The pope who buys the media's "climate change" nonsense hook, line and sinker has now decided "fake news" is the work of the devil. Well. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a first step.
But as he so often does when he's dealing with matters in the civic and political realm, the pope seems a bit too deferential to established institutions on the matter of truth, objectivity and fairness. He also doesn't seem to really understand all that well how the digital world works.
“The tragedy of disinformation is that it discredits others, presenting them as enemies, to the point of demonizing them and fomenting conflict,” the pope wrote, whereas true statements tend to “promote informed and mature reflection leading to constructive dialogue.”
The pope portrayed latter-day makers of fake news as followers of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, the devil, who persuaded Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and thus ushered in the “tragic history of human sin.”
Pope Francis praised education and regulation to combat fake news, and encouraged tech and media companies in efforts to verify the “personal identities concealed behind millions of digital profiles.”
But the pope laid the greatest responsibility with journalists, whom he called on to reject “falsehoods, rhetorical slogans and sensational headlines” in favor of a “journalism of peace.”
There's so much wrong here, it's hard to know where to start.
Clearly, the pope is buying the mainstream media's default definition of "fake news," which is the nonsense headlines coming from schlock web sites dressed up to look like mainstream media. There's one called ABCNews.com.co, for example, that is designed to make people think they're looking at the ABC News site. Fake! Not really ABC News. That's easy.
But if the pope thinks that's as fake as fake gets, he's overlooking the matter of lies told by the real ABC News. Real media! Fake information. See? The news can be just as fake when it's coming from "real" journalists. And it's more damaging when that happens because the credibility ascribed to these people - by the likes of the pope, among others - makes ordinary people assume they can believe what they're being told.
Maybe someone needs to sit the pope down and remind him of how Satan really operates. If Satan showed up at your door and handed you a pamphlet that said, "Jesus secretly colluded with Russians to import sex slaves to Miami," or claimed your heretofore unknown Nigerian uncle had a multimillion-dollar fortune for you, not many people would believe him. Nonsense that ham-handed is easily sniffed out, and only the most extremely gullible in our midst are influenced by it.
But what the Bible tells us about Satan is that he's crafty. He doesn't show up with a pitchfork, devil horns and a tail (even if the Jon Lovitz caricature is one of the funniest things I've ever seen). Satan presents himself as having credibility, knowledge, insight and wisdom. He comes off as someone who's got it together, can earn your trust and has a legitimate claim as an influencer. He seems like someone you should listen to. He seems like someone who will steer you right.
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In other words, Satan comes off a lot more like the real ABC News than he does like ABCNews.com.co. He's established. He's trusted. He's respected. He wouldn't lie to you. He's not the schmaltzy doofuses the pope is comparing him to here.
Then there's the pope's appeal to "education and regulation to combat fake news," along with his call to tech companies to dig into people's personal profiles to judge their worthiness to share information. Does the pope think there are no liars among educators, regulators and tech executives? That they're all fully submitted to Jesus Christ and beyond reproach, such that they can be trusted to wield the power the pope wants to grant them in deciding who can speak and who should be silenced?
Spiritual wisdom is spiritually discerned. The pope needs to study 2 Corinthians a little before he speaks again.
Finally, this business about practicing a "journalism of peace": That's exactly what much of the mainstream media think they're doing. They judge as warmongers everyone who doesn't agree with their doctrine of American weakness and capitulation, and often seek to destroy such people through the very disinformation the pope finds devilish when it comes from transparently fakey fakers.
I am not Catholic, and I do not accept that the pope has the direct authority from God that he claims to have. As such, I don't think it's a scandal that he's not perfect. But I would expect a man who claims such a lofty mantle as a faith leader to be a bit more discerning, and a bit more serious in his biblical scholarship. Yes, Satan is real. But the pope doesn't seem to have much more than a Bible Comics level understanding of how he works.
The pope who buys the media's "climate change" nonsense hook, line and sinker has now decided "fake news" is the work of the devil. Well. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a first step.
But as he so often does when he's dealing with matters in the civic and political realm, the pope seems a bit too deferential to established institutions on the matter of truth, objectivity and fairness. He also doesn't seem to really understand all that well how the digital world works.
