VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider
The Vatican has hired American journalist Greg Burke to batten down the hatches after the recent media storm
Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City
Right in the midst of the storm which brewed up around the paedophilia scandal in spring 2010, Fr. Federico Lombardi, who succeeded Joaquín Navarro-Valls’ as head of the Holy See Press Office, gave an interview published on the BBC website, in which he stated he was a spokesman who depends on the Secretariat of State’s instructions. “The Secretariat of State decides the line to take and I try to communicate it as best as I can,” Lombardi had gone on to say, concluding: “No one has ever given me the task of co-ordinating of a Holy See media strategy.”
One of the core reasons for the media crisis that has marked certain phases of the current papacy is the lack of a united communicative leadership as well as the lack of involvement on the part of the person in charge of communication during decision making processes. It would be simplistic to blame the crisis solely and exclusively on journalists, which is what is happening in the Vatican on all levels.
The Holy See’s appointment of American journalist Greg Burke as “media advisor” shows that the Vatican Secretariat of State has finally taken the problem seriously after kicking itself in the stomach on a number of occasions over the past weeks. Burke is a distinguished professional who has worked as Rome correspondent for Time magazine and is currently employed by Fox News in the same role. One of the most notable media gaffs was the piloted disclosure of the reasons for the dismissal of the Vatican bank’s former head, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi: regardless of whether he deserved to go, the media coverage of his dismissal was morally and professionally destroying for this man who was only appointed to the position three years ago and in whom a great deal of trust had been placed. An unprecedented event in the recent history of the Holy See, made worse by his exposure to an unpleasant psychiatric assessment, the results of which were sent to Gotti Tedeschi’s superiors by a diligent professional who had been made to sit next to the Vatican bank’s former president as a celebration and covertly examine him.
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