Surprise, surprise: Pope Francis and the Catholic Church are still wholly against abortion, in all instances.

Huh. Who knew?

Well, apart from everyone other than the liberal MSM wishful-thinkers and their dwindling number of readers.

—

For months now Pope Francis has had various statements “soundbited” by the press into saying things which he simply didn’t say. He was even named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year largely based on such “wishcasting”.

This Pope may possess a softer voice than his predecessors, but he is far from the liberal/socialist revolutionary which the Media is trying to paint him. But journalists have already spent quite a bit of effort in creating their template of ‘Francis, the Leftist Warrior’ and they won’t be dissuaded easily.

Which partially explains this Reuters’ headline, and story:

This may be the stupidest headline and premise of a story ever. Way to go Reuters. http://t.co/Is43j2Uzli — Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) January 13, 2014

(via Reuters) – Pope Francis, whom conservatives in the Roman Catholic Church have accused of not speaking out forcefully enough against abortion, on Monday called the practice “horrific“.

The pope made his toughest remarks to date on abortion in his yearly address to diplomats accredited to the Vatican, a speech known as his “State of the World” address.

“It is horrific even to think that there are children, victims of abortion, who will never see the light of day,” he said in a section of the speech about the rights of children around the world.

Abortion, he said, was part of a “throwaway culture“ that had enveloped many parts of the world.

“Unfortunately, what is thrown away is not only food and dispensable objects, but often human beings themselves, who are discarded as unnecessary,” he said.

Sounds pretty straight forward, right? But look at that headline again: “…in Nod to Conservatives“.

Ridiculous. The article in essence tries to show Francis as knuckling under to Conservatives’ criticism, which is beyond laughable: it’s just patently untrue.

Guaranteed: no one at Reuters bothered to read all of Francis’ Evangelii Gaudium from last November. In it, he also called for the Church to stand against the modern-day “throw away culture”, …abortion included.

As Ed over at HotAir commented at the time, virtually all of the media’s coverage of the Pope has not merely missed the proverbial forest for the trees, “…it misses the forest for just a couple of trees“.

Eventually, the press will figure out that the liberal, pro-socialism, gay-activist Pope that they’ve created in their hive mind doesn’t actually exist. Even better, they then might figure out that hundreds of millions of people love him dearly, “despite” him not being the progressive culture warrior that the press wanted him to be.

Accordingly, I’m guessing that when that day comes (and it’s already starting), the media’s coverage of him will …change.

And I’m further guessing that, as a result, Time Magazine won’t even consider him for their “Person of the Year” again. Ever.

Call it a hunch.