No Mercy for Magister

sandro magister embargo sala stamp letterYesterday I received a copy in Italian of the encyclical that has not yet been officially released, Laudato si’. It turns out that that copy was put on the interwebs by Sandro Magister, vaticanista. HERE

The Holy See’s spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, asked journalists to respect the “embargo”. I note that there was no indication of an embargo on the copy that I saw. That said, having spent a lot of time around the Holy See Press Office, it seems to me a solid and understood expectation not to jump out too far in advance of official releases. We just didn’t/don’t do that. Still, there wasn’t a clear indication of embargo that I could see. Perhaps it was included in some accompanying letter sent to Magister’s editor at L’Espresso.

Meanwhile, according to TIME (which I am not sure should be trusted with the time of day when it comes to what goes on in the Vatican), a Vatican official told Bloomberg News that the leak was a “heinous act.”

“Heinous”?  Like what ISIS does to children and women?

Also, the Holy See is saying that what was leaked is still just a draft.  We’ll see.  I doubt it.

I wrote a bit more about the encyclical yesterday.  HERE

So, Fr. Lombardi has suspended Magister’s press credential for the Press Office.

Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un journaliste pour encourager les autres.

 

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60 Comments

  1. anna 6 says:

    Meanwhile, the Vatican’s own official newspaper broke the embargo on Benedict XVI’s interview book with Peter Seewald, “The Light of the World”, excerpting the most controversial sections without the necessary context, causing mass confusion. Nothing happened to them.

    Perhaps the press office doesn’t like Magister’s honest assessments of this papacy?

  2. Auggie says:

    The Vatican is saying that credentials will be suspended if a person goes against tradition?
    Interesting.

  3. anilwang says:

    This is a time to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

    I’m sure there were forces within the Vatican that were just looking for an excuse to silence Magister and they found it. In retrospect, it didn’t make sense to release the leaked copy. Not only was it not worth it, the probably that a version (possibly modified, possibly rejected) of the document was leaked for nefarious ends (including trapping Magister) is high. And even if it was done for good ends and it is identical to what will be released, it would still cause problems because it will allow the liberal press to frame the document in the way it chooses and draw attention away from the way the Vatican intends to frame the document.

    Personally, I’m not at all happy with the length of current encyclicals. You don’t need 200 pages to talk about the environment from the Catholic perspective. Such a book-length treatment inevitably will have errors and ambiguities in it, as to most books and require extensive proof-reading. Leaks of such documents are inevitable, and even if all the errors were gotten rid of, few people will be interested enough to read the book. So it will be easy to take paragraphs (especially ambiguous paragraphs) out of context to say anything you want to say.

    Thank goodness the apostles and Church Fathers didn’t have this habit of blathering on in official documents, otherwise the New Testament would have been as long as the old and the Nicene Creed would have many chapters.

  4. Gregg the Obscure says:

    Well said anilwang.

    It isn’t believable that Mr. Magister would have trespassed somewhere to abscond with the unapproved text. Clearly someone provided it to him. That act of providing the text to a journalist is more seriously wrong than his subsequent publication of it, regardless of the reason(s) it was done.

    It is very disappointing that the careerists at the Vatican seem to be escaping any consequences for this sad event.

  5. Geometricus says:

    For those who (like me) don’t read French very well, the quote was (modified) from Voltaire: “In this country , it is good to occasionally kill a journalist to encourage others.” (Google translate) This was told to Candide, but about “un amiral” or an admiral not a journalist, as Candide watched an admiral being shot by firing squad. The scene in Candide was a satirization of the court-martial and execution of British Admiral John Byng, who received the sentence for losing the island of Minorca to France in the 1700’s.

  6. drohan says:

    The real problem is its leak means we have given the narrative over to the antagonists in the press. Do we really trust them with anything Catholic? Does someone have to be clergy to run the Vatican Press Office? I know clergy are all over the place, after all it’s the Vatican, but these ham-fisted attempts to have a properly functioning press operation are astounding. Surely somewhere in Italy there is a faithful Catholic media specialist who as a layman could control the info better than what is going on now.

  7. NBW says:

    Well said anilwang.
    I bet the ones who trapped Magister will be looking to remove as many good journalists as they can, so that by the time the Synod rolls around there will be no questioning and only praise of things that are not the Truth.

