Embarrassingly, Pope Francis forgot it was Red Day at the Sistine Chapel. More embarrassingly, most media outlets refused to accurately report Francis’ response regarding the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings on homosexuality.

Near the end of a lengthy press conference aboard the papal jumbo jet winging back to Rome from Brazil, a reporter asked Pope Francis about the Roman Catholic Church and homosexuality.  As part of his response, the pontiff uttered five little words heard ’round the world: “…who am I to judge?”

As usual, the media got the story mostly wrong, reporting Francis’ words as a sweeping Vatican policy shift on homosexuality. Nearly uniformly,* the media glossed over the subtlety and nuance in Francis’ complete answer, exacerbating its misreporting by truncating Francis’ full quote.

Francis uttered the five words in response to a question regarding the Vatican’s so-called “gay lobby.” As correctly and appropriately reported by Catholic News Service, the full context of Francis’ five words is as follows:

Note well Francis’ important, yet often unreported, reliance on the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Francis’ statement is not news. It is an affirmation of the Church’s longstanding teachings on homosexuality and nothing more.

Francis states the “Catechism of the Catholic Church explains [the Church’s position on homosexuality] very well. Indeed, it does. The media has done itself, the country and Catholics specifically a grave disservice by ignoring the Church’s actual teachings and reporting the media’s interpretation of what it thinks the Church’s teachings must be based on hearsay and conjecture.

It would be most refreshing for the media, particularly the well-disguised (and likely nominal) Catholics among them, to report what the Catholic Church’s teachings actually are.  As a service to America’s lazy media, ‘Puter will do media’s work for it.  To any reporter reading our fine blog, feel free to use this post as a cheat sheet.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part Three, Section Two, Chapter Two, Article 6, Subarticle II, §§ 2357-59 provides:

As Francis taught the assembled press corps (which then promptly misreported Francis’ teaching), the Catholic Church has a nuanced, tolerant, loving, faithful position on homosexuality. Francis’ words were also a timely reminder to Catholics worldwide to reacquaint ourselves with our Church’s tenets and to spend time in prayerful contemplation of our core texts.

Catholics understand the Catholic Church’s position on homosexuality causes many within and without the Church consternation. We know many Americans believe the Church’s teachings on homosexuality and numerous other issues are flat-out wrong. It is your right to believe as you will.

As Catholics, we encounter an American culture at odds with our beliefs each time we open our front door and step outside.  We know to near certainty America’s liberal media is reflexively hostile to our beliefs. Catholics accept this reality and get on with the business of our faith.

But Catholics do not accept and will not abide media’s misrepresentation of our Church’s beliefs in furtherance of a hard Left agenda antithetical to our core beliefs.

And it’s long past time for us to say so.

*From the credit where credit is due files, the New York Times actually did a decent job of reporting, providing context to Francis’ nuanced words, although the headline (usually not written by the reporter himself) is badly misleading.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.