ROME
National Catholic Reporter
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome
In the White House and other major global institutions, daily press briefings are as routine as opening the mail and turning on the lights. Not so at the Vatican, where, in the ordinary course of affairs, journalists who cover the place can sometimes go long stretches without even laying eyes on the official spokesperson, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi.
Yet since the Vatican leaks scandal reached a crescendo on May 25 with the arrest of the pope’s butler, Lombardi has been channeling Jay Carney, offering briefings on a daily basis – sometimes to update the judicial process against Paolo Gabriele, the butler, though more often to deny whatever rumors and speculation popped up in the Italian papers that morning.
That was the case again on Monday, when Lombardi convened reporters for roughly a half-hour session.
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