    Fast and pray!

  8. Hidden One says:

    Magister’s response will be interesting. Nothing is posted yet on his site, at least in English.

  9. Ipsitilla says:

    Surely someone could propose a pastoral solution whereby he might be readmitted to the Press Office after a suitable period of penance?

  10. Mike says:

    Vatican modernists, it appear, have yet to learn that it’s a lot harder to stifle truth (and Truth) today than it was fifty years ago. Prayers ascend for Sig. Magister and for his persecutors.

  11. Benedict Joseph says:

    Considering the abominations inflicted on us all by certain members of the episcopate since March 2013, all of which went without a disciplinary response, it does seem an antagonistic reaction from the Holy See. Sandro Magister is preeminent in his reportage. I could almost say flawless. Last week “Crux” ran a headline “No more daddy’s boys.” Obviously there are still many of them in all sorts of roles, widely dispersed, they just don’t refer to themselves as such. If Mr. Magister ever was one, he now knows you won’t be if you bite the ermine glove. The duplicitousness exhibited at the Press Office is mournful and scandalous. I’ve come to expect little else in this era we now endure.

  12. ppb says:

    Granted that someone else had the greater sin…it was still a mistake to publish the leaked document.

  13. GreggW says:

    Since this is a papal encyclical and not something less momentous, shouldn’t everyone wait until the Holy See formally publishes the document before they (the non-Vatican press) publish it? I would think that would be a pretty straight forward expectation, and one that merits punishment if it is violated. If Magister knew that the encyclical had not been formally published…or even if he simply did not know whether it had been formally published…shouldn’t he refuse to be part to its publication? And shouldn’t he reasonably expect to be punished like this if he is party to its early publication?

    An encyclical is a big thing. Everyone…conservative, liberal, fair minded reporter or not…should let the Holy See lead and take the time to make sure they are only following what the Holy See has already published.

  14. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    “The Holy See’s spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, asked journalists to respect the ’embargo’ ”. (Do we have a good, detailed source with more about this?) I have no idea what the Vatican does. I understand from having sometime talked with ‘old-fashioned’ print journalists that things are often officially provided to them in advance by, e.g., government agencies, ‘under embargo’ – that is, on the understanding that those documents – or their contents – are not to be released before a certain stipulated time.

    To speculate freely: it is conceivable that whatever Mr. Magister made prematurely public came into his hands in this way. It is conceivable that it was a ‘draft’ which was so released to allow journalists to familiarize themselves with what was likely to be more-or-less present in the final version. I take it that it is journalistic ‘bad form’ to fail to respect such an embargo. I take it that that can have as many or as few ‘consequences’ as those in power choose to give it.

    If the old ‘Yes, Minister’ and ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ series, for example, are anywhere near the truth, ‘leaking’ has been endemic for decades – dare we presume, also on the part of Vatican officials? Is each and every sort of ‘leaking’, or of jumping an ’embargo’, categorically morally reprehensible? (A real, not a rhetorical, question.)

    If it is in fact a case of some (reporters) being entrusted with a draft in advance, it does not obviously seem “heinous” that a wider number of people could equally be entrusted with that same draft. Is the delimitation of the readership quite properly a privilege of the initial, official provider of the document?

  15. Polycarpio says:

    There’s something obvious here that’s not been explicitly stated so I will go for it. This is playing dirty against the pope. People disagree with the pope. I get that. And most of us are OK with that. I certainly am. But, it’s one thing to write an op ed explaining your reasons for your disagreement with the prudence of papal teaching documents on ecological issues and it’s another to illicitly obtain an unauthorized early version of it and publish it in an attempt to thwart the Vatican’s attempt to roll it out in a controlled manner. In fact, it may well be a disservice in the sense that it creates even greater confusion than that which you thought the original pronouncement would occasion. “Heinous” is a strong word, and who knows who said it (doubt it was Fr. Lombardi). Nevertheless, it does strike me as dastardly in the wicked and scheming sense of the word.

  16. I doubt that Sandro Magister’s eminent reportage depends upon access to the Vatican Press Office, which particularly in this papacy might be the last place one might go for reliable news about what’s happening in the Vatican.

