“We didn’t control the communications,” lamented Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Jesuit priest who heads the Vatican press office.
That was putting it mildly.
By now the whole world knows ”” or thinks it knows ”” the story behind Father Lombardi’s lament. On Jan. 24, Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of four bishops from a traditionalist group known as the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX). Within hours of that announcement it emerged that one of those prelates, Bishop Richard Williamson, had questioned the severity of the Holocaust during a recent television interview. Jewish leaders and editorial writers erupted in understandable outrage, and what began as an effort to heal a rift within the church became an ugly public dispute.
Even today, more than a month after the original announcement, many people have not heard the Vatican’s side of the story. How can this be?
In an age of instant global access, when every blogger has a vehicle for his own opinions, no institution ”” from the White House to the Vatican ”” can “control the communications” entirely. The challenge of conveying a positive message is especially acute for the Catholic Church, though, as it must cope with a media culture that often is hostile to traditional expressions of religious belief. Even so, there is no reason why the Vatican cannot learn from this while employing the elementary techniques of public-relations management.
Lawler fails to address the egregious inaccuracies on the part of journalists. Why do they get away w/ this unprofessional, lazy, sloppy behavior? They have the intellectual depth of magpies.
Too, let’s face it, Jesus landed himself in one PR disaster after another, confounding PC expectations right and left. So why is it, exactly, that the Church is supposed to cater to the media?
It’s a good and thoughtful piece. The only thing I might question is when the author writes:
The claim that the pope had no idea that Williamson might have marked antiSemitic views is farfetched. Williamson was on record in public multiple times in the previous years in this regard. I suppose it is possible that the pope had no idea, but that reveals a level of incompetence that is just as troubling. It would be like Bush appointing a prominent member of the Klan to his cabinet and then saying that he didn’t know the guy didn’t like black people. Any time you are about to make a major reinstatement, appointment, whatever — you do a background check. That’s something world leaders are supposed to learn in kindergarten.
Of course, if the pope had known, he still should have brought the guy back into the church of Rome — since to be an RC the church doesn’t require you to have correct and good opinons on all subjects, and since the pope wasn’t reinstating him AS A BISHOP (just as a rank and file member of the RC church). But the pope’s knowledge (if it existed) should have enabled him to properly frame the decision correctly and anticipate objection, which is the point the author makes in the piece.
So either the pope did know, and the Vatican is misleading us now on this point; or he had no idea, in which case we are talking about a really incompetent bunch of advisors and internal process surrounding major decisions.
Jon (#2),
To label the lifting of the excommunication — a mere first step in a process towards bringing the Lefebvrists back into the fold — would not, IMHO, be a “major resintatement, appointment” or even a “major . . . whatever.”
Your comments would seem to indicate (as do Lawler’s) a journalist’s perspective on all of this rather than that of a shepherd of souls.
#3… thanks Monksgate. It surprises me to hear that papal excommunication — especially of a bishop — is not a big deal. I would have thought it was a really big deal, reserved only for enormously serious offenses — and therefore to reverse such a serious act would also be a big deal. Not a bad thing of course (rather a good thing) but also something done with great deliberation and forethought.
But if I am understanding you right, individuals being cut off from Holy Mother Church by the Vicar of Christ must happen so regularly that it’s a big yawn, something I am making way too much of.
Again that surprises me, but I admit to not being an expert on Rome and if you assure me it is true I will believe you.
#4,
The difficulty of your original comment — unless I misread it — is that it conflates a pastoral act (the lifting of excommunication) with ecclesiastical appointments and reinstatements. The Pope effected the former, not the latter. The latter would have been “major” in the world-shaking, political sense that you, Lawler, and most of the popular press seem to be intent upon. But the latter didn’t happen. The former, had it been made clear that this is what was taking place (and many of us v. much wish it had been made clear), would not have been a “major” story to the press at all. Some anti-traditionalists would have grumbled, I suspect. So there might have been a few back-pages paragraphs. But Williamson wasn’t being offered ecclesiastical leadeship — and once his views were known, there was no way he would be appointed as a bishop. He was being offered access to the sacraments. If the sacraments are what Catholics believe they are, this is very major indeed. But I’m surprised you and the other pundits are interested in that level of importance. And if you are, is your idea of mercy that one must conduct security checks before offering the sacraments?
