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Thank you, Petertherock, for this.
I have some comments..................
Wow...I thought this was going to be an article from the onion or something...but this is real? The fact that they even have to run an article like this is telling.
The onion! We have the Onion planted squarely in the ground in nearby Granada Hills, CA. I even know some of the attendees who go to "church" there. They're Universalist-Unitarian.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/39-official-pope-not-abolished-sin-says-vatican-102908946.html
It's official: Pope has not abolished sin, says Vatican
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican felt compelled on Tuesday to deny that Pope Francis had "abolished sin", after a well-known Italian intellectual wrote that he had effectively done so through his words and gestures.
It seems uncharacteristic of them to be so 'negative' in the headline. Why not disseminate a 'positive' message, instead, like they do with everything else? They could easily have had,
Pope Assures All He Maintains the Continuation of Sin. What's the difference? Saying he "has not abolished sin" sounds like he's afraid that eliminating sinfulness in the world would be a terrible loss or something like that.
(No more SIN? What a bleak thought! How BORING life would be!!)The singular exchange began on Sunday when Eugenio Scalfari, an atheist who writes opinion pieces for the left-leaning La Repubblica newspaper, published an article titled "Francis' Revolution: He has abolished sin".
It's remarkable the mileage Scalfari is getting out of this. He's a real professional media-hound. How to make a byline into a goldmine! Sell Copy!! Sell Copy! Sell Copy!!
He's playing the Vatican like a cheap fiddle.
Is it any wonder Francis is man-o'-war --- woops, Man-of-the-Year? He's keeping an octogenarian atheist journalist employed. (Good thing Francis isn't Portuguese!)
Scalfari, who held a long private conversation with the pope earlier this year and wrote about it several times, concluded in the complex, treatise-like article that Francis believed sin effectively no longer existed because God's mercy and forgiveness were "eternal".
You've got to give Scalfari credit where credit is due. His articles probably put Francis over the top in the worldliness competition. But seriously, he's playing this up for all it's worth: the real mark of a seasoned professional. The name Antonio Scalfari is becoming a household term. Tourists are seeking photo-opps with him. He is now a celebrity! He's famous!
What a stroke of genius to show up at the papal interview UNPREPARED, without a recorder, and to not take any notes. NIX THE PENCIL-PAPER-DISTRACTION, and maybe, just MAYBE, the pope will forget he's being interviewed: "strictly OFF the record!" How to get the inside scoop!
Oh, but the real kicker ― he didn't take any notes and it wasn't recorded, so he has to RECONSTRUCT the whole thing, and then he notified the pope that SOME OF THE ITEMS IN HIS ARTICLES are things that THE POPE DID NOT SAY, so the Vatican gave their tacit approval to MISQUOTE the pope.
Hey, looks like a
BIG FAT GREEN LIGHT to me!
Now he can run rampant with all manner of quasi-reality-surrealism. The sky's the limit!
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told Vatican Radio that "this affirmation that the pope has abolished sin" was wrong.
But it would seem that even the Vatican has it's so-called 'limits'.
"Those who really follow the pope daily know how many times he has spoken about sin and our (human) condition as sinners," Lombardi said.
It was not the first brush between the Vatican and Scalfari, who founded La Repubblica newspaper in 1976.
Oh, but doesn't it all depend on what you mean by "sin?" It could be one thing to one person and something else to another. The Vatican doesn't think it has any kind of AUTHORITY to inform anyone what sin IS and what it is NOT, do they?
What a foreign concept!
Do I have any proof for this? : Try this : Please provide for me ONE SENTENCE of Pope Francis, in all of his so-called "many times he has spoken about sin," when he has made ANY MENTION WHATSOEVER about what sin is, or what sin is not.
Any time you're ready. .................... We'll be waiting a long time. Like forever.
Why? Because Francis is not going to define sin. It's not in his skills summary. He's not about to define ANYTHING, let alone something so untouchable as SIN.
He wouldn't want to OFFEND anyone, especially an atheist.
And besides, He's on the fast track to CANONIZE THE ORIGINATOR OF THIS ABOMINATION, POPE JOHN XXIII, who, in his Most Regrettable Speech (M.R.S.) of October 11th, 1962 (the so-called Opening Speech of Vat.II), contradicted himself, and nobody noticed. He erroneously condemned the principle of condemning error.
He said, no more condemnation of error.
So when Francis speaks "many times about sin," don't be too surprised if he doesn't really say anything important about it. Remember, he doesn't want to offend any atheists. It's a matter of priority. He'd much rather provide the opportunity for a clever atheist Scalfari to MISQUOTE him ― with his permission, of course.
Last month the Vatican removed from its website the text of Scalfari's transcript of his conversation with the pope, saying parts of it were not reliable.
Scalfari said he had not used a tape recorder or taken notes when he met the pope but reconstructed the long session from memory afterwards and made additions to help the flow of the article.
(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
So the cat's out of the bag, the chicken has flown the coop, someone left the barn door open and the horse got out. Now the Vatican has it all under control. They're removing the report from the Vatican website. Everything's back to normal.
They must think we're a bunch of idiots. THE REPORT IS ALL OVER THE INTERNET. Who cares if it's not on the Vatican website anymore? They must think we're all as gullible as poche! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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