  17. JabbaPapa says:

    Couldn’t help posting a quick comment on some very humorous “analysis” of extracts from the “Recyclical” (as he put it) on the blog of a friend, but I’ll still refrain from commenting on the substance anywhere at all ’til I’ve seen the officially final text.

    I have to say though, generally not particularly, that the ongoing sniping between the “warmists” and the “denialists” is, let’s stay polite, “extremely disappointing”.

    The reality that, on average, global temperatures are on the rise is pretty much beyond dispute.

    The causes of that temperature rising should normally be a simple matter of scientific inquiry — but the “warmist” side of the debate has been infiltrated by abortionists and other such population control zealots, including some who are actively pursuing a goal in the long term of eliminating up to 85% of the world’s population via aggressive eugenics AKA forced sterilisation and death camp “hospitals” for our elderly and other “undesirables”.

    One should nevertheless not get so carried away by one’s natural repulsion for such blatantly evil projects to lose track of our Catholic responsibility for healthy management of the Gifts of our Maker.

  18. Joseph-Mary says:

    Good one, Henry Edwards!

    Personally, I feel totally indifferent to this encyclical. I used to read the ones from DPII and PBXVI but am not reading the current ones. I do respect the earth and have been a member of Sierra and Audubon, etc. But the earth is not an idol for me and we do not kill the unborn or euthanize inconvenient persons to reduce the population. One day there will be a new heavens and a new earth…

  19. yatzer says:

    I’m astonished at how fast Vatican officialdom can react when it wants to. A leak, which always seems to happen, is pounced on. Actions dangerous to souls seemingly not so much. Maybe I’m missing something here.

  20. Paul says:

    Where is the pastoral application of mercy for Magister?

  21. Bosco says:

    Magister has always impressed me as a careful man. If this ’embargo’ was in effect, and it was plain to Magister, then I suspect that he (knowing the recent carnage surrounding those reporting on the Vatican or working in Vatican related media outlets), was likely aware he would be sacrificing his ‘rice bowl’, i.e. the Vatican beat, were he to recklessly release this encyclical in advance and let the sun shine in.

    I smell a set-up.

    Notwithstanding Magister may have done this believing the world needed a solid translation of this tome in advance of any media-hyped release so as to allow properly framed and thoughtful questions to be put by the press at the time of release. Magister may have fallen on his sword.

  22. excalibur says:

    How very judgmental. Who are they to judge, eh?

    And as yatzer points out, when was the last time the Vatican moved this fast on anything.

  23. tcreek says:

    Bound to be dozens of “talking points” for Hillary. Maybe she can outdo Obama and get 60% of the catholic vote.

  24. jacobi says:

    Personally, I am going to wait until the full official translation is out, preferably in Latin, still the official language of the Church. I understand the “draft” or whatever might have been written in Italian, and if it’s Argentinian Spano-/Italian, then better to wait for the Latin..

  25. Bea says:

    Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un journaliste pour encourager les autres.

    “encourager”? I’m sure he meant “intimider”

  26. Benedict Joseph says:

    The bottom line here is that it is humorous that they would get upset about this at all. Why? Somebody broke the rules? What about liturgical rubrics – or even the Ten Commandments! You would think that the only chance for world peace had just been extinguished. This event illuminates the unattractive, thinned skinned nature of the current Roman reality. Let’s maintain an adult perspective. This circumstance could be considered annoying if it weren’t simply farcical. Nevertheless, Mr. Magister does not deserve this. That atheist at La Reppublica gets away with – what – inaccuracies? Or an inconvenient unveiling of the current reality? Something is topsy-turvy here.

  27. Veritatis Splendor says:

    Well, whatever the intent was, the aforementioned result of confusing everyone about what the document actually says has started. Pope Francis is currently trending on facebook, and every MSM site has a headline concerning how the Pope condemns climate change and thinks it is man-made. This battle is going badly for us.

  28. Priam1184 says:

    Sandro Magister’s reporting is generally long on speculation and short on facts in any case. He gets a story right about one in ten times but he has a knack for telling his audience what they want to hear in the way they like to hear it.

    In any case it is the leaker or the group of leakers inside the Vatican who are or should be of much more interest. Someone inside the Vatican is going around leaking rough drafts, a la last year’s midterm relatio, trying to confuse the faithful and cause division in the Church. I am far more interested in who that is than in Sandro Magister’s fate.

