Yesterday Benedict XVI issued his long-awaited Apostolic Exhortation, reflecting upon the 2005 Synod of Bishops. The Pope entitles the lengthy document: Sacramentum Caritatis.

In today's New York Times Ian Fisher writes:

Pope Benedict XVI strongly reasserted on Tuesday the churchs opposition to abortion,euthanasia and gay marriage, saying that Roman Catholic politicianswere especially obligated to defend the churchs beliefs in theirpublic duties.

These values are non-negotiable, thepope wrote in a 130-page apostolic exhortation, a distillation ofopinion from a worldwide meeting of bishops at the Vatican in 2005.

Fisher continues (after an insertion about the Pope's meeting with President Putin of Russia):

The document suggested that the church would continue to speak outstrongly on political issues it saw as fundamental, even at risk ofaccusations, as has been the case in Italy, that it is interfering inpolitics.

Those issues, Benedict wrote, include respect forhuman life, its defense from conception to natural death, the familybuilt on marriage between a man and a woman, the freedom to educateones children and the promotion of the common good in all its forms.

The reader of the newspaper of record might legitimately think, relying upon this story alone, that the 2005 Synod treated issues of moral theology or of church-State relations, and that the Pope was solemnly reiterating his beloved predecessor's teaching in Evangelium Vitae.

Of course, the subject of both the Synod and the Exhortation is the Eucharist. But nowhere in the story does the word "Eucharist" appear. Nor is the title of the Exhortation, Sacramentum Caritatis, given. Mr. Fisher has cleverly reversed the evangelical warning: he has strained the camel and swallowed the gnat.

Peter Steinfels, where are you, when we need you?!