Some views on the Vatican’s messaging

Andrea Gagliaducci writes in a long article at MondayVatican:

Pope Francis has underscored in Assisi his idea of «a poor Church for poor.» It is part of the «reform of attitudes» that Pope Francis considers more important than the Curia reform, i.e. a reform of the organizational structure. During this week, a certain lack of institutionality has been felt. At first sight, there is a sort of «divided» Church. The Pope is divorced from the institution he represents. The Curia’s control room is separated from those who want to control it. Even communications are «fragmented», with the Holy See Press Office seemingly ever more sidelined, while media advisors appear to direct Pope Francis in a disconcerting manner.

These are the risks of an informal Papacy. In a sense, Pope Francis is someone who is used to live and continues to live as if under a dictatorship.  During the military dictatorship in Argentina, he stood out for his heroism, a fact that made him some enemies who have later insinuated he was in connivance with the Argentine military regime. These are rumors that time and again have proven to be completely baseless.

Living in the Vatican, Pope Francis seems to be sticking to the same forma mentis of the times he lived under a dictatorship. He is very suspicious toward the Curia (which he defined in a recent interview as «a plague»); he trusts only his friends; he decided to live in the Domus Sanctae Marthae because he can be seen by all, minimizing the risk to fall victim to malicious gossiping. Since the Pope is there, visible, it should be more difficult for some to spread rumors about his way of proceeding, or about “corruption” in the Pontifical family.  To be on the safe side, Pope Francis manages his own agenda, as he always did in Argentina, since the time of the dictatorship there.

But Argentine was ruled by a regime, while the Pope is himself the regime in the Vatican. Thus, the Pope should govern, organize, delegate. In order to govern most appropriately, he must also use the Curia. A Vatican saying reminds all, very timely, that «you cannot reform the Curia without the Curia.»

There is another, not less important, problem: the Pope’s vision of the Curia corresponds and feeds the image of the Curia portrayed by the media: a nest of plots, corruption, and wrongdoings. Unintentionally, Pope Francis risks giving impetus to an old media campaign against the Church.

Yet another consequence is that the “curiali,” who are «as shrewd as snakes but not peaceful as doves, » have more space to act.

The persistence call of the Pope to stop the gossiping sort of «terrorizes» the Curia. This kind of feeling parodoxically inhibits those who act honestly, and favors those who have always shrewdly pushed for their personal agendas.

And Hilary White at LifeSiteNews.com asks if the Vatican has lost control of its messaging.

This revelation was followed on the weekend by a letter produced by Fr. Thomas Rosica, signing not as a Vatican spokesman but as head of Salt and Light Catholic Television Network, who summed up a few of the revelations about the Scalfari interview that had come to light elsewhere.

The interview, Fr. Rosica said, was “after-the-fact reconstruction” and so “run[s] the risk of either missing some key details or conflating various moments or events recounted during the oral interview”.

Fr. Rosica affirmed again, however, that the Scalfari interview was “trustworthy overall” but admitted, “Nevertheless, some minor, unprecise details have caused a stir among you.” Among the possible “‘conflation’ of facts, details and sequence of events” on the night of his election, were questions about “a so-called ‘mystical experience’ of Pope Francis on the night of his election to the Papacy.”

But that was it. We are left to ourselves to try to understand all the rest of Pope Francis’s remarks and actions that have astonished, confused and alarmed Catholics around the world for the last six months. Writing for the National Catholic Register, Rome correspondent Edward Pentin summed up the dissatisfaction of many observers, commenting, “[T]he picture emerging is of a Pope who does whatever he wants with little or no consultation with his closest aides.” The pope, one inside source said, is “viewed as being ‘totally unpredictable,’ preferring to do things arbitrarily and on his own”.

But many of us Vatican-watchers are also left wondering what is going on inside the Press Office. The brevity and off-the-cuff, essentially reactive character of their very few responses to date do indicate one thing that they were probably not intended to convey. That is, it seems the usual paths of communication within the Vatican, and their “control over the message” have broken down.

Fr. Z had this post today that at least tangentially relates to this in terms of the effect, or potential effect of the Holy Father’s casual, off-the-cuff approach to handling the media:

For [The National Catholic Reporter] the right to live and the right to act according to a properly formed conscience are of secondary importance.  What matters is the promotion of the agendas of the Obama Administration and the Democrat party under the flag of “social justice”.

Here is a sample toward the end of their bit about the annual Red Mass in Washington DC:

“At the brunch following the Mass, Cardinal Wuerl spoke movingly about Pope Francis and the experience of the conclave. It was obvious to all how thrilled +Wuerl is by the new pope as he recalled being approached by a young boy after the conclave who said to him: “You are a cardinal, right? You did good.”

Perhaps the most interesting thing about yesterday’s Red Mass and brunch was the thing that was not said. Two words went unmentioned: religious liberty. There wasnot a whiff of culture warrior talk in the day’s proceedings, no condemnation of the Supreme Court’s decisions in the same sex marriage cases, no please for the HHS mandate to be ruled unconstitutional. Instead, modeling Pope Francis, both +Farrell and +Wuerl spoke about the Gospel and left the politics outside. It was so refreshing.”

Refreshing?

The problem here is not that the speakers didn’t bring up the HHS mandate or other burning issues about which the Church is allegedly “obsessed”.

The problem is that they are celebrating US prelates being “silenced”.