  29. iamlucky13 says:

    Meanwhile, even the leaked document is being spun in nonsensical ways. Did you know that Pope Francis advocates reducing the population of the earth by 6 billion?

    http://www.naturalnews.com/050075_Vatican_climate_science_world_depopulation.html

    Natural News is a user contributed tabloid site, like the conspiracy sites rense.com and infowars.com. But I’ve run into people who honestly believe what they see printed on it, and even less extreme misrepresentations like we are guaranteed to see in outlets ranging from the Fishwrap to Salon will mislead plenty of people. Even the Guardian article linked within plays up controversy and focuses almost entirely on the environmental aspects of the encyclical.

  30. avecrux says:

    As someone commented earlier today on Facebook: “Why is this so disturbing to ‘curial officials’, but they didn’t seem to mind the leak of the interim report from the extraordinary synod?”

  31. Grateful to be Catholic says:

    Yes, Magister is being punished unfairly. What “embargo”? Unless he was provided with a draft or pre-publication copy on the condition that he not publish it, he is not bound by any embargo. Fr. Lombardi did not claim that that was the case. An embargo cannot be imposed retroactively.

    This sure looks like a gotcha on Magister: someone slip him a copy, watch him do what reporters do, then huff and puff and slap him with the punishment.

    Edward Pentin, watch out!

  32. donato2 says:

    This encyclical is going to be very polarizing within the Church. The action taken against Sandro Magister will serve only to exacerbate this polarization. Magister’s next column should be quite interesting.

  33. anilwang says:

    If the story on the associated press is true, it definitely does look like a setup since Magister didn’t leak the story any more than Fr Z did. He just wrote the introduction and the editor added a link in much the same way I referenced the copy of the leaked document in a comment on this forum. But Fr Z wisely removed the comment, something Magister couldn’t fix.

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_REL_VATICAN_ENCYCLICAL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-06-16-08-26-46

  34. cwillia1 says:

    I ask myself why anyone should care what Pope Francis has to say about climate change. I ask myself what Pope Francis thinks he has to contribute to the climate change issue. I ask myself how anything that Pope Francis says on climate change can affect the climate for better or for worse. I ask myself how the gospel could be advanced by an encyclical on climate change.

    I see the fruits of the cult of personality that has grown up around the papacy since the days of Pius 9 and I wonder.

  35. Kathleen10 says:

    I’m reading with interest the opinions on this. You all know a lot about how things typically work in the Vatican and I know nothing.
    This certainly does seem like a trap for Mr. Magister, which would be convenient if it lasts past October. It does appear the Vatican jumped on this like a duck on a June bug. Who knew they could move this quickly? The response seems overly punitive, and there is something kind of ugly about it. Worldly. Where’s all the mercy we hear tell about?
    I am disappointed to see the pope even write this. He is falling right into the liberal’s camp, his encyclical is going to be used to advance an agenda, likely one that goes against human beings in general. Abortion? ISIS? Christian persecution and genocide? Euthanasia? The attack on traditional marriage, which is on a precipice? Freedom of religion losing ground? All these are more worthy topics of an encyclical than the environment, and I truly love our environment and consider it precious.
    Divine intervention, we need it.

  36. robtbrown says:

    Sandro Magister has enough contacts in the Vatican and Italian episcopacy that he has almost no need of press credentials.

    And writing an encyclical of almost 200 pages is guaranteeing that it won’t be read, which also guarantees that it will be filtered through the media.

  37. Charlie says:

    The Vatican press office has been a mess for some time and needs house-cleaning. I have two people in mind who ought to be out the door.The one from your neighbour to the north ought to be one of the first out the gate.

  38. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    James Hacker: I occasionally have confidential press briefings, but I have never leaked.
    Bernard Woolley: Oh, that’s another of those irregular verbs, isn’t it? I give confidential press briefings; you leak; he’s been charged under Section 2a of the Official Secrets Act.

    Yes, Prime Minister: Man Overboard (1987)

  39. acardnal says:

    I read at LifeSiteNews that the embattled president of Catholic Relief Services, Carolyn Woo, will help present the encyclical at the Vatican.

  40. iamlucky13 says:

    @avecrux

    “As someone commented earlier today on Facebook: ‘Why is this so disturbing to ‘curial officials’, but they didn’t seem to mind the leak of the interim report from the extraordinary synod?'”

