Vatican damage control

Some time ago, Pope Benedict said condoms were permitted under certain circumstances.  Of course, Catholic sources were quick to do damage control, saying that, in context, the pope's comments were not quite so enlightened as praise-givers claimed.

Later, Pope Francis said that even atheists are redeemed.  Yes, even atheists.  But just as everyone was praising his papal condescension, the vatican does damage control.  It turns out that redemption doesn't mean you go to heaven or anything like that, that would be "salvation".  Only Catholics get salvation.

More recently, Pope Francis said of gay priests, "Who am I to judge them?"  Other Catholic leaders do damage control, reassuring us all that the Church still disapproves of same-sex sex.

Every time it happens, it's practically a story out of The Onion.  No really, this is an article from The Onion: Vatican Quickly Performs Damage Control on Pope's Tolerant Remarks.

What can we conclude?  The media really wants to say true and positive things about the modern Catholic Church, but is hilariously unable.  People just don't understand that the Catholic Church's beliefs are already laid out in the Catechism in their full regressive glory, and thus not really newsworthy. The Catholic's "love the sinner, hate the sin" stance on homosexuality makes so little sense that the media gets confused every time it hears it.