There’s been a lot of very understandable confusion surrounding an editorial by the Vatican newspaper that put a positive spin on President Obama’s administration despite his aggressive anti-life policies.

Despite the fact that L’Osservatore Romano is the official Vatican newspaper, its editorials are not officially representative of the Vatican. I know this seems confusing and is arguably not well designed.

I worked at newspaper as a copy editor for a short time. My job was to make sure that everything of the Pope’s that had been translated was consistent with what he actually said. Many people had to review a piece before it went out. I was just one of several. But the fact remained that the newspaper had this editorial freedom…

George Weigel has a great analysis here.

It’s also worth noting that another Vatican arm came out and soundly trounced the content of the editorial in question shortly after its publication. You can read about it in English here.