VATICAN CITY
Vice (UK)
By Katie Engelhart
On Wednesday, Pope Francis interrupted his general audience in St Peter’s Square to kiss and bless a severely disfigured man. The subsequent photos – his eyes clenched tightly in prayer, his hands around the ailing man’s face – have gone viral. “Many saw echoes of Jesus’s healing of the leper,” reported the Washington Post that day.
Just another fine move from the Pope who keeps on giving. Over the last few months, Pope Francis has nabbed headlines for cold-calling worshippers; launching Vatican sports teams; joking around in a red clown’s nose (and also a firefighter’s helmet); allowing a small child to hug him for the duration of a pilgrims address; and promising to personally baptise the baby of a woman who refused pressure from her partner to have an abortion. Breaking rank with his stiffer-lipped co-workers, Francis has recently suggested that “even the atheists” can be saved – and affirmed that he is totally not about to judge gay and lesbian Catholics. Last month, Pope Francis hit 10 million Twitter followers, which placed him just behind Kanye West.
Far and wide, observers speak of a “Francis Effect”.
But every modern-day media darling needs a PR machine, and Pope Francis is no exception. Enter Greg Burke: the 53-year-old Fox News correspondent turned Holy See handler (officially, Senior Communications Advisor to the Vatican’s Secretariat of State) who is quietly changing the way things are done in Vatican City.
To some, Burke may have seemed an unlikely candidate for papal spin-doctor. He’s a layman without PR experience: a cheery American with a penchant for sports analogies. He’s also a member of the controversial Catholic order Opus Dei: a traditionalist and a celibate whose spiritual practice reportedly involves self-flagellation. But after a year and a half on the job, Burke is credited with helping to open up and rejuvenate the Holy See. Of course, Burke would say it’s all Francis’s doing. “I’m going to kick the ball to the Pope,” Burke explained at a recent lecture in London. “I mean, the Pope scores goals, you know? The Pope scores goals for us… The people are just eating this stuff up.”
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