When the pulpit gets it wrong: A pastor models how to make it right

In an age when misinformation spreads quickly and trust is easily eroded, this letter from Rev. Meredith Gudger-Raines exemplifies leading with humility, honesty, and care. Rather than doubling down on a mistake or quietly letting it pass, she chooses to acknowledge the error, reflect on its causes, and share her insights.

As communications director for the annual conference, I spend a fair amount of time reflecting on how we talk with one another. Our use of social media leaves us particularly vulnerable to misinformation as it amplifies content based not upon its validity but instead upon its virality.

I am sharing this letter today because Meredith offers us a demonstration of pastoral integrity and a reminder that truth-telling, especially when it’s difficult, is a vital part of our witness. May you be inspired, as I was, by her message.

grace&peace

Patrick Scriven
Director of Communications | PNW Conference

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Dear friends,

I made a mistake that I must correct.  On Sunday, at the end of my sermon, I read a quote attributed to Pope Leo.  One of our former Catholic members sent it to me earlier that morning, and it fit so well, I quickly decided to pop it in at the end of my sermon.  After some research, I do not think Pope Leo, or Robert Prevost, actually said this.

In the days since Pope Leo’s election, I’ve seen people online saying that they loved that he has claimed to be woke and told people to be woke.  You might have seen a meme attributing the quote “To be called ‘woke’ in a world that sleeps through suffering is no insult” to the new pope.  When I heard that, honestly, I dismissed it pretty quickly, attributing it to internet rumors and misinformation.  Why?  Several reasons.  “Woke” is obviously a very politically charged word, and I probably wouldn’t use it in a sermon, as people would react to the word and not the underlying idea.  I couldn’t see a Catholic priest, whose context is probably more politically diverse than mine, using it either.  Also, Robert Prevost spent most of his priestly life in Peru, where surely “woke” isn’t part of their vernacular the same way it is here.  To me, that quote sounded like someone trying to put their ideas in the pope’s mouth to both gain credibility for the ideas and claim the pope for that particular idea.

Now that that quote has had some days to circulate, it has made its way to the fact-checkers, who have indeed debunked it.

So if I sniffed out the fake “woke” quote so quickly, how did I get pulled in by the quote I shared on Sunday?  I think this is an excellent lesson in how easy it is to spread misinformation.

First, the quote shared with me sounded good.  I don’t mean I agreed with it.  I did.  But by “sounded good,” I mean that it sounded like something a former bishop or cardinal would say.  It sounded like the closing few paragraphs from a sermon.  It had a reference to a personal story, as if he’d shared the whole story in a sermon.  It had enough revealing information to be memorable—”I’ve doubted God, too”—while sounding believable for a church leader.  It seemed reasonable.

Second, I got it from a reliable source, someone who is closer to the Catholic Church than I am.  I assumed that they received it from a Catholic source, a newsletter or a church publication.

Third, I shared it quickly.  I didn’t sit with the information.  It sounded good, and it fit what I was about to do, so I plugged it in spontaneously.

I would categorize myself as an experienced news consumer, and I didn’t catch this one.  It shows how easy it is to be pulled in by misinformation and fake news.

How did I learn this quote was fake?  I did what I should have done before I shared it.

First, I googled specific phrases from the quote.  Did you know that if you put quotation marks around something, the search looks for exactly that order of words, not just keywords?  So I googled Pope Leo “home for the homeless.”  Then I googled Robert Prevost “home for the homeless.”  These searches only brought up Facebook posts.  Not a good sign.  Obviously, anyone can put anything on Facebook, so Facebook is not a reliable source.  A reliable source would have been a newspaper article from a publication that has clearly identified authors and publishers.  A reliable source would have been an official publication from the Catholic church, like a diocese.  A reliable source would have been a video from a worship service where Cardinal Prevost was presiding (although we know video now can be doctored).  I found none of these sources.

(The organization that posted this quote on Facebook was actually a Catholic church, one in Louisiana.  You may think this is a reliable source, but they did the same thing I did—saw a quote, thought it was good, and shared it.  The comment on this post included several people asking for the original source, and the church responding that they couldn’t actually find it.)

Second, I realized that I made assumptions about my reliable source.  They are experienced, insightful, wise, and trustworthy.  I should have said, though, “I love this quote!  Where did you find it?”  Asking my reliable source for their reliable source could have helped both of us figure out if this quote was authentic.  All of us have people we deeply respect, thoughtful people of deep faith, who are wise and loving.  We seek out their insights and trust them.  When it comes to secondhand information, though, even people we trust can pass along information from others that is not trustworthy.

Third, I spent some time researching.  I just moved too fast on Sunday.  I went from “I like that” to “I’m going to tell others” without pausing to do any of the fact-checking I should have done.  As a clergyperson with the power of the pulpit, that was not very responsible of me.

These days, all of us have the power of a kind of pulpit, through social media.  We all need to make sure that we are passing along good information.  Misinformation is dangerous, not just because it can get us to believe things that aren’t true.  The greatest danger, in my opinion, is that misinformation is so confusing that it can get us to believe that nothing we see is true, that everything is suspect, that we cannot trust anything, that there is no truth.

It is not true that there is no truth.  There is truth.  This is why I focused on truth as my Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday messages.  There is truth, and truth is God and God is true (John 1:1-14).  There are absolutely things we can rely on in this life, and we must trust them.  If we trust nothing and no one, our spirits will shrink and shrivel, love will contract, and evil will prevail.  If we give ourselves to what is true, our hearts will expand, love will grow, communities will be built, and evil will be resisted.  It’s so important.

So I am very sorry that I shared this quote in a sermon without fact-checking.  Ugh, what a humbling experience.  The sentiment in the quote is certainly true: God is with us in the mud and the suffering.  God is with us when we’re broken, when we’re hurting.  We don’t have to be perfect in faith; we just have to keep going in hope.  All that is true.  It is not true that Cardinal Robert Prevost or Pope Leo XIV said it.  

“Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the living of these days.“
— “God of Grace and God of Glory,” 577 United Methodist Hymnal, Abingdon Press, 1989 (A reliable source).

Love,

Pastor Meredith

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Rev. Meredith Gudger-Raines serves as pastor of Marysville United Methodist Church in Marysville, Washington. Her letter was originally shared in the church’s newsletter.