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 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 has 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.

Also read:

The Pope Is Catholic, Not an American Politician