ABOUT THE CHURCH AND THE VATICAN

A round-up of reactions
Translated from

February 11, 2010


The Vatican cannot have been too happy the day after the unusual communiqué issued by the Secretariat of State.

There were those who recalled past history in this regard: that in the days of someone like Cardinal Agostino Casaroli (John Paul II’s Secretary of State from 1979 to 1990), his office either immediately rebutted accusations against the Vatican with strong arguments, or, if it was controversial, kept quiet for months, sometimes years.

“I can say that in the years of Casaroli, something like this never happened,” Cardinal Achille Silvestrini told La Repubblica on February 4 [a week before the Vatican finally commented on a controversy that had been revived on January 23.

On Wednesday afternoon, Feb. 11, Cardinal Bertone left for Poland, and must have read the morning papers and how his note had been received.

In Corriere della Sera, political commentator Massimo Franco, former editorial writer for Avvenire, writes that the Vatican communiqué “can only raise new questions”.

He says, “It reads like the position of a structure under attack which reacts by using the Pope as a shield, in the belief that he is their strongest defense”.

[Because as usual – as in the Wielgus and Williamson causes – once again, Benedict XVI has taken the fall for his subordinates who should be helping him, not being counter-productive to him, and having to be defended by him.]

In Repubblica, long-time Vatican observer Giancarlo Zizola [habitually hostile to Benedict XVI] dismisses the communiqué as “a document in which the anxious desire to deny everything, along with its careless formulation, betrays too easily the attempt to negate facts.”

In Libero, Antonio Socci says the one thing the communiqué fails to do is to ‘stop the controversy’.

Ubaldo Casotto in Il Riformista asks: “Why do they have to involve the Pope in denying generic accusations?” – and indeed, using the Pope as shield remains the most singular curiosity about the communiqué.

Benedict XVI was completely out of the question in all of this. There was no question or doubt - and there isn’t now – about him.

And yet, he was put in the difficult position of having to approve a much belated reply – it was January 23 when Il Foglio published the article that reopened the controversy – which did not come from the Vatican Press Office.

A communiqué that even goes so far as to belie a blog! Because it was Sandro Magister, a Vaticanista evidently held in high regard at the Vatican, who said in a blog entry that it was Vian who had inspired or written an article published in Il Giornale in September.
[The article was written under the pseudonym ‘Diana Alfieri’ for the Sept. 19 issue of Il Giornale, almost three weeks since Boffo had resigned, but on the eve of the autumn meeting of the CEI’s permanent council, so the timing in itself was dubious.

Among other things, the article claims that the CEI and Cardinal Ruini’s supporters had done all they could to try and keep Boffo at the helm of “the entire galaxy of Catholic media… despite his history of ‘molestations with a sexual basis that were punished by the judge in Terni”. She goes on to question Boffo’s ‘moral fitness… (which) casts a cloud on the entire Church”. I don’t know if this ‘Diana Alfieri’ ever took back all these slander against Boffo after Feltri retraced his charges in December!]

The last line of the communiqué notes that the Pope hopes that ‘truth and justice’ may be upheld and expresses his trust in his ‘collaborators’. (In Vatican jargon, ‘collaborators’ refer to prelates, not laymen.)

The communiqué also says that the Vatican police had nothing do with this case. It was discussed before drafting the communiqué – Chief Inspector Domenico Giani was questioned by Cardinal Bertone, and after him, Vian, who conferred with Bertone and his deputy, Mons Fernando Filoni.

Together they framed the draft which they sent to the Pope, who approved it. The text was then published, first on line as a Vatican bulletin, and the following day in L’Osservatore Romano where, to dispel any possible doubt about the origin of the text, it was introduced with the statement that “The Holy Father approved this communiqué and ordered that it be published”.

The Italian bishops conference (CEI) released its own statement, which Avvenire, now edited by the moderate and competent Marco Tarquinio, published on Page 2 without comment, along with the Vatican statement, also without comment.


As a former newspaper editor, my hat is off to Tarquinio for the elegant manner in which he showed editorial impartiality on the Vatican and CEI notes, and the whole affair - after all, the time is long past for this sort of rearguard action. He simply placed both statements, appropriately highlighted by shading, in the center of the editorial page, playing up the statements without need of commentary!

[Very prudent of Tarquinio. Any comment would have been interpreted as fanning the flames, and, unnecessary, in any case, to Avvenire readers who have followed the developments.]

The CEI took note of the Vatican statement, mentions neither Bertone nor Vian [nor the Pope! – wisely I think], and expresses the hope that the Vatican’s statement may help to ‘bring back calm’.

A few lines to reflect the position of the CEI president, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, who has kept himself away from the issue [since September when he accepted ‘with regret’ Boffo’s resignation from his media positions at CEI].

It is known he is clear about how everything developed, and the prudence manifested in his statement yesterday appears significant.