Ellen Wallace
[update: 22:18, I was so distracted by the story I forgot to add the Google bit. Check out the story on any of these links and then look at the Google ads. I think someone should send the Vatican a list of 10 points, a mini-commandments, that cover working with Google Ads. Of course, that wouldn't cover the ads on the sites of newspapers that run the story.]
The hottest world news Tuesday evening must surely be the Vatican’s new Ten Commandments, part of a 35-page document about how to behave on the road entitled "Pastoral Care of the Road." A quick Google search and it is clear that the story by Reuters writer Philip Pullella is zooming around the world and being picked up by several major news media, including News.com in Australia. The BBC wrote its own version. Meanwhile, MSNBC and CNN were running the AP version, as did Canada’s The Star.
Maybe we are all tired of stories about bombs and missiles in Baghdad, Gaza, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Or maybe so many of us spend so much time on the road that we welcome a guide to good road behaviour. Most of the stories have a touch of humour to them. It is, after all, an uncommon – some would say odd – topic for a document.
My favourite version of the story is the one from Catholic World News, which takes a serious approach. I had one question, which was why? Why did a group of bishops think they should write this document? I don’t want to spoil the whole story, but here’s the answer to that question: "Cardinal Renato Martino (bio – news),
the president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants, explained that
the document is designed to ‘guide and coordinate all the ecclesial
bodies in the world of the pastoral care of the road, and to encourage
and stimulate episcopal conferences of countries in which this form of
pastoral care does not exist, to organize it.’"
This reminds me of my schooldays when we would ask questions such as "What’s wrong with sex before marriage?" and we would get answers that did not encourage more questions.
If you have more questions, however, the rest of the article might help. After all, it makes the leap from road rage to helping prostitutes to – read on. And for a good lesson in how news jumps in format from a press release to popular news, read the paper that started the news ball rolling, from the Vatican.
GenevaLunch, 19 June 2007.
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