Pope, Orwell and NEWSPEAK - a supplement

Osservatore Profano apologizes for having omitted in the blog on Pope Benedict XVI and George Orwell a key element that is necessary to understand the relation between present day communication concepts and George Orwell's "1984":

One of the most remarkable accomplishments of the regime described in "1984" was the fact that sources of information such as newspapers were reedited and republished regularly in order to avoid any contradiction between historical events and judgements on those events and present-day interests of the authorities.
Osservatore Profano wanted to stress the similarity between the reediting of declarations made by the present Pope and the techniques of disinformation used by the regime of "1984".

For an in depth discussion of these questions, it may be useful to quote the English historian Lord Acton, a Catholic and a Liberal,fierce opponent to the principle of infallibility of the Pope adopted at the first Vatican Council: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely..." (in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887)