God as men
are.” But that, too, was a misquote, as media critic Dawn Eden explained at the website GetReligion.
On the other hand, there should have been warnings signs: Francis has frowned at the modern tendency to favor pets over people, and he has criticized the vast amounts of money spent by wealthy societies on animals even as children go hungry.
In addition, the pope’s huge popularity has led to at least one other
instance of myth-making: news reports last year said that Francis was
sneaking out of the Vatican at night to feed the homeless around Rome.
The pope personally debunked that rumor in
an interview last March, saying the idea “has never crossed my mind”
and that “depicting the pope to be a sort of superman, a type of star,
seems offensive to me.”
Maybe he’ll have to give another interview to deflate this latest story, and to offer his real thoughts on pets and paradise.
