Apparently there was much more to Father Federico Lombardi's interaction with newsmen yesterday at the headquarters of Rome's Foreign Press Association than that reported by Vatican Radio.
Some of it is certainly eyebrow-raising at the very least - though this is not the first time the good father has raised eyebrows - for being unnecessary as an expression of his own opinions and speculation. Especially since the media are not often likely to distinguish between his personal statements and the official position of the Vatican (read 'the Pope'), considering that he is widely considered the 'Vatican spokesman' (in the same way that they always report anything printed in L'Osservatore Romano as the Vatican position, or even the Pope's, even if it is something as obviously outside Vatican or papal competence such as an OR writer's views about the Beatles or the Blues Brothers).
Thanks to Lella for posting this item from the blog of a northern Italian journalist who was once editor of the online journal Il Consulente Re...
Fr. Lombardi and some perplexing
remarks to the foreign press in Italy
by GIUSEPPE RUSCONI
www.rossoporpora.org
April 25, 201
Introduced by the new president of the Foreign Press Association in Italy, Fr. Federico Lombardi ran the gauntlet Wednesday afternoon, April 24, in answering questions at the FPA headquarters on Rome's Via d'Umilta. The questions were mostly about the person and actions of Pope Francis.
When asked for an evaluation of the French National Assembly's final approval of a law recognizing same-sex 'marriage', which constitutes an anthropological revolution in terms of the concept of family, Fr, Lombardi answered: "It is good that a child knows he has a father and a mother, and that "it must be made clear that marriage between a man and a woman is a specific and fundamental institution in human history,
but this must not discount that other forms of union between two persons may be recognized".
[For a spokesman of the Church, if not of the Pope himself, to say something as stark as that, is shocking. Would he have said anything like that while Benedict XVI was Pope? He did not - and if had done so, the CDF would surely have stepped in promptly to point out that Lombardi's personal opinion does not represent the position of the Church. The fact that he expresses himself openly now seems to imply either that he does not fear being reprimanded or rebutted by anyone in the Vatican, or that he has bought uncritically into the reports that as Cardinal Bergoglio, Pope Francis had expressed himself in favor of recognizing civilian forms of same-sex union. although his personal position was overridden by the objection of the majority of bishops in the Argentine bishops' conference of which he was the president, and he respected their decision. Regardless of what motivated him, Fr. Lombardi's statement was an outright indiscretion, to use the 'English cognate for a term the Italian media often use for gossip.]
Fr. Lombardi said approval of the French law displeased him ("It does not make happy"), and cited the statement of the French bishops' conference which expressed 'profound sorrow' at the development.
As for Pope Francis's reaction to the new law, he said, "It is the Pope who should speak about it. Let him speak about it".
[All the more reason why he, Lombardi, should not have expressed his personal opinion about same-sex unions in general.]
With respect to Pope Francis himself, the Vatican spokesman pointed out some 'stylistically new' aspects of major or minor importance.
For now, the Pope will continue to live at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, even if, over time, he said, it is possible that logistical considerations - such as the flow of communications with the Secretariat of State
[with e-mail, that should not be a problem!] - may lead him to consider other possibilities. [There is only one other possibility - occupy the papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace as his predecessors did, even if he decides to close off some of the seven rooms it has, since he thinks it is 'much too large'. Actually, one of the absurd rationales given by the adulatory media for Francis's decision not to live in the papal apartment was that it would "liberate him from pressures exerted by the Secretariat of State". How? By placing a greater physical distance between SecState and the papal apartment? It is as not as if SecState officials, or any other persons, could just drop in and importune the Pope anytime they wanted to! Unless Pope Francis intends to keep an 'open house' daily. ]
He added that the Pope 'feels at home at Santa Marta' where he lives n contact with the hotel residents and with guests, "which allows him to directly have information about the life of the Church".
[This is the second absurd rationale presented for the decision not to live in the papal apartment. Even if the residents of the hotel = mostly bishops and priests who work in the Vatican constituting no more than a hundred persons - had the chance to walk up to the Pope whenever they wanted to, they are hardly representative of the Church. It is the guests that the Pope chooses to receive who can give him a better, wider sense of what is happening not just in the world but in the Church, because they include heads of state or government and ambassadors for the secular view of things, but also the visiting bishops and apostolic nuncios from which he can get a direct account of the state of the Church where they come from. Besides that, he also gets, through the Secretariat of State, regular reports from the Apostolic Nuncios. And, of course, any cardinal, bishop, priest or layman is free to write the Pope, and if the Pope has a competent secretary who can select the letters he ought to see, regardless of the importance or lack thereof of the writer, he will get to see what needs to see. He can read newspapers other than L'Osservatore Romano and watch RAI-1 for what is typically being reported about the Church and how, as Benedict XVI did.]
Pope Francis goes to the Apostolic Palace, Fr. Lombardi said, only for the morning audiences and for the Sunday Angelus. The rest of the day, he spends at Casa Santa Marta.
