I said recently the Pope owed Greta Thunberg an apology for meeting with her and contributing to this media circus swirling around her. Today, I looked up articles about their meeting.
Conclusion: I owe him an apology. Sorry, Pope.
His first language is Spanish. He may not realize that the English headlines sound like he sought her out and traveled to see her.
Nope. That's not what happened.
She traveled to Rome, in part explicitly seeking audience with the Pope. He spoke briefly with her in public following his weekly public audience.
She held up a climate change sign, knowing this would make the news. He's pro environment, so he might be okay with being bluntly used by this girl and whomever is behind her to further their media circus, but he should review his PR policies.
This should never have been framed as "Pope meets with Greta Thunberg." That sounds like he sought her out, not the other way around.
It sounds like a special private meeting where he gave her his blessings. It sounds like a much bigger deal than what really happened.
He's been used. The headlines are technically literally true -- they met -- but they are framed like he was treating her en par with, say, international heads of state. He wasn't.
Suggested alternate titles:
Pope grants Greta Thunberg brief audience following his weekly public audience.
Pope graciously gives Greta a word of encouragement when she travels to Rome to seek him out.
Pope takes a moment of time to acknowledge Greta's presence at his weekly public audience.
Pope smiled upon Greta's environmental mission when she was in Rome hoping he would grant her a brief audience.
The headlines should have sought to make it very clear she sought him out and he politely and graciously gave her a few minutes of his time. Instead, they sound like he's running around actively looking for people to back in a politically manipulative fashion to promote his pet cause.
In addition to Spanish, he also speaks Italian, French, Portuguese and German. He has given at least one speech in heavily accented English, but is apparently not really fluent in it.
So he might honestly be missing something. "Lost in translation."
But he needs better English language Public Relations people. His English language press releases aren't accurately communicating what really happened.
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