On Monday's CBS This Morning, as Seth Doane reported live from Rome, the CBS reporter made a major flub as he actually stated that Pope Francis "spoke out strongly in favor of abortion" without catching his mistake. The misstatement went uncorrected as the anchors did not notice the error either. In fact, Pope Francis has called abortion "horrific."
At 8:10 a.m. Eastern, after the conclusion of an interview with former New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie, co-host Norah O'Donnell introduced the report by informing viewers that Pope Francis arrived back at the Vatican after returning from his trip to Panama for the Catholic World Youth Day rally.
She then noted that the Pope had spoken with correspondent Doane about an upcoming summit on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, as well as other matters.
Doane began by recalling Pope Francis's hopes for the summit, and then, as if he were reporting from a parallel universe, bizarrely added: "He spoke out strongly in favor of abortion and offered some personal advice he had for women, suggesting that they could pray that they could sing lullabies to their children in Heaven."
The CBS correspondent went on to recount that Pope Francis had spoken in favor of sex education in schools and in favor of continued celibacy for priests.
After Doane concluded by noting that the Pope is "terrified of a bloodbath" occurring in Venezuela, co-host John Dickerson picked up from him and proceeded to the next item without acknowledging the glaring mistake in the report.
