Biretta tip to Fr. Z
This past Wednesday Pope Francis had some wonderful comments about the role of women in giving witness to the Resurrection of Jesus. Anyone familiar with volume II of Pope Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth would have recognized them as coming largely from the writings of the now Pope emeritus, Benedict XVI.
What did Reuters do with these beautiful comments, likely already prepared during the pontificate of Benedict XVI and perhaps touched up a little by Pope Francis?
Reuters reported that this past Wednesday’s Papal Audience signaled a shift in position from Pope Benedict’s “hard-line position on women” to Pope Francis’ new, more progressive position.
Marinella Perroni, a theologian and leading member of the Association of Italian Women Theologians, which promotes female experts on religion and their visibility in the Church, said the pope’s words marked a significant shift from the previous pope.
“The fact that the Pope acknowledges that the progressive removal of female figures from the tradition of the resurrection … is due to human judgments, distant from those of God…introduces a decidedly new element compared to the previous papacy.”
Read the two Popes’ words side-by-side here.
Object lesson #2, the media often doesn’t let the facts get in the way of a good story when it comes to the Church.
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