Those two similar sounding Italian verbs may be at the heart of a diplomatic dispute between the Vatican and the Middle East. As The New York Times says, every word counts in that part of the world, and Pope Francis ruffled some Israeli feathers when he called the Palestine Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas an “angel of peace.” Or did the pope say, “May you be an angel of peace,” which is a whole different thing. It all depends on which verb Francis used: “sei” for “you are,” or “sia,” which means “may you be.” Days later, the linguists are still debating it.
Meanwhile, in Washington state, the Seattle Archdiocese has agreed to settle a decades-old sex-abuse lawsuit by a now-63-year-old woman who said she was abused by a priest when she was a girl in the 1960s and '70s. Details in the Seattle Times.
