The New York Sun has published an opinion piece I rewrote about the Vatican’s conclusion-jumping regarding the Sri Lankan refusal to admit Israeli aid workers this week. As you may recall, the official Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, accused Israelis of being “too often preoccupied with making war” because of their supposed refusal to help the Sri Lankans. Not only was it sloppy journalism — the truth had been long discovered by bloggers — but the conclusions reached by L’Osservatore Romano smacked of knee-jerk anti-Semitism.
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UPDATE: You’re not going to believe this, but the independent Catholic wire service that apparently first translated L’Osservatore Romano now claims they screwed it up:
Vatican, Dec. 30 (CWNews.com) – The following is a corrected version of a story that appeared on CWNews.com earlier this week, in which a crucial error in translation caused a serious misinterpretation of the news. CWNews apologizes for the error.
Vatican, Dec. 28 (CWNews.com) – The Vatican newspaper has denounced a decision by Sri Lanka to reject emergency aid offered by the Israeli government. Sri Lanka declined the Israeli aid because it would have been furnished by a military team.
Nice. Apparently, Catholics have lots of problem checking sources. No word from the Jerusalem Post on their translation or any retraction.