ITALY
Crux
By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor December 1, 2015
“Rebranding” is all the rage today in corporate communications, and one question gurus on the subject often find themselves pondering is the following: When you get a hot new CEO who succeeds in creating an appealing narrative, what happens to older stereotypes and prejudices about the brand?
If Pope Francis is any indication, what sometimes happens is that those stereotypes are re-tasked, to use another bit of corporate jargon, to support a new storyline of internal opposition to the boss.
This comes to mind in light of a controversy that’s broken out in Italy centering on Archbishop Luigi Negri of Ferrara-Comacchio, generally seen as a leader of the conservative wing of the Italian Church.
Last Wednesday, the Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano ran a front-page story based on what it described as eyewitness accounts of a conversation Negri was alleged to have had a month ago aboard a train to Rome with his priest-secretary.
In it, the 74-year-old prelate supposedly said he hopes the Madonna will work a miracle and cause Pope Francis to die, referring to the example of Pope John Paul I, who died after just 33 days. Allegedly, Negri also had some nasty things to say about recent bishops’ appointments by Francis in the Italian dioceses of Bologna and Palermo. (In both cases, the pontiff tapped men seen as center-left.)
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