"A Syllabus of Errors"
I guess you could avoid making mistakes only if you never did or said anything. I know I make mistakes all the time – calling people by the wrong name, arriving at the wrong time, wrong interpretation... I do all that, and often.
But the Vatican also makes mistakes. And so does the Pope.
Actually, we have been treated to quite a few lately. An example. Early in his Papacy Pope Benedict XVI issued new regulations concerning the Roman Basilica of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls. The very first paragraph, which now says that the Basilica “…stands on the place where the memory of the Apostle to the Gentiles is venerated,” originally mentioned erroneously that the Basilica was the site of Paul’s martyrdom. The Roman newspaper Il Messaggero caught the blunder, and the document was quickly corrected. (Motu Proprio «The Ancient And Venerable Basilica,» May 31, 2005)
Another example. There was no Tuesday, November 6, 2006 edition of the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, because a lead article which was supposed to be the Pope’s address to Swiss bishops was actually a set of notes for a previous bishops’ visit in 2005. That visit never took place because Pope John Paul II was ill. The Osservatore never hit the newsstands.
Still another. Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus, grandly attired in his very best finery, had to stand before the cathedral congregation in Warsaw on Sunday, January 7, 2007 one hour before he was to be installed as Archbishop, to announce his resignation. Investigations had publicly revealed his links as an informer to Communist-era secret police. To be fair, the Archbishop pleads he never actually betrayed anyone. But since the Vatican said he did the right thing in resigning, they must not have been terribly careful in vetting his appointment. (They also said there could be more such revelations.)
But the most famous example concerns the Pope’s address at the University of Regensburg on Tuesday, September 12, 2006, when Benedict quoted a Byzantine Emperor’s anti-Muslim remarks from the 1400’s. The Vatican website now provides a “corrected version” in which the Pope has added “…he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness that we find unacceptable, on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general.”
Well, better late than never.
I suppose the fact that so many mistakes are plaguing the Vatican, and this meticulous Pope in particular, should be the source of some comfort to the rest of us. We who live with daily regrets share that condition with poor Benedict XVI.
But somehow I am not heartened when the entire Vatican team misses obvious pitfalls, though rarely a misspelling. Could it be they cannot see the forest for the trees?
But the Vatican also makes mistakes. And so does the Pope.
Actually, we have been treated to quite a few lately. An example. Early in his Papacy Pope Benedict XVI issued new regulations concerning the Roman Basilica of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls. The very first paragraph, which now says that the Basilica “…stands on the place where the memory of the Apostle to the Gentiles is venerated,” originally mentioned erroneously that the Basilica was the site of Paul’s martyrdom. The Roman newspaper Il Messaggero caught the blunder, and the document was quickly corrected. (Motu Proprio «The Ancient And Venerable Basilica,» May 31, 2005)
Another example. There was no Tuesday, November 6, 2006 edition of the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, because a lead article which was supposed to be the Pope’s address to Swiss bishops was actually a set of notes for a previous bishops’ visit in 2005. That visit never took place because Pope John Paul II was ill. The Osservatore never hit the newsstands.
Still another. Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus, grandly attired in his very best finery, had to stand before the cathedral congregation in Warsaw on Sunday, January 7, 2007 one hour before he was to be installed as Archbishop, to announce his resignation. Investigations had publicly revealed his links as an informer to Communist-era secret police. To be fair, the Archbishop pleads he never actually betrayed anyone. But since the Vatican said he did the right thing in resigning, they must not have been terribly careful in vetting his appointment. (They also said there could be more such revelations.)
But the most famous example concerns the Pope’s address at the University of Regensburg on Tuesday, September 12, 2006, when Benedict quoted a Byzantine Emperor’s anti-Muslim remarks from the 1400’s. The Vatican website now provides a “corrected version” in which the Pope has added “…he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness that we find unacceptable, on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general.”
Well, better late than never.
I suppose the fact that so many mistakes are plaguing the Vatican, and this meticulous Pope in particular, should be the source of some comfort to the rest of us. We who live with daily regrets share that condition with poor Benedict XVI.
But somehow I am not heartened when the entire Vatican team misses obvious pitfalls, though rarely a misspelling. Could it be they cannot see the forest for the trees?
posted by David at 5:20 PM
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