Category: The Press

Pope Francis, the Coronavirus, and Nature

Put a sock in it, Rick Moran.

Rick Moran is PJ Media’s Chicago editor, and he recently opened a column titled Pope Says Virus Is Nature’s Response to the Climate Crisis by telling Pope Francis to “put a sock in it,” writing:

Oh, put a sock in it, Francis.

Pope Francis is certainly not letting a planetary crisis go to waste. He is trying to piggyback the religion of climate change on the back of the coronavirus pandemic.

He then quoted an MSNNews story which made the claim that:

Pope Francis has said the coronavirus pandemic is one of “nature’s responses” to humans ignoring the current ecological crisis.

As it source, MSNNews cited an interview by Austen Ivereigh published in Commonweal and The Tablet on Wednesday, April 8th.

Setting aside the crass way in which Moran addresses a major world religious leader, as a PJ Media editor, he ought to know better.

He ought to be familiar with the way our hyper-partisan, clickbait-driven press—including MSN—regularly manipulates quotations to achieve whatever effect they’re after at the moment.

In short, he ought to know better than to take MSN at its word and check the original interview to see what was actually said.

I did. And guess what? Pope Francis didn’t say that the virus is nature’s response to the climate crisis.

Read the interview for yourself. Here it is.

As evidence of the pope linking the coronavirus to climate change, Moran cited the following passage from the interview:

“We did not respond to the partial catastrophes. Who now speaks of the fires in Australia, or remembers that 18 months ago a boat could cross the North Pole because the glaciers had all melted? Who speaks now of the floods?” the Pope said.

“I don’t know if these are the revenge of nature, but they are certainly nature’s responses,” he added.

Notice anything about that? It doesn’t mention the coronavirus.

That means—Mr. Moran—that we need to look at the context to see what he was being asked. So, here’s the quotation from the original interview with the relevant context:

I [the interviewer] was curious to know if the pope saw the [coronavirus] crisis and the economic devastation it is wreaking as a chance for an ecological conversion, for reassessing priorities and lifestyles. I asked him concretely whether it was possible that we might see in the future an economy that—to use his words—was more “human” and less “liquid.”

Pope Francis: There is an expression in Spanish: “God always forgives, we forgive sometimes, but nature never forgives.” We did not respond to the partial catastrophes. Who now speaks of the fires in Australia, or remembers that eighteen months ago a boat could cross the North Pole because the glaciers had all melted? Who speaks now of the floods? I don’t know if these are the revenge of nature, but they are certainly nature’s responses.

Got that? The pope was asked whether the current pandemic and its economic fallout presents the world with “a chance for an ecological conversion, for reassessing priorities and lifestyles.”

He’s not being asked “Is the coronavirus a product of climate change?” He’s being asked whether this situation gives us an opportunity to rethink our lifestyles and the impact they have on the climate.

It is in that context that the pope starts talking about how similar climate-related situations haven’t prompted such a re-examination. In other words, don’t hold your breath that this one will prompt such a thing, though of course he ends by being hopeful and saying:

What we are living now is a place of metanoia (conversion), and we have the chance to begin. So let’s not let it slip from us, and let’s move ahead.

This is not the first time Francis has been accused of saying that the virus may be connected with climate change. However, on that occasion—at least in the English-language press—we were also presented with partial quotations that didn’t mention the coronavirus. So the same lesson applies: Don’t go jumping to conclusions until you’ve checked the original source (which is in Spanish and behind a paywall).

In his article, Mr. Moran picks on Pope Francis’s reference to a boat sailing to the North Pole, but there certainly were accounts of this in the popular press, as a few moments on Google will reveal.

I don’t know what the truth of the matter was, but in light of these reports, I’m inclined to cut the pope some slack.

Yet perhaps Mr. Moran would fault Francis for not investigating the press accounts carefully to see whether this actually happened.

If so, Moran ought to heed that very advice: Check out the facts before you start spouting off.

If you want to make criticisms, fine, but do so on the basis of the facts.

In other words, until you’ve looked up the original source and read it in context, put a sock in it, Mr. Moran.

Did Pope Francis say animals go to heaven?

puppy-yawnThe news networks are abuzz with stories saying that Pope Francis has said pets go to heaven.

They’ve even “helpfully” noted how this contrasts with the position of his predecessor, Benedict XVI.

But the thing is . . . the whole story is false.

Here are 7 things to know and share . . .

 

1) What is being claimed?

Among other things:

Pope Francis has declared that all animals go to heaven during his weekly audience in St. Peter’s Square.

The Pope made these remarks after he received two donkeys as early Christmas presents. During his discussion, Pope Francis quoted the apostle Paul as he comforted a child who was mourning the death of his dog.