Is there a reason that you’re all so imprecise in your terminology?
Hi Monksgate. You write:
In my original post I wrote:
“… the pope wasn’t reinstating him AS A BISHOP (just as a rank and file member of the RC church).”
Lawler also makes that clear. It’s actually one of the things he stresses.
Yes, Jon, but I had already been befuddled by your earlier sentence, “Any time you are about to make a major reinstatement, appointment, whatever–you do a background check”. Indeed, a background check would be called for in the case of a “major appointment.” But I’m going to have to object that one is called for in offering the sacraments (if that’s what you meant by “reinstatement”. And neither you nor I seem to know what you meant by “whatever”). It’s too bad the clear distinction of one paragraph didn’t inform the confusing conflation of ideas in the other. In fairness to you, however, nearly everyone in the press has been making the same mistake.
Lawler does helpfully point out the distinction. What I find regrettable is that while he expects the Vatican to be more media-savvy (and that’s a good point), it apparently doesn’t occur to him that the media needs to be — dare i say it — more theologically informed.
Finally, as to your suggestion of the pope’s mendacity about being aware of Wmson’s views, I think one of the dangers we in the chattering classes must be wary of is the assumption that everyone in any position of authority takes the same interest in and has the same amount of time for the perusing of blogs, magazines, op-eds, etc. Given what the lifting of the excommunication was and what it wasn’t, I’m not quite as ready as you are to demand that the pope have surfed the net to find out everything he could about Wmson — not at this juncture, at any rate.
Well, like I said, I wasn’t confused and wasn’t conflating. Neither was Lawler. Both of us knew and indeed went out of our way to draw attention to the very fact you think we are confused about.
The word “reinstatement” is what I have heard most Roman Catholics call the Williamson’s readmittance into the Church of Rome. I was just using the word I heard them use. I then went out of my way to state clearly that (whatever word one wishes to use for it) what I meant in Willaimson’s case was simply being permitted to be a rank and file member of the RC church and NOT an RC bishop.
Lawler’s main point is that Rome is not media savvy. He explains why he thinks that. He explains concrete ways that the Vatican could have prevented this sort of media disaster. You seem to agree with him — you say you do in your most recent post. I agree with him too. Unsure what more there is to say there.
You say it would be great if the media and others knew more about Christian and RC theology. Yeah, I agree. But since the Vatican can’t control that, they need (Lawler argues, as a committed Rc himself) to focus on what they can control, which is their own handling of information. It would be great if kids at school (for example) were thoughtful and sensitive and kind and brilliant — but they’re not — so at school you try to focus on what you can control which is you.
You claim that I demanded that the pope himself surf the net to find out everything he could about Williamson, a claim which you know of course to be untrue. That conjures an image of Benedict himself doing it — an image conjured by you specifically to make what I am suggesting look silly. I don’t expect Benedict himself to do that anymore then I expect necessarily that he scrubs his toilet, waxes his car, cooks all his meals, etc. I do expect that the Vatican has processes in place to handle those things and he has advisors who would do a reasonable background check on Williamson (it took me 30 seconds using Google) before issuing an announcement involving the rescinding of an excommunication of a sensational prelate. (As I’ve said already, you do that not because you won’t still lift the excommuincation, but so that you aren’t blindsided by an unexpected media firestorm.)