In his 'modest' suite on the second floor of the hotel (facing the dome of St. Peter), Pope Francis has the assistance of Mons. Alfred Xuereb as his private secretary; of a priest from Buenos Aires, Fr. Fabian Pedacchio, for his correspondence with Argentina; and for relations with Argentines living in Rome, the help of one of the papal liturgical assistants, Fr. Guillermo Karcher.
Fr. Lombardi adds that the Pope reads 'some newspapers' in the morning, the Vatican newspaper when it comes off the press in the afternoon, and always receives a selection of news clippings prepared daily by the Secretariat of State.
He says the Pope is "not a great (Internet) navigator nor particularly tech-savvy, but rather depends more on handwriting". {Initial reports after his election said he uses a typewriter.]
One evident novelty introduced by Pope Francis are his daily Masses at the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta. Fr. Lombardi said that the Pope does not wish his homilies at these Masses to be published because "he wants to keep his spontaneity of expression and reflection without worrying that what he says will be published".
[Why then have all the language services of Vatican Radio led off their reporting every day by quoting extensively from these mini-homilies, which are then reported in the next day's issue of the OR and in all the other communications outlets of the Vatican? Are they deliberately disobeying the Holy Father's wishes? As to "worrying that what he says will be published", everything a Pope says is reportable, if not newsworthy, and anything he says in the presence of reporters - even if they are Vatican reporters - becomes reportable. The Pope surely realizes that these daily homilies have become news staples of his Pontificate, and rightly so. Therefore, I doubt that Fr. Lombardi is presenting this situation correctly.]
Fr. Lombardi says he has met several times with Pope Francis. This takes place regularly after he meets with foreign heads of state or government in order to draft the official communique. The novelty, he said, is that afterwards, the Pope responds gladly to any questions that Lombardi may ask.
[Excuse me! As if Benedict XVI would not have replied if Lombardi has posed any questions at all. In fact, I had been questioning why Lombardi apparently never took the initiative of calling Georg Gaenswein to say he had questions for the Pope when he needed to - all the time he needed to because of the relentless media assault on Benedict XVI! The 'novelty' I see is that Lombardi now appears to be included in the discussion that precedes the issuance of an official communique after a VIP visit, where before, one had the impression that he merely released what was prepared by the Secretariat of State.]
Fr. Lombardi said he did not think that 'musica sacra' was among the Pope's more important concerns; that it would be 'difficult' for the Pope to attend the announced 'triangular football match' at the Olympic Stadium on August 10 among the Pope's hometown team of San Lorenzo di Almagro and the teams of Rome and Lazio; and that no one should be surprised if Pope Francis decides not to spend the summer at Castel Gandolfo (and that it was more likely, Benedict XVI would do so).
About the emeritus Pope, Fr. Lombardi said that nothing precludes his return to the Vatican to take up residence at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery as scheduled at the end of the month. He confirmed that a German-speaking Flemish deacon was taken on to assist Benedict XVI in the daytime while Mons Gaenswein is at work as Prefect of the Pontifical Household.
[A thought about Fr. Lombardi's comment regarding the Pope's attitude to 'musica sacra' (I cannot imagine how and why the topic was brought up at all). The comment appears to betray a lack of awareness by Fr. Lombardi of what Vatican II specifically says about sacred music in the liturgy in Sacrosanctum concilium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Liturgy. Not a minor matter at all, though perhaps it may appear to be, compared to the 'monumental' and primordial importance given by the media and the outspoken members of the Church hierarchy to the 'reform of the Curia'. Also, I have read accounts that Papa Bergoglio loves opera, so he is apparently not indifferent to music.]
The following, however, is the kind of news one expects Fr. Lombardi to give )he could have volunteered it to the Foreign Press Association, for example). But it does not even appear at all in the official Vatican news bulletin - only in the following one-sentence report in the Italian news service of Vatican Radio, which does not even bother to identify the photo that goes with it (Mons, Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family).
VATICAN: No document being prepared
on communion for remarrived divorcees
Unfounded news. The Pontifical Council for the Family has taken a stand, declaring in a brief official note that "there is no basis whatsoever (for) the news disseminated by some newspapers that a document on communion for remarried divorcees is in preparation.
ZENIT appears to have been the only news agency to pick it up:
Vatican denies news reports
that the Church is preparing
to allow remarried Catholic
divorcees to receive communion
by Junno Arocho Esteves
Vatican City, April 25, 2013 (Zenit.org)- A recent news report stating that the Pontifical Council for the Family is working on a document on distributing Communion to divorced people who have sought to re-marry (or who have remarried) prompted a denial from the Holy See.
An article by an Italian news agency claimed that Pope Francis appointed Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, to draft a document to find “a solution” for those who are "remarried divorced Catholics" to receive Communion. The report also claimed that the Holy Father’s move was prompted by requests from “many Italian bishops.”
The report spread throughout various news and media agencies in the country.
In
a statement released by the Holy See Press Office [I wish! But there was no such statement!], the Pontifical Council for the Family denied the bogus reports.
“The Pontifical Council for the Family declares that there is no basis to the news, circulated by some press agencies, that a document on distributing Communion to remarried divorced persons is being prepared,” the communique stated.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 27/04/2013 01:00]