Sorry, But Media Coverage of Pope Francis is Papal Bull

The "Pope Francis supports evolution" story is just the latest example of the press getting the Catholic Church completely wrong

It is official: the media has gone
bananas in its coverage of Pope Francis.

The OMG-Pope-Francis-Supports-Evolution
story of the past two days is just the latest example. Almost every news
outlet, major and minor, has plastered Pope Francis’ name across the interwebs
and proclaimed he has finally planted the Catholic Church in the evolution camp
of the creation-evolution debate. The only problem? Almost every outlet has got
the story wrong, proving once again that the mainstream media has nearly no
understanding of the Church. And that madness shows no signs of stopping.

Pope Francis’ real role in this
evolution hubbub was small. He spoke, as Popes do, to the Pontifical Academy of
Sciences on Monday, which had gathered to discuss “Evolving Topics of Nature,”
and he affirmed what Catholic teaching has been for decades. “God is not a
divine being or a magician, but the Creator who brought everything to life,” he
said. “Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation,
because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.”

Anyone who knows anything about Catholic
history knows that a statement like this is nothing new. Pope Pius XII wrote an
encyclical “Humani Generis” in 1950 affirming that there was no conflict
between evolution and Catholic faith. Pope John Paul II reaffirmed that,
stressing that evolution was more than a hypothesis, in 1996. Pope Benedict XVI
hosted a conference on the nuances of creation and evolution in 2006. There’s
an official book on the event for anyone who wants to know more. Pope Francis’
comments Monday even came as he was unveiling a new statue of Pope Benedict
XVI, honoring him for his leadership.

None of that seems to matter to the
media; the internet exploded all the same. Site after site after site ramped up
the Pope’s words and took them out of context. Headlines like these added
drama: NPR: “Pope Says God Not ‘A Magician, With A Magic Wand.’” Salon: “Pope
Francis schools creationists.” U.S. News and World Report: “Pope Francis Backs
the Big Bang Theory, Evolution” (with a subhed: “Also, the pontiff says he’s
not a communist”). Huffington Post. Sydney Morning Herald. Telegraph. USA
Today. New York Post. The list goes on and on. Only Slate did its homework.

Wednesday morning the stories continued
with new, analytical twists. The New Republic came out with a story titled,
“The Pope Has More Faith Than the GOP in Science.” The Washington Post posted a
piece, “Pope Francis may believe in evolution, but 42 percent of Americans do
not.” It doesn’t seem to matter that Pope Benedict XVI called the debate
between evolution an creation an “absurdity” in 2007. MSNBC opened its piece
saying, “Pope Francis made a significant rhetorical break with Catholic
tradition Monday by declaring that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang
are real.” NBCNews called the Pope’s statement, “a theological break from his
predecessor Benedict XVI, a strong exponent of creationism.”

This embarrassing narrative repeats
itself over and over in Francis coverage. It happened last week when the Pope,
again, voiced the Church’s long-standing opposition to the death penalty
(having also done so in June, and after John Paul discussed the topic at length
in an entire encyclical on being consistently pro-life in 1995). It happened at
the Synod of the Bishops on the family, when the bishops talked about welcoming
gays and the media whipped that up into an inaccurate story about an enormous
policy shift toward gay marriage.

That’s dangerous, especially because
this furor seems to occur most often when hot-button Western political issues
can be tied to the Pope’s statements—evolution, death penalty, gay marriage.
Wednesday morning, Pope Francis asked for prayers for 43 Mexican students who
were burned alive by drug traffickers. It is unlikely that that will get the
same pickup.

Moral of this story: Don’t believe most
of what you read about the Vatican. Papal coverage has gone wild.