    The interim report wasn’t leaked, was it? Rather, it was written behind closed doors and released without being reviewed by almost anyone participating in the Synod, allowing it to badly misrepresent the actual discussions that took place. At least, that was how I understood the convoluted story of what happened. Please correct me if I’m mistaken.

    @cwillia1

    “I ask myself why anyone should care what Pope Francis has to say about climate change. I ask myself what Pope Francis thinks he has to contribute to the climate change issue. I ask myself how anything that Pope Francis says on climate change can affect the climate for better or for worse. “

    What makes you think Pope Francis has anything significant to say about climate change? I think you’ve been reading too much secular reporting on the Church. He’s writing an encyclical on ecology in general, and the facets of it that relate to morality. Climate change is a single one of uncountable facets of that topic, and bears no special relevance above and beyond any of the other ecology-related facets. I don’t know that he won’t discuss it to some degree, but I see no reason to think the pope is writing an encyclical detailing the effects of or evidence for climate change.

    As for why anybody should care, that’s obvious: the words of the Pope, selectively quoted or misquoted, are a useful bludgeon with which to attack Catholics who may disagree with whatever point the wielder desires to make.

    “I ask myself how the gospel could be advanced by an encyclical on climate change.”

    Presumably the gist is that there are elements of the Gospel, in particular our duties towards our fellow human beings, that have environmental implications. To use an example more obvious than climate change, if you crash an oil tanker on the US coast and wipe out the local fishery for a few years, you’ve done serious harm to those who’s livelihoods depend upon those fish, and squandered the resources of those who have to clean up after the reckless deed. That is a moral issue.

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  42. DonL says:

    “Paul says:
    Where is the pastoral application of mercy for Magister?”

    It is quite Catholic to say: BINGO!

    Actually, if I read it correctly somewhere, there is a criminal penalty in Vatican City for such things (leaks) of $5600 and/ or two years imprisonment….

  43. Incaelo says:

    The embargo on the encyclical was no secret. It has been announced daily in the press bulletin for at least a week now. Magister is bound to have known that. Some are saying that it only refers to the copies that are handed out to reporters a few hours in advance, but the intent is clear.

    Even if this leaked document is an earlier draft, Magister would have known that Monday was not the day to publish it. Early drafts are not meant for publication, and it was abundantly clear that the Holy See had set the time of publication for Thursday noon and had asked journalists to respect that date and time. Magister must have been aware of that. The decision to publish this text which, he says, was given to him by his editor, is a breach of confidence towards the publishers and author of the encyclical, as well as fellow reporters who are respecting the embargo. Simple as that.

    Magister made a call to publish. He was wrong.

  44. tcreek says:

    Over 600 theologians signed a letter of dissent against Humanae Vitae which simply sustained the 2,000 year teaching of the Church and most bishops and pastors ignored the teaching. There were no consequences for the dissenters and disdainers.

