VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome
In the teeth of what it regards as inaccurate or biased media coverage, the Vatican has traditionally adopted a posture that might be described as serene indifference: “This affair will be forgotten tomorrow, but we will still be here in a thousand years,” or so the theory goes.
Coupled with that lofty view is often a grubbier bit of PR wisdom: You risk giving a story legs simply by responding to it.
Taken together, those cautions historically have meant the Vatican rarely responds to hostile coverage, and when it does, its public statements are usually slow, measured, and parsimonious. (When a furor erupted in early 2010 over an alleged plot by senior Vatican personnel to sabotage an Italian journalist named Dino Boffo, for instance, the Vatican maintained a steady silence for 18 full days.)
Of late, however, we’ve seen a break with form, as the Vatican has instead come out swinging.
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