Who says the New York Times is ignorant of religion?
Elisabetta Povoledo is a Rome-based reporter for the paper's international edition, but either she or her copy editor made a mortifying mischaracterization of the meaning of Easter in an online story on Pope Francis posted Monday: "Pope Calls for ‘Peace in All the World’ in First Easter Message."
Here's the original final paragraph, vanished from nytimes.com but available on Nexis, emphasis added:
Easter is the celebration of the resurrection into heaven of Jesus, three days after he was crucified, the premise for the Christian belief in an everlasting life. In urging peace, Francis called on Jesus to ''change hatred into love, vengeance into forgiveness, war into peace.''
The Times issued this correction:
An earlier version of this article mischaracterized the Christian holiday of Easter. It is the celebration of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, not his resurrection into heaven.
Even the correction needs a tweak -- Jesus wasn't "resurrected" into heaven. According to the Bible, Jesus ascended into heaven 40 days after his resurrection.
Here's the corrected version (emphasis added):
Easter is the celebration of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, three days after he was crucified, the premise for the Christian belief in an everlasting life. In urging peace, Francis called on Jesus to “change hatred into love, vengeance into forgiveness, war into peace.”
