It was a heartwarming story for legions of pet owners and animal lovers around the world: Pope Francis telling a distraught boy whose pet had died that there was a place in heaven for the creatures we share our lives with.
The comment was widely reported by media outlets outside Italy last week, with dozens of articles appearing in the US. It was veritable catnip to social media, until it turned out the pope had not said it.
The news stories were apparently based on a misreading of remarks Francis made at his weekly general audience at the Vatican on Nov. 26 and on a comment that a past pope did make several decades ago.
Pope Paul VI, who died in 1978, once reportedly said while comforting a child whose dog had died that “one day we will see our animals in the eternity of Christ.”
“There is a fundamental rule in journalism. That is double-checking and in this case it was not done,” Vatican deputy spokesman Father Ciro Benedettini said on Saturday when asked about how the media had run with the story.
Benedettini said he received several calls on the story from outside Italy on Friday and was taken by surprise, because he did not recall the pope saying anything like that.
The Religion News Service was among the first to set the record straight. It said in an article late on Friday that the error appeared to have stemmed from a piece in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on Nov. 27, whose headline appeared to have mislead some.
The article recounted the pope’s general audience on Nov. 26, when the topic was the transformation of all creation into a new heaven and Earth. It cited the remark about animals and rightly attributed it to Paul VI, but its headline said: “The pope and animals: ‘Paradise is open to all creatures.’”
The New York Times, which ran a story on Thursday about the purported comment by Francis, acknowledged its mistake, saying in a correction on Friday that it had misattributed the remark by Paul VI to the current pope.
Asked about the mistake, a Times spokeswoman quoted managing editor of international news Michael Slackman as saying: “The correction in the Times notes that the specific content and wording were wrong in the article. However, the pope did in fact make comments suggesting heaven is open to animals.”
In his Nov. 26 remarks, Francis said: “The Sacred Scripture teaches us that the fulfillment of this marvelous plan cannot, but affect all that which surrounds us and which emerged from the thought and the heart of God.”
He did not refer specifically to animals in the address.
On its Web site, CNN also corrected its story, saying it is unclear what Francis believes about pets going to heaven.
As for what Francis does think about animals, he has not spoken much about them in public, but Benedettini said that from the general tone of his speeches and gestures “it is clear that he is in spiritual harmony with all of creation.”
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