[Ads-l] Pope Francis Quote

[Shapiro, Fred]

I apologize for my coyness concerning why Pope Francis's "who am I to judge" quote is not eligible for my 2014 list of notable quotations of the year, and I hope this did not come across as obnoxiousness toward the people on this list who have been so helpful to me this year and in the past.  But I thought it was very obvious, from the 2013 date in Beth's original link and the words accompanying that link ("With those five words, spoken in late July in reply to a reporter's question about the status of gay priests in the Church ..."), that this was a 2013 quote.

Indeed, we discussed this quote, as a QOTY candidate, on this list in August 2013.  I reproduce my posting below, in order to indicate that I had another reason for not using this quote, namely that I was skeptical that Francis's words signalled any kind of major change in Church policy toward homosexuals.  It is still not clear that there has been any major substantive change; it may be that Francis is merely putting a humane face on the same old doctrines and policies.  I hope that is not the case.

Fred Shapiro



On Sun, Aug 25, 2013 at 5:27 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:

>>"Se una persona è gay e cerca il Signore e ha buona volontà, ma chi
>>sono io per giudicarla?" ("If someone is gay and is searching for the
>>Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him?") -- Pope Francis,
>>July 28, 2013

> Others have suggested this quotation to me as a candidate for one of the most notable quotations of the year.  I would consider it as such if I believed it signaled some major change in the Church's attitudes toward homosexuality, but I have not regarded it as a serious candidate because I don't expect that it will signal any major change by the Church.


------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org