THE VATICAN’S senior spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi, last night
played down any potentially damaging impact of the latest revelations
from whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks concerning the Holy See.
Fr
Lombardi argued that in the overall context of the vast body of
documents released by WikiLeaks, those concerning the Vatican were of
little significance.
“There’s nothing new, nothing that wasn’t
abundantly well known. I don’t think that anyone has discovered America
with these documents [about the Holy See].”
Aside from the Irish
clerical sex abuse crisis, the WikiLeaks Vatican documents contain some
fairly obvious observations about difficulties in Anglican-Catholic
relations, about Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone as
well as criticism of the Vatican’s “failure to communicate”.
The
observations about the Vatican from various US diplomats may not be new
but they reflect what many outside observers perceive to be genuine and
serious infrastructural problems within the Holy See.
While
offering a summary of some of the PR disasters that have bedevilled Pope
Benedict XVI’s pontificate, diplomat Julieta Valls Noyes writes: “There
are many causes for this communication gap: the challenge of governing a
hierarchical yet decentralised organisation, leadership weaknesses at
the top, and an undervaluing of (and ignorance about) 21st-century
communications.
“These factors have led to muddled, reactive
messaging that reduce the volume of the moral megaphone the Vatican uses
to advance its objectives . . . Most of the top ranks in the Vatican –
all men, generally in their 70s – do not understand modern media and new
information technologies.”
Cardinal Bertone, described as a “yes
man” who “speaks only Italian” and who lacks diplomatic experience, has
also played down the negative comments, reportedly telling a gathering
of diplomats last week: “Yes indeed, I am a yes man and proud of it,
that colourful assessment reflects perfectly how I am on the same
wavelength as the actions of the pope.”
On the question of
Anglican-Catholic relations, the WikiLeaks documents highlight the all
too obvious discomfort of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan
Williams, when faced last November with the unilateral Vatican
announcement of the creation of new ecclesiastical structures through
which the Catholic Church would receive disaffected Anglicans.
Fr
Lombardi said last night that the huge success of the pope’s recent
visit to the UK would seem to prove that the tensions between the two
churches, however serious, have not affected long-term good relations.
With
regard to the Holy See itself, the WikiLeaks cables argue that it needs
a new communications policy.
Again this is hardly a discovery.
For many
years, senior Vatican observer John Allen, when asked about the
Vatican’s communications policy, has tended to reply: “When they have
one, I’ll tell you.”
SIC: IT/IE