“Pope Says Homosexuality Not a Crime,” the AP headlined on Jan. 25, reporting on their interview a day earlier with the pontiff. “Pope Says Homosexuality is Not a Crime” headlined The New York Times and The Washington Post the same morning. “Pope Francis says laws that criminalize homosexuality are ‘unjust’” was the lede to the PBS Nightly News segment that evening.

It’s difficult to imagine the U.S. media would give prominence to such an obvious and vapid pronouncement by any public figure other than this pope.

“The pope says a lot of truly wonderful things in his interview with the AP. However … he has said many times that homosexual acts are sinful and that marriage is between a man and a woman – a view he repeated this past week, as well. He has also not changed the language of the Catechism of the Catholic Church [this “sexual attraction toward persons of the same…