The AP puts its spin on this story starting with its headline - as though the Pope's support of the Italian bishops' conference necessarily means an anti-Berlusconi position (which the CEI itself has not taken, even if its newspaper's editor has).
The Pope is also Primate of Italy. How can he possibly not support the CEI - and particularly Cardinal Bagnasco, whose loyalty to the Church and to the Pope has been sterling?
The AP's spin on the rest of the story regarding the editor of Avvenire must be considered in the light of the objective stories about the episode that I have chosen to post from the Italian press in the CHURCH&VATICAN thread. I will post a couple of Italian reports about the Pope's call to Cardinal Bagnasco as soon as translated. There's a General Audience today and that is my priority..
Pope backs the Church in Italy
in Berlusconi row
By ARIEL DAVID
ROME, Sept. 1 (AP) – Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday gave his full support to the Italian Catholic Church after it was dragged into a media row linked to Premier Silvio Berlusconi's sex scandal.
The Italian Bishops Conference said Benedict had spoken by telephone with its president, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, to discuss the "current situation."
Benedict expressed to Bagnasco "his esteem, gratitude and appreciation," the Bishops Conference said in a statement. Vatican officials confirmed the phone call but would not elaborate.
[What this story omits is the first part of the CEI statement which said: "The Pope asked for information and asseessments of the actual situation [involving the editor of Avvenire, Dino Boffo] and expressed his esteem, gratitude and appreciation for the work of the CEI and its president". The Pope is rightly synmpathetic but apparently, neither is he complacent about the still unexplained aspects of Boffo's embarassing situation.]
Bagnasco and other top Church officials have been defending a Catholic editor who was attacked by a Berlusconi family newspaper after demanding that the premier answer allegations over his purported relationships with young women.
Il Giornale, which is owned by the premier's brother Paolo, on Friday alleged that the chief editor of the Avvenire daily had a homosexual scandal in his past.
The paper alleged that Dino Boffo had been fined several years ago for harassing the wife of a man in whom he was purportedly interested. Boffo has denied the allegations.
[This story is obviously misleading. Boffo does not deny he paid a court fine in 2004 for 'telephone molestations' made from his cellphone, but that the calls were made by a teenage drug addict he was trying to rehabilitate and had nothing to do with the husband of the woman who got the telephone calls.
That a leading news agency like AP can be so cavalier about dismissing a complicated story in a single misleading line is yet another indication of the careless irresponsible journalism that has become SOP these days.]]
The Bishops Conference, which owns
Avvenire, staunchly defended Boffo, and Bagnasco called the allegations "disgusting."
Berlusconi quickly distanced himself from Il Giornale's claim, but the incident damaged the premier's church ties, already frayed by the scandal.
Following
Il Giornale's article, a meeting between Berlusconi and the pope's top aide, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, was scrapped. The meeting had been widely seen as a chance for Berlusconi to clear the air with the Vatican.
Support from Catholic voters is considered crucial for any Italian government to come to power, and good ties with the Vatican are courted by many politicians.
Berlusconi has been on the defensive since his wife announced in spring she wanted to divorce the premier, citing his alleged relationships with young women. Allegations have included that women were paid to attend Berlusconi's parties, while a high-class prostitute said she spent a night with him at his Rome residence.
Berlusconi has denied having any improper relationships or paying women for sex, and dismisses the scandal as a plot by left-leaning media. But many, including Avvenire, have demanded more answers from the 72-year-old conservative billionaire media mogul.
As an adult, mature account by an italian who knows whereof he speaks, in contrast to the simplistic, throwaway AP report above (which also contains not a few factual errors), I have chosen to translate Andrea Tornielli's account of the Pope's telephone call. Although he writes for the newspaper that started the whole vicious attack on Boffo, he has been unable to comment or report the ongoing battle so far, but the Pope's intervention has given him the occasion to report.
Perhaps, his editors are responsible for the headline to his story, but it is factual! And as always, his report is fair and balanced, especially since he does not get into the truths and untruths about the Boffo case itself.
Now even the Pope wants
all the facts about the case
by Andrea Tornielli
Translated from
Sept. 2, 2009
ROME - The convulsed day at the Vatican and at the CEI yesterday hinged on a statement from the Vatican spokesman and a telephone call by Benedict XVI yesterday afternoon to Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, sking for 'information and assessments' on the Boffo case while expressing his 'esteem and appreciation for the CEI and its president".
The Pope is seeking information, and the papal apartment has been in constant touch with the Secretariat of State and the leadership of the Italian bishops.
Yesterday morning, it was the task of the Vatican press director, Fr. Federico Lombardi, to send a reassuring sign by denying any tensions between the Vatican and the CEI.
"It is clear," he said, "that there is agreement between the Holy See and the Church in Italy, according to their respective competencies, and there have been frequent contacts, as well as profound mutual knowledge and esteem between the Cardinal Secretary of State amd the president of the Italian bishops' conference".
"Thus," he said, "attempts to place to portray the Secretariat of State and the CEI as opponents is inconsistent".
Tensions and differences which nonetheless have been repeatedly evident in these days (even involving
Il Giornale), and which, truthfully, do not concern the Boffo case as much as they do the Italian bishops' dealing with the political world and the governance of the CEI itself.
Despite the official denials, the existence of different approaches to dealing with the Italian government is known to all. Just as it is known that since the start of Cardinal Bagnasco's presidency at the CEI, Cardinal Bertone laid down in black and white that he wished to have the Secretariat of State take charge of how the Church in Italy would deal with the Italian government - a decision that was not at all welcomed by the CEI hierarchy, even if Bertone meant it to mark the end of the Ruini era.
Likewise, the Secretariat of State has not been too happy lately with interventions coming from some of the 'stars' in the galaxy of the Italian episcopate nor from the CEI newspaper
Avvenire.
In his statement. Lombardi also says that "It should not be surprising if there are differences of approach between the Vatican media and that of the Italian Catholic world with regard to the issues and debates going on in Italian society and politics, given the different audiences and priorities of these media".
Some Vaticna sources point out that the first sentence of Lombardi's statement was very important - both for what it says and fails to say: "I confirm that the Cardinal Secretary of State has spoken with Dr. Boffo to manifest his closeness and solidarity".
There was no reference to an intervention by the Pope or solidarity with the editor of
Avvenire expressed to Boffo by Bertone in the name of Benedict XVI - as some news agencies hypothesized and as one newspaper even headlined yesterday.
According to an authoritative prelate in the Apostolic Palace, the very attempt to involve the Pope in a matter that still has to be cleared up completely, had prompted Lombardi's statement, which was chiseled word for word at the Secretariat of State.
But in the afternoon, a signal came from the Pope himself. The press office of the CEI issued a press release to say that:
"This afternoon, Tuesday, Sept. 1, there was a telephone conversation between the Holy Father, Benedict XVI, and the president of the Italian bishops' conference, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, Archbishop of
Genoa.
"The Holy Father asked for information and assessments on the present situation and expressed esteem, gratitude and appreciation for the work of the CEI and its president".
The telephone call thus reiterates the Pope's confidence in the CEI leadership named by him and appreciates its work.
The lack of any explicit expression of solidarity with Boffo is explained by some Vatican prelates this way: Right now, the Pope feels it is not just one man - the editor of
Avvenire - who is under attack, but the Church itself as an institution.
But it is also pointed out that Papa Ratzinger limited himeelf to asking for 'information and assessments' regarding the Boffo case, so he, too, is waiting for the details of the dispute to be cleared up.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 02/09/2009 23:13]