Intrepid New York Times reporter Laurie Goodstein has gone out and interviewed seven—-count ‘em, seven!—-individuals, three of them in the same room, each more or less “conservative” in his or her Catholicism, and she found some of them—-not all—-willing to criticize Pope Francis. This was somehow considered, by her editors, to be a “news” story worthy of the front page on a Sunday, when the paper’s readership is at its greatest.
One can only conclude that her editors really wanted the headline to travel round the world, while people skip reading the actual article. ” Conservative U.S. Catholics Feel Left Out of the Pope’s Embrace ” is a humdinger of a headline. But the story itself? No humdinger, only ho-hum.
