Pope Francis has given another interview to the owner of La Repubblica, the ninety year old Eugenio Scalfari, an atheist, who apparently doesn’t take notes during interviews and has a bad memory. More during the week about the substance of the interview, but the most interesting thing about it is the statement concerning the interview by Vatican press flack Father Federico Lombardi:
Okay, PopeWatch understands now. The Pope has given two interviews with a ninety year old journalist who does not take notes. The Pope does not check or revise the article before it is published. What the Pope purports to have said is interesting but we are not to trust the quotes. Sometimes PopeWatch wonders if this is a papacy or a very elaborate Monty Python skit.
It reminds me of nothing so much as the apparent total recall of conversations with suspects in police cars claimed by the officers and which are, invariably, indignantly repudiated by the same suspect, when judicially examined, only hours later.
I must have read dozens, if not hundreds of such declarations and I cannot recollect one in which these alleged statements have not been at least qualified or explained. Usually, they are totally denied.
Curiously, the officers’ notes, written up back at the police office, are always, verbatim et literatim, identical.
Why doesn’t the Holy Father have all these interviews recorded so we can know what’s really being said?
Why doesn’t the Holy Father have all these interviews recorded so we can know what’s really being said?
—
Well, here is one interpretation:
http://blog.steveskojec.com/2014/07/12/modernists-are-tricky-thats-kind-of-the-point/
—
Some other sources to consult: Fr. Paul Mankowski’s article from about a decade ago on “Tames in Clerical Culture” and the article in Catholic World Report about a dozen years ago on ‘foxes’ and ‘lions’ in administrative positions (the author, IIRC, was Msgr. George Kelly).
—
We are learning, drip drip drip, that the conclave chose the wrong man. We can hope that the results are grotesquely amusing rather than tragic.
I was waiting for the latest interview that wasn’t an interview to be the subject on the this blog. The Vatican’s comments on the interview remind me of some of the subtitles on televised Italian mysteries. I keep thinking it must be poor translating. Yes, Don, I can hear the Liberty Bell March.
Art Deco, Thank you for the link to Steve Skojec’s blog. For two months I have been meeting with three other Catholic women for discussion of Lumen Fidei. We decided on Sunday at the end of chapter two that we were done with it. Next meeting is Sept. and I’m going to suggest we take a look at Pope Pius X’s Pascendi Dominici Gregis.
I have to admit, I’m still laughing at poor Fr. Lombardi’s “clarification.”
He’s trying to make chicken salad out of yet another platter of chicken scat. And while it’s still inedible, it’s funny to look at.
“Eugenio Scalfari is a journalist with untrustworthy interview practices who has nevertheless interviewed the Pope yet again. And while we again object to the accuracy of the interview, it is essentially accurate. Any more questions?”
Cam I wish I lived close enough to come to your group discussions.
“We are learning, drip drip drip, that the conclave chose the wrong man…” – Art Deco. Well said, AD: Brevity is the soul of wit.
Also, that Fr. Federico Lombardi has the hardest job in the world, trying to clean up after the latest Bergoglio emission.
[…] was imposed as a requirement. Of course taking in mind Father Lombardi’s admonition, read it here, that we are not to take any of the interview as precisely what the Pope said, it is hard to […]