{"id":108269,"date":"2013-07-18T11:15:37","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T15:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/?p=108269"},"modified":"2013-07-18T11:15:37","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T15:15:37","slug":"media-pope-says-retweets-spring-the-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/07\/media-pope-says-retweets-spring-the-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"Media: Pope says retweets spring the soul!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/iframe>You may have read stories about the Vatican announcing that Roman Catholics may earn time off purgatory by following Pope Francis on social media during World Youth Day. Many of the stories had serious<\/strong> problems. The main problem was getting the theology all wrong.<\/p>\nFor a sample of how the media messed up this story, let\u2019s look at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/worldnews\/europe\/vaticancityandholysee\/10182835\/Catholics-to-seek-forgiveness-for-their-sins-via-social-media.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Telegraph<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>Catholics to seek forgiveness for their sins via social media <\/strong><\/p>\nCatholics will be able to seek forgiveness for their sins from afar next week when the Pope visits Brazil, simply by following the event on social media, the Vatican has decreed.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nYou don\u2019t even need to know that much about Catholicism to see where this Rome-based (!) reporter or his headline writer went south. As one reader put it:<\/p>\n<blockquote>Please, please, please, this is not \u201cforgiveness of sins.\u201d Forgiveness is granted via absolution in the Sacrament of Confession (or, if you prefer, Penance or Reconciliation). \u00a0An indulgence, \u00a0whether partial or plenary, is remission of the temporal punishment due to sin.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThere\u2019s actually much more wrong with the story. And practically every story I read on the matter just got the basics wrong. It was so bad that CNN\u2019s Belief Blog had the Rev. James Martin, SJ, write-up a blow-by-blow of the various mistakes. It\u2019s great and I encourage you to read it. Father Martin shows knowledge of newsrooms and church teaching in his account. A snippet from \u201d\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/2013\/07\/17\/sorry-you-cant-get-out-of-hell-by-retweeting-the-pope\/?sr=sharebar_twitter\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Sorry, you can\u2019t get out of hell by retweeting the pope<\/a>\u201c:<\/p>\n<blockquote>In other words: the original document, the \u201csource\u201d and Archbishop Celli all said the opposite<\/em> of what the headlines said.<\/p>\nThat is, it\u2019s not enough simply to follow the pope on Twitter. It\u2019s not even enough to check his Twitter feed frequently. You need to be (a) contrite, (b) trying to follow the events at World Youth Day live and (c) performing these acts with \u201cdue devotion.\u201d<\/p>\nIn other words, the Vatican is clearly referring to prayerful participation in these events by men and women who could not otherwise go, through the various \u201cnew means of social communication.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe end was a bit rough but deservedly so:<\/p>\n<blockquote>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/blogs\/future_tense\/2013\/07\/17\/pope_offering_indulgences_to_twitter_followers.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">worst headline<\/a> came from the normally careful Slate: Pope Francis is not offering indulgences \u201cin exchange for Twitter followers.\u201d He has plenty of Twitter followers. But he\u2019d probably exchange a few hundred of them for headline writers who actually read the story.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nOK. The second disappointment in this media coverage is one that I\u2019m almost reticent to suggest. Let\u2019s just assume that we lived in an alternate universe where a Vatican announcement about indulgences was covered significantly better than what we saw this week. If that were the case, what I\u2019d then like to see in that coverage is some airing of the theological debate about indulgences.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nIt\u2019s important not only to accurately describe indulgences from the Roman Catholic perspective but it would be nice also to see this used as a hook to discuss how indulgences themselves are an <a href=\"http:\/\/surburg.blogspot.com\/2013\/07\/marks-thoughts-penance-purgatory.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">incredibly contentious<\/a> issue among Christians (that link goes to how one Lutheran pastor responded to the news, but there are many other such reactions). Still, while many reporters could ably handle it, I\u2019m not sure we have a general media establishment capable of responsibly wading into that territory in an edifying manner.<\/p>\nRemember, as much as you (or I!) might like to discuss the theology of indulgences, this is not the place for that discussion. We\u2019re just thinking about this topic from a media perspective.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You may have read stories about the Vatican announcing that Roman Catholics may earn time off purgatory by following Pope Francis on social media during World Youth Day. Many of the stories had serious problems. The main problem was getting the theology all wrong. For a sample of how the media messed up this story, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":605,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,1,48],"tags":[414,1113,271,1990,1167,447],"class_list":["post-108269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholicism","category-uncategorized","category-worship","tag-cnn","tag-father-james-martin","tag-lutheran","tag-papal-indulgences","tag-pope-francis","tag-telegraph"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Media: Pope says retweets spring the soul!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You may have read stories about the Vatican announcing that Roman Catholics may earn time off purgatory by following Pope Francis on social media during\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/07\/media-pope-says-retweets-spring-the-soul\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Media: Pope says retweets spring the soul!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You may have read stories about the Vatican announcing that Roman Catholics may earn time off purgatory by following Pope Francis on social media during\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/07\/media-pope-says-retweets-spring-the-soul\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"GetReligion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-07-18T15:15:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"mollie\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"mollie\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/07\/media-pope-says-retweets-spring-the-soul\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/07\/media-pope-says-retweets-spring-the-soul\/\",\"name\":\"Media: Pope says retweets spring the soul!\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-07-18T15:15:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-07-18T15:15:37+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/#\/schema\/person\/74ed2f03f6e3aa3c3c4c3ce885b10255\"},\"description\":\"You may have read stories about the Vatican announcing that Roman Catholics may earn time off purgatory by following Pope Francis on social media during\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/07\/media-pope-says-retweets-spring-the-soul\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/07\/media-pope-says-retweets-spring-the-soul\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/07\/media-pope-says-retweets-spring-the-soul\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Media: Pope says retweets spring the soul!\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/\",\"name\":\"GetReligion\",\"description\":\""The press . . . just doesn't get religion." - 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