  45. Kerry says:

    “…global temperatures …on the rise is… beyond dispute”.
    No.
    “9. The “hot spot” in the inter-tropical high troposphere is, according to all “models” and to the IPCC reports, the indubitable proof of the water vapour feedback amplification of the warming: it has not been observed and does not exist.”
    “10. The water vapour content of the air has been roughly constant since more than 50 years but the humidity of the upper layers of the troposphere has been decreasing: the IPCC foretold the opposite to assert its “positive water vapour feedback” with increasing CO2. The observed “feedback” is negative.”
    “14. The observed outgoing longwave emission (or thermal infrared) of the globe is increasing, contrary to what models say on a would-be “radiative imbalance”; the “blanket” effect of CO2 or CH4 “greenhouse gases” is not seen.”
    “15. The Stefan Boltzmann formula does not apply to gases, as they are neither black bodies, nor grey bodies: why does the IPCC community use it for gases ?” (You knew this, yes?)
    “16. The trace gases absorb the radiation of the surface and radiate at the temperature of the air which is, at some height, most of the time slightly lower that of the surface. The trace-gases cannot “heat the surface“, according to the second principle of thermodynamics which prohibits heat transfer from a cooler body to a warmer body.”
    And, “7. In some geological periods the CO2 content of the air has been up to 20 times today’s content, and there has been no runaway temperature increase! Why would our CO2 emissions have a cataclysmic impact? The laws of Nature are the same whatever the place and the time. ”
    Carbon dioxide is a mere .03% of the atmosphere. (Yes, point zero three percent). Nitrogen is 78%, oxygen 21%. In decimals, .78, .21, and .0003. Ask yourself why, in the propaganda about ‘evil carbon’ it is expressed as ‘tons released into the atmosphere. Tons at what volume and pressure of gas? What is the ‘weight’ of the entire atmosphere? Given the rough circumference of the earth at 25,000 miles, let’s say the ‘atmosphere’, for breathable humans stops at, say, 4 miles up, or about 20,000 feet. Calculate the volume of the spherical earth, the volume of the earth plus atmosphere, subtract the difference, and one has the volume of the atmosphere. ‘Weight’, one supposes, is different at sea level, 15 pounds per square inch, and the top of K-2. My knowledge of gasses diffuses here, but I think expressing gases in pounds is fraudulent. (Do they ever say, with every exhalation humans release ‘x’ grams of CO2 and water vapor? They do not.
    One next to last thing. When water freezes, does its volume change? (Leave a bottle of coke in the car in December in Wyoming. Will the glass break, or will the cap be sucked down as the liquid shrinks?) So, as the ice melts, the sea will rise…?
    (The quotes come from Watts up with That. Speculation my now begin that I am paid by Saudi oil companies.)

  46. robtbrown says:

    iamlucky13 says,

    The interim report wasn’t leaked, was it? Rather, it was written behind closed doors and released without being reviewed by almost anyone participating in the Synod, allowing it to badly misrepresent the actual discussions that took place. At least, that was how I understood the convoluted story of what happened. Please correct me if I’m mistaken.

    George Weigel described it as “leaked”.

    The interim document was intended to be a reflection of the previous days of discussion (relatio post disceptationem). Even if the interim document was intended to be released, the fact that it was not a true reflection of what had been said but rather disinformation that was a reflection of the ideology of Bruno Forte means that it was leaked rather than released.

    In fact, it could have been better described as a relatio sine disceptationem.

  47. Elizabeth D says:

    To iamlucky13 and robtbrown, I was told by a participant who was in the room the whole time at the first Synod on the Family and is clearly not a dissident, that the interim report was an accurate representation of what was discussed during the Synod’s first week. However, she (the only US lay woman participant) said that the English translation was a rush job and the first version (delivered Sunday night I believe?) was not good. There had to be a re-translation that was delivered Monday, and that one was okay. It had been her understanding that the interim report was not meant to be released to the public, but was basically leaked. She also said it was obvious that few participants agreed with the Kasper proposal.

    Regarding Sandro Magister, it is hard for me to understand why he would go along with doing this; did his editor coerce him?

  48. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    anilwang (yesterday at 4:55 PM),

    Thanks for the link!

    There, Nicole Winfield writes, “Magister told The Associated Press that his editor, not he, obtained the document and decided to publish it.

    ” ‘I just wrote the introduction,’ Magister said in a text message, adding that he had promised the Vatican to keep quiet about the scoop.” And “In the aftermath of the ‘Vatileaks’ scandal, the Vatican City State updated its criminal code to include severe penalties for anyone who leaks a Vatican document or publishes news from it: Up to two years in prison and a 5,000 euro ($5,600) fine.”

    So, did Mr. Magister know who the source was? Is that what “he had promised the Vatican to keep quiet about the scoop” means? Who is “the Vatican”, here? Does it imply that (some of) The Powers That Be were happy for him to have this version ‘under embargo’ prior to whatever is planned for release to reporters ‘under embargo’ in a little less than two hours from now, as long as he did not do anything further with it in public?

    Have I missed official ‘Vatican’ statements about going after the source? As Priam1184 says, “In any case it is the leaker or the group of leakers inside the Vatican who are or should be of much more interest.” Surely what Fr. Lombardi calls “strong discomfort for many journalistic colleagues and grave disturbance to the good service of this press office” (in the translation John Allen gives) has its primary source with ‘Espresso’s ‘inside source’.

