rash judgment

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | May 11, 2010

In submitting my nomination for the stupidest headline of the month, I acted too soon.

Just minutes after posting that item, I saw a new report from the inimitable Ruth Gledhill of the London Times: 

Pope's move on abuse mirrors lead taken by English and Welsh bishops

The Pope's "recognition of the gravity of the problems facing the Church," Gledhill tells her readers, is a "significant change." 

Until today, you see, the man who spoke in 2005 about the "filth" in the Church-- the man whose blunt assessment of the crisis in Catholicism made The Ratzinger Report a sensation in the 1980s-- hadn't recognized the gravity of the problems. Then the bishops of England and Wales enlightened him.