The Associated Press writes about the effort by the Vatican to re-focus attention on the sacrament of Confession by having some sort of public event at the Apostolic Penitentiary, a kind of ecclesiastical court in which petitions for absolution for reserved sins are heard. It’s a generally okay article, as well as the secular media usually handles such things, and highlights how the sacrament has fallen into disuse. But at the end, the reporter describes the Roman building that houses the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Roman Rota, and the Apostolic Signatura and ends with the usual weird dig at the Church:
Taking up nearly an entire city block, it is just steps away from one of Rome’s most profane piazzas — Campo dei Fiori, filled with bars catering to tourists and college-age Americans studying abroad.
Is that supposed to be humorously ironic? What we’re supposed to walk away with is the impression that despite the best efforts of the old fossils in the Catholic Church, young people are still partying and sinning right under their noses. This is journalism today.
