Breitbart mangles quotes, story, and truth

Bad [and now corrected] copy editing attributes anti-Church words to me

In one of the sloppiest editing jobs I’ve seen in an international news story, Breitbart confuses me and my quote with someone else—and that someone else is highly critical of Church teachings on life.

Here’s the erroneous paragraph from the original story in Breitbart:

Bill Patenaude, a founding member of the Global Catholic Climate Movement commented “we eagerly join our voices to Pope Francis’s prayer intention for April. And we ask others to join us. And given that issues like climate change can cause division, we especially pray for unity within the Church and a willingness to act.

“We agree with the Pope that over consumption in the developed world needs to be curbed. But we also think that unrestrained population growth in the developing world is an equally pressing problem. In this respect, the Catholic church, with its restrictions on birth control, is one of the greatest threats to effort to protect the environment.” The Global Catholic Climate Movement encourages parishes to organize special holy hours in April.

Notice the lack of a closing quote to end my words? And the lack of an attribution to who is making the quote in the second paragraph?

Now here’s the original quote from the Global Catholic Climate Movement press release.

“Recognizing that it is Christ who makes all things new,” said Bill Patenaude, a founding member of the Global Catholic Climate Movement and author of CatholicEcology.net, “we eagerly join our voices to Pope Francis’s prayer intention for April. And we ask others to join us. We pray for the virtue to live in accord with God’s laws. We pray for mercy for our sins against each other and against the natural order. And given that issues like climate change can cause division, we especially pray for unity within the Church and a willingness to act.” The Global Catholic Climate Movement encourages parishes to organize special holy hours in April with Eucharistic adoration and Benediction by including Pope Francis’s prayer intention and the provided prayer resources.

And here is the press release itself. And here and here (and here, and here, and here) are some of my posts and writings that may be of interest.

I’ve Tweeted the author, Ms. A.B. Sanderson, and Breitbart and have made a few calls.

UPDATE: Ms. Sanderson quickly responded to my email and has corrected the story. Whatever internal editorial error that was made within the Breitbart organization, the author herself speedily corrected the error, which I believe to have been unintentional. For that I am grateful.

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Catholic Ecology posts my regular column in the Rhode Island Catholic, as well as scientific and theological commentary about the latest eco-news, both within and outside of the Catholic Church. What is contained herein is but one person's attempt to teach and defend the Church's teachings - ecological and otherwise. As such, I offer all contents of this blog for approval of the bishops of the Church. It is my hope that nothing herein will lead anyone astray from truth.