Hello Someday,
Here is the reply I promised over two months ago. Sorry that it took ages, and let me explain why that is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Someday
This is what I get for picking a quote out of my local newspaper. You are correct. My quote was wrong and I retract it. In fact, your quote is equally wrong. The internet media and the media in general has misled us again. I read what you wrote and turned to Google as you did, and I actually came up with a wide variety of quotes. The one you give is the dominate one. It's wrong though.
I decided to turn to the source. The article that appeared in L’Osservatore Romano on 9March08, written by Nicola Gori. |
I see. Given the different quotes, I readily accept that some must be wrong. As you say, the best thing is to turn to the source to see what it says. But at that point our approaches converge. For source you turned to the text on the Acton blog. This is imo not the best thing one could do. As you also found out, most news sources cited the quote I posted earlier. That included the Reuters news agency, CNN, the New York Times, the UK Times and more than a thousand and a half other news sources. If you see valid reason to dismiss what they write ok, but then taking as gospel the text from a religious blog page seems less than satisfactory.
A better approach would be to read what the L’Osservatore Romano itself wrote, rather than how anyone recites from it in their paper, tv news report or blog page. So I set out to obtain a copy of L’Osservatore Romano. This is where things slowed down to a crawl. The L’Osservatore Romano website states that back issues are available. So I wrote an email to obtain a copy. I got a very friendly response from Annamaria Di Domenicantonio saying she could send me a copy. But after confirming my postal address nothing happened for several weeks. In that period I moved to Scotland. Once there I emailed again and Annamaria said she'd send out another copy to my new address. But when I got back after some weeks holiday in Indonesia, it still wasn't there. So two periods of weeks of waiting, Summer holiday and moving explain why it took such ages. I'm starting to suspect God may be on to my intentions and has divinely intervened to make the paper mail disappear again, lol!
The unsatisfying outcome is that we're left with what practically all the media report versus the interview text on the Acton blog page. If accepting what all the media report means that I 'fell for it hook line and sinker', then how would you describe your own willingness to accept the Acton blog text? Given that you responded quickly and cited an internet source, I assume you didn't obtain a copy of the L’Osservatore Romano either and that we're both only quoting Google results?
Given the time invested in trying to obtain the original issue of L’Osservatore Romano and the repeated failures to actually get it, I've dropped this particular pursuit for now. Without the issue of L’Osservatore Romano, I can't show if the media reporting of the interview is correct or the text from the Acton blog. If you care to pursue the matter and obtain the L’Osservatore Romano (issues come in both Italian and English, the interview is included in the weekly English version of 19 March), I might come to share your opinion on media myth making if the Acton blog text proves correct. But given your 'hook, line and sinker' dismissal of the text I found everywhere, I assume you won't hold it against me if I don't uncritically accept the Acton blog as the Inerrant Word of Internet.
greets,
Peter