Francis quoted Paul’s remarks as, “One day we will see our animals again in eternity of Christ. Paradise is open to all God’s creatures.” [Source.]

Also:

In his weekly audience in St Peter’s Francis quoted the apostle Paul who comforted a child who was crying after his dog died.

“One day we will see our animals again in eternity of Christ’, Francis quoted Paul as saying. The Pope added: “Paradise is open to all God’s creatures.” [Source.]

Right there we have multiple reasons to be suspicious of the story.

 

2) Why do we have reason to be suspicious?

First, because the common theological opinion for centuries has been that the souls of animals do not survive death.

Second, because this is just the kind of sensationalistic story that the media loves to get wrong.

Third because we have the same words being attributed to two different events: The Wednesday audience at which the remarks were allegedly made occurred on November 26, but the donkey-giving event occurred later.

Fourth, because the Apostle Paul never wrote anything comforting a child who was morning the death of his dog.

Anybody who has read his epistles knows this.

In fact, just do an online search of St. Paul’s epistles, and you’ll see what I mean.

There is only a single passage (Philippians 3:2) where St. Paul refers to dogs, and there he isn’t comforting a boy. He’s using the term as a way of referring to people who do bad stuff.

Fifth, St. Paul certainly never wrote that “One day we will see our animals again in eternity of Christ. Paradise is open to all God’s creatures.”

That’s just not in the New Testament. Anywhere.

 

3) Do the reasons for suspicion deepen if you look further into the story?

You bet. While many secular news agencies are carrying this story, you know who isn’t?

The Vatican’s own news agencies. You can do searches on News.va for terms like animals or dog and you won’t find any articles about Pope Francis saying that animals go to heaven.

You might even find a story denying this if they get around to posting a denial for the benefit of the world press.

You can also read the entire text of the Wednesday audience where Pope Francis allegedly made the remarks. He doesn’t say anything like what is attributed to him.

And, if that’s not enough, you can watch the video of the entire papal audience, including the stuff before and after it, like where he’s riding around St. Peter’s Square in the popemobile, and you can see for yourself that at no point does Francis make such remarks—nor is a crying child ever brought to him for words of comfort.

 

4) What did Francis actually say?

Pope Francis’s audience was devoted to the subject of creation and the new heaven and earth. What he said was:

At the same time, Sacred Scripture teaches us that the fulfillment of this marvelous plan cannot but involve everything that surrounds us and came from the heart and mind of God.

The Apostle Paul says it explicitly, when he says that “Creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom 8:21).

Other texts utilize the image of a “new heaven” and a “new earth” (cf. 2 Pet 3:13; Rev 21:1), in the sense that the whole universe will be renewed and will be freed once and for all from every trace of evil and from death itself.

What lies ahead is the fulfillment of a transformation that in reality is already happening, beginning with the death and resurrection of Christ.

Hence, it is the new creation; it is not, therefore, the annihilation of the cosmos and of everything around us, but the bringing of all things into the fullness of being, of truth and of beauty.

This is the design that God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, willed from eternity to realize and is realizing.

 

5) Where did the stuff about animals going to heaven come from?

That was an interpretation that put upon Francis’s remarks by the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, which then got garbled in translation and picked up by the international news media.

The New York Times, after writing a gushy, slanted, and inaccurate story on the topic, subsequently issued this correction:

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.) 

Got that?

Francis didn’t say anything to a grieving boy. Neither did the apostle Paul. It was (allegedly) Pope Paul VI.

Francis didn’t say that animals go to heaven. Corriere della Sera leapt to unjustifiable conclusions because Pope Francis said that God has a plan to renovate the world.

MORE FROM A SIMILARLY-EMBARASSED CNN.

 

6) So this is another sensationalistic story about Pope Francis with no basis?

Yes. This is another case of the media getting the story utterly wrong and hyperventilating about Pope Francis for no reason.

The media is functioning as a vast echo chamber where reporters who don’t know beans are simply repeating what other reporters who don’t know beans have said.

The reasons for suspicion that I cited in point #2 (above)—and particularly the thing about the apostle Paul comforting a boy who’s dog had died—should have told any knowledgeable reporter that something was wrong with the story.

They then should have done just what I did and discovered the problems mentioned in point #3.

Memo to reporters: This isn’t a matter of rocket science. It’s a matter of checking your sources before shooting off your mouth.

 

7) Did Pope Paul VI say to a bereaved boy what is attributed to him?

Who knows?

If you search the Vatican web site for the relevant quote, you get nothing.

At this point, I don’t see why anyone should trust anything attributed to a pope about animals going to heaven—not without a solid reference to a checkable, primary source document.

