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It looks like the Vatican has truly learned a good lesson from promptly and publicly opposing Benetton's disgraceful use of the Pope's image for an ad in very poor taste, to say the least, last November. Because now it has taken similar action against Gianluigi Nuzzi's publication of private correspondence to the Pope that had been pilfered and leaked from the Secretariat of State. Here is a statement from the Vatican this morning:
Statement of the Vatican Press Office
about the new publication of private documents
Translated from
May 19, 2012
The new publication of documents from the Holy See and private documents of the Holy Father is no longer a disputable - and objectively defamatory - journalistic initiative, but clearly takes on the character of a criminal act.
The Holy Father, as well as some of his co-workers and intermediaries of messages addressed to him, have seen their personal right to privacy and freedom of correspondence violated.
The Holy See will contine examining the various aspects of this acts of violation of the privacy and dignity of the Holy Father - as a person, and a the supreme Authority of the Church and of Vatican City-State - and will take the necessary steps so that those responsible for the robbery, acceptance and public disclosure of private data, as well as the commercial exploitation of private documents that were illegitimately taken and kept, can answer to justice for their acts. If necessary, the Holy See will seek international collaboration for this purpose.
The Vatican had to do this, since the Italian Constitution clearly guarantees the right to privacy of correspondence, and they had to do it, even clearly aware that it may well jack up sales of the Nuzzi book. But I certainly hope Italian law makes it possible for the Vatican to get a court injunction blocking distribution and sale of the book until the criminal issue is resolved... Nuzzi is probably beating his breasts now a la Tarzan, and his liberal colleagues in the media will probably start hailing him as a heroic exponent of 'truth', never mind that nothing in the documents appears to be any significant service to 'truth', given that most of the facts disclosed - about matters tangential to the mission of the Church - were already known and previously reported. It is the unlawful and improper violation of private rights that is the issue here, not truth.
Clearly, I myself was most remiss in calling attention to the criminal aspects of Nuzzi's transgressions, perhaps because none of the many articles and commentaries I have read in the Italian media even brought it up in direct terms (other than Angela Ambrogetti who called it 'illegal'). And surely, they ought to have seen it right away. I believe one follower of Lella's blog cited the provision in the Italian Constitution provision about right to privacy, and I filed it mentally. but now I must look it up concretely.
I can understand that the Vatican did not want to get into the criminal angle at the time Mons. Vigano's letters to the Pope and to Cardinal Bertone were made public, because it would have reflected somehow on Vigano himself who was a logical probable source of the documents. And clearly, the Vatican did not want to further undermine the public image of its Apostolic Nuncio to the United States.
It now appears that this 'document dump' in the form of a book constitutes the rest of the documents in his possession that Nuzzi's teaser acts on his La7 TV show 'The untouchables' (it is entitled with the English phrase, not its Italian translation!) and Il Fatto Quotidiano last January-February implicitly promised (or 'threatened'), as in "Don't think you have seen it all - I have much more to disclose when I want to!"
I truly hope some decisive judicial injunction at this time will start to rein in the unbridled and totally unscrupulous exploitation by the media of private files for obviously salacious and malicious commercial purposes. Even the most public of figures are entitled to an expectation of privacy when it comes to their personal correspondence, the pilfering of which is virtual 'home invasion'.
P.S. I am frankly surprised why there has been no mention of Nuzzi's book in the Anglophone cyberspace (which now encompasses all the traditional media) though this story broke two days ago in Italy. Even John Allen's Friday column says nothing about it and is devoted to the dispute at the Pontifical Academy for Life (P.S. I stand corrected: CNA did file a completely anodyne report about the book datelined May 18, merely giving information about Nuzzi and his role in the whole Vatileaks mess, as well as some general statements about the book's contents. No hint of outrage or that there was anything untoward - an indication of how we all have taken this kind of exposes, based on leaked documents, for granted , which we ought not to!]... More than three hours since the Holy See posted the bulletin, I have yet to see it reported by any Anglophone news agency...
PPS: Finally, here is a brief report from AP filed around 4PM, Rome time:
Vatican says new book on
leaked documents is 'criminal'
VATICAN CITY. May 19 (AP) — The Vatican has denounced as "criminal" a new book of leaked internal documents that shed light on power struggles inside the Holy See and the inner workings of its embattled bank, and warned that it would take legal action against those responsible.
Pope Benedict XVI has already appointed a commission of cardinals to investigate the "Vatileaks" scandal, which erupted earlier this year with the publication of leaked memos alleging corruption and mismanagement in Holy See affairs and internal squabbles over its efforts to comply with international anti-money laundering norms.
The publication Saturday of SUA SANTITA ("His Holiness") by Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, added fuel to the fire, reproducing letters and memos to and from Benedict and his personal secretary which the Vatican said violated the Pope's right to privacy.
[Surely, the AP bureau in Rome could have taken time off to check the specific provision in the Italian Constitution that guarantees the right to privacy, but given the short shrift it has given to the story, the AP apparently does not find it significant enough....BTW, I take exception to the translation of 'SUA SANTITA'. The title of the book, standing by itself, does translate to 'His Holiness', but Nuzzi said he took the title from the customary salutation line in letters sent to the Pope, in which case it means "Your Holiness", where the third-person singular pronoun is used as the respectful form of the second-person singular!]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 19/05/2013 01:03] |