Pope Benedict Story Regarding Names For Babies Has Made Up Pope Quotes - (Updated)

UPDATE-Blogger is givng me fits this aftrnoon but I managed to get on to this update. Very honored that two quality blog took notice of my piece and have stories up. Get Religion has More imaginary papal wars. Also the very good Houston Chronicle Religion blog Houston Belief (which I link below has a story up. See British papers make up papal quotes?

It appears newspapers now are just making Pope Benedict quotes up to fit a storyline. Strangely this is a story where I WISH Pope Benedict said this but he did not. Though I am willing to bet he thinks this is a good idea.

The U.S. media had picked up on what a few UK papers have written as to Pope's remarks at the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord. The Pope at this time baptizes children.

For instance A Houston reporter picks up this story that seems to be going off the UK papers. In this case this Independent story. More on them later. See Pope doesn't like weird baby names trend. It starts out:

Maybe Pope Benedict XVI got a look at this list of weird celebrity baby names (like Apple, Sparrow and Rumer). On Tuesday, he dismissed parents who get too creative giving their children names outside of traditional Christian ones.

"Every baptism should ensure that the child is given a Christian name, an unmistakable sign that the Holy Spirit will allow the person to blossom in the bosom of the Church," Benedict said. "Do not give your children names that are not in the Christian calendar."

Now the problem is the Pope never said that last part!! It's made up. I wished he did and I think to get your baby baptized by the Pope your baby cannot be named Moon Child. But he did not. Read the rest of her article which is a good read.

As I mentioned the Independent is the source of the words the Pope did not say.

However they were not the only offender. See this page from the UK Telegraph:
Pope rails against rise of un-Christian names
The Pope has warned parents against giving children celebrity-inspired names and urged them to turn to the Bible for inspiration instead.

The problem with that headline is that apparently this must have happened in some alternative universe because it sure did not occur at the Vatican.

The article is quite good by the way as to the people they interview on WHY you don't need to name kids after singers and football players and such.

We see this:

While names such as Sienna and Scarlett have become fashionable in recent years, Pope Benedict XVI called for a return to tradition.

However when you read his article you again wonder where the Pope said this?

Now unlike the Independent article there is no made up quote. However the Telegraph piece just says he said something like the above. I am awaiting for the Vatican to finally get around to posting both the Mass Homily and and the Angelus on their web site. However the text has of course circulate and been released in other outlets. See this page where the translations are posted (scroll down)

The Pope at the Angelus (not the Mass) said:

"He is truly the Messiah, the Son of the Most High, who, emerging from the waters of the Jordan, establishes regeneration in the Spirit and opens, to those who wish it, the possibility of becoming children of God, in which one acquires the character of a child of God, starting with the Christian name, a sign that the Holy Spirit makes him 'born again' in the womb of the Church".

Yep that is it as to the "name" part!!! How we get from from that to the above headline?

I looked also at the translation of the Papal Homily itself on that same page and he does even mention "naming".

I was curious how all got this started. There is a very good Italian Catholic blog that looks at article on Pope Benedict and the Catholic Church that is :

Il blog degli Amici di Papa Ratzinger which translates to as The Blog of the Friends of Pope Ratzinger.

Now I read this via the google translate function while not giving me a GREAT translation it does give a doable one.

Most of their coverage has been on the pretty huge speech the Pope made to the Diplomatic Corp. However they did how some article on the Feast Day and the remarks. They had this interesting article (LINKED AND TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH) Have any of you heard the Pope say the sentence: "For the children given Christian names even if they are not among those fashionable"?

From what I can tell from the comments they too are shocked that comments and "quotes" are being given to come from the Pope that never happened.

How often does this happen and we don't catch?