As we’ve just seen, the dangers of getting bad info by relying on the papal rumor mill are too great.

Girl Talk?

I was intrigued today when I saw a news story on the web about Nushu, billed as a language used only by women in China. As y’all know, I’m fascinated by languages, and the idea of a women’s-only language is especially intriguing, as it’s most unusual. In fact, the article’s author wrote that Nushu is "believed to be the world’s only female-specific language." If that were true, Nushu would be really cool!

Unfortunately, I’m afraid that this article needs to be filed in the "reporter doesn’t know what he/she’s talking about" file. My experience with the press has convinced me that the great majority of reporters have only the most superficial understanding of what they are writing about, but I had hoped that on The Discovery Channel’s web site (where the story appears), they would be able to get the basic facts of the story related to the science of linguistics right.

Yet as I read the article, my suspicions began to grow that Nushu was not, in fact, a language. According to the article, "The language’s origins are unclear, but most scholars believe Nushu emerged in the third century during a time when the Chinese government prohibited education of women." The reporter’s implication would seem to be that Chinese women came up with their own language in response to the education edict.

The third century is certainly old enough to have a language develop. English didn’t develop until five hundred to a thousand years after that, depending on what you’re willing to count as English. But though the time frame for Nushu is fine, the implied method of its origin is all wrong.

I can think of ways that one might get a women’s-only language, but that isn’t one of them. As to how one could arise, suppose that there was a language in general use in a society at one point and then began to be supplanted by a new language. Suppose also that this society had a female priesthood that preserved the old language in their sacred rites. In this way, you would develop a women’s-only language. In fact, one could argue that at a certain stage of European history, Latin could have turned into a men’s-only language, though in reality there were always women who knew it (e.g., nuns who prayed in Latin and the daughters of educated noblemen, like St. Thomas More’s daughter Margaret).

But think: Why would the women of China invent a language just because they were prohibited from getting an education? It’s not very plausible. How would such a language help them? Would they conduct covert classes in it? But then if they could conduct covert classes, why would they need a special language to do them in? It would seem to only add another barrier to the education process, first forcing people to learn a new language before teaching them anything else.

In order to have a language–as opposed to a code–one needs a vocabulary of at least 5000 words (and even that is an incredibly restrictive vocabulary that many linguists might say is not enough for a true language). Such a restrictive vocabulary would not be enough to allow one to conduct classes without using lots of loan-words for technical subject vocabulary, and if women were heard using such loan words, the men would know what they were up to when speaking in Nushu.

These and other problems (which I won’t go into lest this entry get too long) made me begin to strongly suspect that Nushu is not a language at all, but either a code with a teensy tincey vocabulary or–more likely–a script (writing system).

A script is not a language, it’s simply a way of reducing a language to written form. A language can be represented in many scripts (or by none if it is an unwritten language). Though in English we’re used to using an alphabet based on the Latin script, there is no reason why that needs to be the case. For example, here are three English sentences written in scripts that I have handy on my computer:

Each of these sentences says "This is an English sentence written in __________", with the name of the script filled in (respectively, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic). If you want to try and figure out what character corresponds to what letter, remember that Hebrew and Aramaic read right-to-left instead of left-to-right. (Hey, maybe future data-archaeologists mining the Old Web will run across this page and the above will serve as a Rosetta Stone to unlock the meaning of lost languages!)

It would make a lot more sense for women in China to develop their own script than their own language. Scripts can be much smaller and thus easier to create and learn than languages. Logographic scripts (like normal Chinese) are truly huge, with thousands of characters, but you can make them much, much smaller. An alphabetic script (where each character stands for a sound) may only be two or three dozen characters. A syllabaric script (where each character represents a syllable) might be a few dozen or hundred characters.

Checking a few web sites about Nushu, I found that they regularly described Nushu as a script, apparently a primarily syllabaric one with about 700 signs. I haven’t looked into it enough to tell, but it seems that Nushu may be a mixed script, incorporating some logograms (characters that stand for words). In this respect, it may be like Egyptian hieroglyphics, which is also a mixed script with about the same number of characters.

If you’d like to see some examples of Nushu writing, see here. Also, Wikipedia has a good but brief article on Nushu. Both make the point that the name Nushu means "women’s writing," an admission I note on second reading is made even in The Discovery Channel article.

So, unfortunately, we don’t have a true example of a women’s language in Nushu, but we can still admire the inventiveness of Chinese women in coming up with their own multi-hundred-character script. Let’s hope that linguists are able to fully preserve it!

BTW, for any men who are reading this:

Gwon-ca tobbishla Nu’a’mari ex-locsishin-wa tet calculus-lu da astronomy-lu gwon-wa ito’ilu.