    So far, this is all I have seen expressly (no pun intended!) from Mr, Magister (including his link, here):

    http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2015/06/15/la-laudato-si-in-anteprima-mondiale-autore-francesco-editore-lespresso/

    Someone who really knows Italian might help the rest of us, here! My dictionary tells me that ‘draft’ is not the only sense of “bozza”, however: it can me ‘proof copy’ (in which case Fr. Lombardi might be implying ‘uncorrected proof’). It is interesting (if I take the sense correctly – with Google-help!) that Mr. Magister writes, “Certo, colpisce che il testo della ‘Laudato si’ sia stato tribolato e limato fino all’ultimo, al punto da mandare al macero pochi giorni fa le prime copie stampate ‘sub secreto’ dalla Libreria Editrice Vaticana, perché qua e là ancora da correggere.” We shall know more tomorrow…

  49. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    Elizabeth D asks, “Regarding Sandro Magister, it is hard for me to understand why he would go along with doing this; did his editor coerce him?” Good questions! Ought he to have refused ‘just to write the introduction’?

    Incaelo wrote, “The decision to publish this text which, he says, was given to him by his editor, is a breach of confidence towards the publishers and author of the encyclical, as well as fellow reporters who are respecting the embargo. Simple as that.

    “Magister made a call to publish. He was wrong.” Did he make such a call? Or only a ‘call’ to write an introduction since the editor would publish in any case? Is that what he did wrong? The “breach of confidence towards the publishers and author of the encyclical” (whoever the latter might be: will we be told, in detail? e.g., the Holy Father entirely by himself, or…?) – that breach would be twofold, I presume: primarily on the part of the Vatican leaker(s), secondarily – if spectacularly – on the part of those formally responsible at l’Espresso. Is Mr. Magister having his accreditation suspended in his office as l ‘Espresso correspondent, or in his person? Fr. Lombardi’s notice – which Fr. Dorantes tweet shows as openly posted (a breach of confidence? or of courtesy?) – is simply addressed to him and not to ‘the Correspondent of…’.

    By thr way, if “The embargo on the encyclical was no secret. It has been announced daily in the press bulletin for at least a week now” where exactly do we find that? I could not immediately see any instance in the June bulletins on the Vatican site, but I may just not know where to look.

  50. JabbaPapa says:

    “…global temperatures …on the rise is… beyond dispute”.
    No.

    Sorry — should have written “beyond reasonable dispute”.

    I was momentarily oblivious of the existence of the true hard core coolists/denialists, and their almost complete resistance to even the simplest sources of evidence. To wit :

    One next to last thing. When water freezes, does its volume change? (Leave a bottle of coke in the car in December in Wyoming. Will the glass break, or will the cap be sucked down as the liquid shrinks?)

    Crikey — take an ice tray, fill it with tap water making sure it’s filled to the brim, freeze it — take note of the fact that the volume of the ice is inferior to that of the water that you used.

    Meanwhile, coke bottles are by design intended to be resistant to the resulting pressure differentials from cooling or freezing them in an ordinary fridge ; though it’s possible you could get one to crack or shiver in extreme cases of vast temperature differentials, for example an extremely cold fridge/freezer and an extreme tropical or desert heat wave.

    But generally speaking, yes those sorts of things can in fact happen with soda bottles : http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/blog/in-the-news/soda-bottle-explodes-like-a-bomb/

  51. Magash says:

    There are really two ways to look at this.
    Certainly in the strict legal sense I would postulate that Magister did not break the embargo. The embargo is only binding upon journalists to whom the Vatican released a copy. It can not in any way be binding on someone to whom no official copy was given. This supposes that Magister was not given such a copy.
    In a more moralistic sense Magister surely knew that whom ever released the draft, or whatever kind of advanced copy it was, was not authorized to release said copy. While often a journalist can appeal to a higher moral authority when releasing, for example, official government documents, which are illegal to release, but contain information that the public should be made privy to, I do not see any higher moral ground here.
    While it might be of significant interest to compare the draft copy with the final release, such an analysis would be just as interesting were the draft copy held until the official document was released. My opinion on this might be different if the draft had been released a couple of months ago, when work on the final document was unfinished and release had the chance of pushing reforms of specific sections. At this point the final, official document is most likely finished and release will have no effect on its contents.
    I do agree that withdrawal of his press credentials will have almost no effect on Magister’s ability to report on Vatican activities, unless they can ban him from the city-state entirely. It mostly seems petty on the part of the Vatican Press Office. They, of course, can refuse press credentials to anyone they choose, for any or no reason. However it does appear petty and is not likely to have any effect on other journalists, other than to ensure that future leaks will simply be published without bylines.
    The present U.S. administration has tried more than once to ban specific news organizations, and found itself a victim of the Streisand Effect for their trouble. I think that the Vatican Press Office will regret its banning of Magister if it ends up being the story.

