NYTimes Issues Correction on Meaning of Easter

Warning: This is not an “April Fools” joke.

On Monday the New York Times was forced to print a correction to an article it published Easter Sunday about Pope Francis’ Easter message from the Vatican. 

The correction reads: 

Correction: April 1, 2013

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.

It’s hard to decide exactly what’s most startling about this correction: Is it that the writer of the “paper of record” got this basic fact about Christianity wrong? Or is it that the writer was also assigned to write about the Pope and the most important Easter message delivered the Vatican? Or is it that no one from the Times’ editorial staff understood the erroneous description of what all Christians everywhere believe about Christ’s resurrection? 

Either way, big time kudos to the New York Times for eventually getting the definition of Christ’s resurrection correct. All we can say is that it’s a good thing the Times wasn’t assigned to cover this story in Jerusalem 2000 years ago.