New York Times science writer Cornelia Dean called and left a message today saying she’s writing an article about another article. Specifically she was asking for Discovery Institute’s response to an article that recently appeared in the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano. I sent her this brief reply in e-mail. It will be interesting to see if she quotes from it.

Not surprisingly, The New York Times did not the cover the Pope’s approving mention of intelligent design in one of his Wednesday speeches last November, yet it seems to take seriously as Vatican policy an op-ed by a little known writer published in the L’Osservatore Romano. We reported about this at length ourselves at https://evolutionnews.org/2005/11/in_evolution_debate_the_media.html .

In similar fashion great attention has been paid to George Coyne whose opinions are at variance from other Vatican positions that have been taken. This stands in contrast to the comments from the most prestigious person besides the Pope who has written and spoken at length on this topic, Cardinal Schönborn of Austria (see here, here, and here). He’s in the midst of giving nine lectures on the topic that the Times has not covered.

It looks to us as if you are trying to put words in the Vatican’s mouth.

It’s funny that the Times is reporting on an op-ed as if it were the official position of the Vatican. That would be like a reader assuming that Cardinal Schönborn’s piece, published in the New York Times distancing the Church from Darwinism was the official view of the Times.