  52. Grateful to be Catholic says:

    Elizabeth D: I don’t quite understand the statements made by your interlocutor who attended the Synod in October. She said the Interim Report was not supposed to be released. But they held a press conference for it and released it in five languages, before the Synod participants had seen it. She said it fairly represented the previous week’s discussions, but it was denounced by several cardinals and others, who also presumably were in the room the whole time, as not accurately representing the discussions. That’s what the uproar was about.

  53. albizzi says:

    I suggest Fr Lombardi to bestow Sandro Magister his pastoral indulgence nextly.
    Hate sin, but love the sinner.
    “To every sin, mercy of course”

  54. Dr. Edward Peters says:

    What Magash said.

  55. acardnal says:

    Elizabeth D., can you please clarify your statement:
    “I was told by a participant who was in the room the whole time at the first Synod on the Family and is clearly not a dissident, that the interim report was an accurate representation of what was discussed during the Synod’s first week. However, she (the only US lay woman participant) ….”

    There were two married couples from the USA invited to attend as auditors at the October 2014 Synod. Are you referring to Alice Heinzen from La Crosse, Wisconsin?

    http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1403738.htm

  56. Elizabeth D says:

    Yes, Alice Heinzen. She said that the other couple that had been invited was not able to attend, making the Heinzens the only US married couple to participate in the synod.

  57. Grateful: I’m reminded of academic faculty committees where a standard operating procedure is for a small group of members to write the committee’s ostensible report in advance of its first meeting, then when it does meet, make the statements quoted in the pre-written report, so they can be recorded whether or not they represent genuine discussion in the actual committee sessions.

  58. The Masked Chicken says:

    ““15. The Stefan Boltzmann formula does not apply to gases, as they are neither black bodies, nor grey bodies: why does the IPCC community use it for gases ?” (You knew this, yes?).”

    Actually, one can use the Stefan-Boltzman formula as an approximation to the temperature of the earth, because it treats the radiative energy of a Black body and what one can measure is the deviation from the Blackbody temperature that should occur. For example,

    J = (2π^5k^4)/(15c^2h^3)T^4
    where J = power, k = Boltzmann’s constant, c = speed of light, h = Plank’s constant. Let σ = (2π^5k^4)/(15c^2h^3).

    The emissive power of the sun is simply J times the surface area of the sun = Asun = 4πRsun^2,

    where Rsun = radius and T the temperature of the sun, respectively, so Esun = Asun x σT^4. . One may consider the earth and sun to both be situated in the middle of a sphere, with the earth at the center and the sun at the circumference (so the radius is the earth-sun distance, Res), so the energy reaching the center is Eearth = Esun/4πRes^2.

    The cross-section of the earth is S = πRe^2, so the radiation absorbed is:

    Eabsorbed = S x Eearth. By energy conservation, the mount of energy emitted = energy absorbed (all things being equal), so Eabsorbed = Aearth x σTearth^4.

    Solving for Tearth = Tsun (Rsun/2Res)^1/2.

    The reflected light is about 30% from the earth’s surface, lowering the temperature, while greenhouse gases trap light, increasing the effective absorptivity, the planet’s temperature is modified, again. Thus, temperature of the earth is the sum of three factors:

    1. Stefan-Boltzmann Blackbody radiation,
    2. albedo (reflection of sunlight), and
    3. greenhouse gas energy trapping.

    In short, the Stefan-Boltzman formula does not apply to the gases in the atmosphere. It establishes a baseline, if there were no gases and the earth were perfectly absorbing.

    The Chicken

    P. S. Isn’t there a Mathml plug-in for WordPress :(

  59. Grateful to be Catholic says:

    Henry Edwards: Oh, those clever academics! But you raise an important point: the suspicion that the Interim Report was written before the Synod and the amazing alacrity with which translations were produced virtually overnight.

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