If the US govt were to convict a high level official of treason, strip him of US citizenship, and then years later Obama decided to pardon him and readmit him as a rank and file US citizen — I assure you that Obama’s press guy would have googled the guy to find out a little bit about him before making the announcement. Of course there are pastoral issues involved in a church decision — but the Vatican also has in addition public relations issues. You take care of BOTH, never ever allowing PR to trump pastoral care but never being an idiot in failing to do obvious PR homework either.
This is so extraordinarily obvious, what I am having to explain here, that it made me somewhat skeptical that the Vatican’s claim that the pope was completely unaware of Williamson’s antisemitic views. It is so obvious that it is hard for me to imagine the sort of mindset that would have to prevail amongst his advisors for this to have occured to no one. It’s a bit like saying that the pope should probably have a bodybuard if he goes to Beirut — so obvious we can’t imagine it not occuring to them. That’s why I have some skepticism — it’s just hard for me to believe his otherwise very smart staff are that stupid. Alternatively, I did admit that perhaps they really didn’t think to do a check like that, which if true suggests a titanic level of incompetence.
Jon,
Any time you are about to make a major reinstatement, appointment, whatever—you do a background check. That’s something world leaders are supposed to learn in kindergarten.
While you were taking a swipe at the Pope I was reminded of some of President Obama’s ill fated appointments.
Are these really things learned in kindergarten?
Jon,
How would your paragraph in #2, beginning, “The claim that . . .â€, read if you were to re-write it w/ the clear distinction you make in the subsequent paragraph. So instead of “Any time you are about to make a major reinstatement, appointment, whatever…†try this out: “Any time you lift an excommunication in order to readmit someone to the sacraments you do a background check.†Is that really what you want to say? The sacraments are not merit badges of political approval. They’re an effective means of healing and transformation. Once Williamson’s views were known, he was never going to hold a leadership position in the Church. In other words, “appointment” was never, in fact, an issue. But now that his views are known, I’d argue he needs the sacraments all the more. In other words, pastoral concern and mercy have always been the issue.
Williamson and the other Lefebvrists were excommunicated automatically b/c they went ahead with the episcopal consecration. One of the salient issues behind the schism has been the Lefebrvists’ insistence on a certain liturgical perspective. That issue has recently received a new perspective because of Summorum pontificum (which doesn’t obliterate the differences w/ the Lefebvrists, but seems to open a new avenue to dialogue). The lifting of the excommunication was, as I see it, a recognition of a rapprochement on this issue and a step in an ongoing process towards full reconciliation. Neither the excommunication nor the lifting of same had anything to do with the political views of any of the Lefebvrists. In other words, Williamson’s holocaust-denying views (if he even held them then) had nothing to do w/ the excommunication. So your analogy of a notorious traitor being readmitted to U.S. citizenship fails to persuade.
Your entry #2 recapitulates the history of how this story was mis-reported. (And if Lawler were as interested in criticizing his fellow journalists as he is in criticizing Rome for not being journalistically-minded enough, he wouldn’t have glossed over this fact.) At the beginning, journalists threw around such terms as rehabilitation, appointment, reinstatement (which, from the context, obviously meant reinstating Williamson “AS A BISHOP,†as you put it, rather than readmitting him to the sacraments), etc. It was only gradually that they realized (though they didn’t admit it) that they hadn’t checked their sources and facts. One religion correspondent did acknowledge, early on, the distinction between lifting an ex-communication and appointing someone as a bishop. But she dismissed it as an arcane technicality. Your #2 recapitulates all of this by beginining w/ a “messy imprecision†(to borrow from the poet) in one paragraph and arriving only gradually at the important distinction.
Your implied comparison of school children with journalists is brilliant. Whilst I’m not prepared to say journalists are unruly children when they cover religion stories, they are, curiously, allowed to get away with deplorably unprofessional behavior that wouldn’t be tolerated in other areas that they report. (Cf http://www.getreligion.org) If you lambast the Vatican for its incompetence, why not the press for its? I would argue that perhaps one of the Vatican’s errors has been its continual insistence that the media in general should be regarded as being populated by mature, responsible professionals.