Whoever is in charge of the Catholic News Agency Web site should bung up a note saying ‘Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa’ on the site and then resign. What the site did was totally inexcusable. What it has done since is pretend if it closes its eyes it will go away.

It posted a story saying that Bibles would be banned at the Olympics. Which was a total and probably malicious lie. A first year cadet would doubt the story and check, check and double check.

That story said the Italian daily, La Gazzetta dello Sport, reported that organizers cited ’security reasons’ for prohibiting athletes from carrying any kind of religious symbol at Olympic facilities.

The U.S. Olympic Committee, plainly employing rather more intelligent people than the newspaper contacted the International Olympic Committee and found the story was a total nonsense, made up from the whole cloth.

USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said the federation contacted the IOC about the news reports. He said, ‘We have heard from the IOC and there will be no restriction on athletes bringing the Bible or any other religious book into the village for their personal use.’ Further, the Beijing Organizing Committee never considered any ban on Bibles.

IOC rule 51 states ‘no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.’ But that rule is in place to prevent participants from using the games as a political platform and doesn’t include any ban on Bibles.

Darryl Seibel said, ‘We fully expect that the standards established by the IOC for previous Games will be in effect for these Games.’ Those standards include providing a place in the Olympic village for athletes to worship.

Did the Catholic News Agency immediately publish a withdrawal allowing that it was wrong and that the people concerned were being dealt with. Not a bit of it. Just pretended it did not happen.

Makes you ashamed to be a journalist.