I don't know about that reporting idea, but what you say above is not the question that was asked (although there seem actually to have been two questions--who said Francis has done away with the church of Jesus Christ, and who are some of these Catholics who support S-SM and constitute half of all Catholics?)
That's a matter of your opinion. And I don't want this thread to get derailed with a debate about sources.
It's so unfortunate that this has painted our Pope as unorthodox... and i have already had to defend him to my uber orthodox brother that the media misquoted him and he ought to always check the Vatican site for the correction translations and understandings.
I agree. Unfortunately, when the "who am I to judge" media firestorm first happened it wasn't available in English. I remember that those who wanted to know the context of what Pope Francis actually said had to use Google Translate. But most people won't go through the trouble of going to the Vatican's website let alone go through the manual process of translating it for themselves.
Unfortunately the vatican doesn't tend to quickly post full direct texts of what he actually says. Usually they (a) take some time and (b) still take the form of reports about his homily or whatever, rather than giving the straight text.
I think that might sometimes be true for his homilies and audiences. But often the whole homily is directly what Pope Francis said such as with this homily (here). And the Vatican provides the straight transcript for the context of "who am I to judge." If the Vatican does post it in the form of a report they include a lot of direct quotes of what he said, and I think it's based on a recording. And when it's posted directly on the Vatican's official website I think that's about as reliable as one can get when it comes to knowing the mind of the Pope.
But of course the world will first know the versions and interpretations of AP, Yahoo, and even HuffPo. By then a lot of damage will already be done.
A collection of direct quotes and reports is not the straight homily, it's an edited report, and it's impossible to tell how close to the homily it is. When Francis is seen as controversial the vatican press editors are as suspect as anyone else for manipulating through indirect speech. It's also not been there fast enough - news writers and commentators do not have the luxury of waiting for the vatican to put it there.
Regardless of accuracy. Duly noted.
