Pope Benedict’s trip to Brazil has proven very interesting. His comments about possible excommunication for politicians who vote to legalize abortion have been broadly reported – although the Vatican is now saying that he would not support such excommunication.

What fascinates me about the Pope is how selectively the media reports on what he says and how that colors what we all discuss and debate. Take, for instance, this first paragraph of the news story I linked to above.

Pope Benedict XVI urged tens of thousands of young Catholics packing a soccer stadium Thursday to resist the temptations of wealth, power and other “snares of evil,” and told them to promote life from “its beginning to natural end.”

The rest of the article, however, deals mostly with abortion. All the other issues are dealt with in a few sentences. Read it all for yourself.

What did he say about the temptations of wealth? Did he talk about how money can’t save us? Did he say that it can’t buy happiness? Did he say that the rich were oppressing the poor and that was as great a moral tragedy as anything else in the world? Did he say that the only power that mattered was the power of the servant on his knees?

I would love to know those things. I would expect a responsible media to report them. Unfortunately, I don’t know. I’ve searched for the last 30 minutes to find the text of his speech – the full message to find the answers myself. I can’t find it. I’m going to keep searching because I need to know.