The online news journal Crux reported this morning that Pope Francis told a group of college students in Singapore: “[A]ll religions are a path to God. They are like different languages in order to arrive at God….” Well, he stole my line. I used to teach at a rural high school in Georgia where I was the only Catholic in town. In response to a student’s question about whether I thought Catholicism was the only true faith, I had to answer that no, I didn’t. I had lived among people of all sorts of faiths and those of no faith at all. I told them that one of the best, most kind-hearted persons I ever knew was my Baptist mother. Understanding that what he really wanted to know was why I was Catholic and not Baptist, I went on, “It’s like different languages. We speak different languages but we’re saying the same thing,” and I would add, “God is multi-lingual, you know. He hears us whether we speak Catholic or Baptist.”

 The Pope’s intention in stealing my metaphor was to illustrate the brotherhood of man: “Since God is God for all, we are all children of God.” I have to wonder, however, what the writer’s intention was in introducing the Pope’s comments by saying, “In a line that may once again stir reaction in more traditionalist Catholic quarters, ….” Well, I am one of those “more traditionalist” Catholics, and I am not “reacting.” Why do journalists say these things? It’s not reporting; it’s assuming. Worse, the assumption is born of a hope that readers will react. Among the many good journalists, there lurk personalities who are, at their core, sensation-mongers. They lust after shock, and attempt to create it, often by using rhetorical questions, or just by suggestive phrasing like this. I learned long ago as a reader that writers make assumptions about their readers. I sometimes wonder if readers are aware of what the writers they read actually think of them.