Does anyone remember newspaper “corrections”?
Let me explain the concept to younger GetReligion readers. Back in the days of ink-on-paper news, if a news organization made a mistake, the editors used to print an actual correction, noting the error and providing the correct information. Then, early in the online era, they would add a “correction” blurb at the top of a story and then insert a detailed correction at the end (or some variation on these items).
Then some, not all, news organizations simply started correcting mistakes — in the never-ending flow of online copy — without admitting that they made these mistakes in the first place. Thus, savvy news readers began making screenshots of errors they spotted, knowing that this was the only definitive way to prove the error ever existed.
Now, we have something really strange going on in the following Reuters news report: “Catholic Church to beatify Polish family, including new-born baby, killed by Nazis.”
If you follow Catholic Twitter, it appears that there were errors in an earlier version of this story.
Maybe. It’s hard to tell.
Then again, the current version of the story (as I wrote this) appears to contain a clash between two different accounts of this beatification story.
Start here: Note the “including new-born baby” reference in the headline.Then, let’s work through this, starting with the lede from several days ago:
VATICAN CITY, Sept 5 (Reuters) — The Catholic Church is to beatify a Polish family of nine including a new-born baby who died at the hands of the Nazis during World War Two, the Vatican's saint-making department said. …
The service to beatify Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children will be held on Sunday in the Polish town of Markowa where they died in March 1944. The family was killed by German military police for sheltering a family of Jews.
The Ulmas hid them for a year and a half and were shot with them when Nazi guards discovered them.
Beatification is the last step before sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church. Vatican media have noted that it is the first time that an entire family has been honoured together in this manner. However, the Vatican's Dicastery for the Causes of Saints clarified that the beatification would not include an unborn child, as has been claimed by several media reports in the past few days.
OK, do the math. The lede says “family of nine.” That would include the “unborn” child, while the headline describes a “new-born baby.”
What is happening? What is the correct information? The rite didn’t “include an unborn child”?
Correction please?
Or a correction of the correction that was inserted without really noting it was a correction? Help?
This same version of the Reuters report also notes:
Wiktoria Ulma was heavily pregnant and gave birth as she was killed, giving her youngest son a "blood baptism", the dicastery said.
On its website, the Vatican department says the baby boy's body was found when the family was exhumed to give them "a more dignified" burial. The other six Ulma children executed by the Nazis were aged between 18 months and seven, it added.
The child in question was born as the mother was killed by the Nazis. That gives us a family of nine. Thus, it appears that this (maybe) inserted correction is, in fact, an error — “However, the Vatican's Dicastery for the Causes of Saints clarified that the beatification would not include an unborn child, as has been claimed by several media reports in the past few days.”
Is that clear?
Readers can, of course, turn to Catholic news for additional information. This Catholic News Agency report is very specific and on point:
Early on March 24, 1944, a Nazi patrol surrounded the home of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma on the outskirts of Markowa. They discovered the Jewish people hiding on the Ulma farm and executed them.
The Nazi police then killed 31-year-old Wiktoria, who was pregnant and in premature labor, and 44-year-old Józef outside their home. An additional order sealed the fate of the remaining family members: “Kill the children, too.” Stanisława, 7; Barbara, 6; Władysław, 5; Franciszek, almost 4; Antoni, 2; and Maria, 1, were executed.
The seventh Ulma child to die was the couple’s unnamed son, who was in the process of being born. The boy had been incorrectly described in some news reports as the first unborn child to be beatified, a key detail that the Vatican recently clarified. Though there was no time to baptize the child, what transpired instead was what the Church calls a “baptism of blood.”
What does the Reuters team need to do at this point?
FIRST IMAGE: Feature art — care of the Polish Bishops Conference — with this Catholic News Agency story: “Ulma family beatified on a ‘day of joy’ in Poland.”