A4
The Nation
by Michelle Boorstein
The Vatican spokesman
doesn’t regularly discuss the clergy sex-abuse scandal with the pope. Its communications council’s next meeting is in Feb- ruary (on the agenda: “the Inter- net”). For American defenders of Pope Benedict XVI, it has been frustrating to watch an apparent lack of a communications strat- egy for dealing with the scandal. “My best answer would be a primal scream,” Russell Shaw, who was the U.S. bishops’ spokesman in the 1970s and ’80s, said when asked about the Vatican’s recent dealings with the public. “It reflects a totally inadequate understanding and mind-set as to the whole subject of communications.” Facing a torrent of cases in Eu- rope and a new effort by survi- vors’ advocates to highlight un- resolved cases around the world, members of the pope’s inner cir- cle have said things that have only drawn more criticism, like the priest who on Good Friday compared criticism of the Church’s handling of the abuse crisis to violent anti-Semitism. Most American organizations facing such a barrage of negative
S
KLMNO
SUNDAY, APRIL 11, 2010
Lack of PR strategy on scandal mystifies pope’s U.S. defenders
Lombardi
news would long ago have pulled together a crisis management team and made top officials available for interviews to ex- plain their point of view. But the Vatican said such an approach is too commer- cial for the Church to adopt. “We are not a mul- tinational en- terprise, this is clear,” the Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said in a tele- phone inter-
view. “The normal situation of the Church and the Vatican is to help the people to understand the teachings of the Church and the documents of the pope and not to sell particular products.” On Friday, however, Lombardi released a statement that ap- peared to be trying to change the conversation. It said the Church wanted to emphasize its cooper- ation with civil justice systems and a desire for “reconstituting a climate of justice and full faith in the institution of the Church.” Benedict, he said, “is ready for new meetings” with victims of
clergy sexual abuse.
Untapped experience
Some American defenders of the pope’s actions say they are mystified about why the Vatican has not reached out more pub- licly to U.S. Catholics, who were tempered by a decade of experi- ence in helping the Church hier- archy respond when the subject erupted publicly in Boston in 2002. Lombardi said the Vatican is consulting privately with some American leaders. Some obvious candidates, including Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the archbishop emeritus of Wash- ington, and Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory, credited with making the Vatican understand the severity of the U.S. scandal, declined to speak for this article. Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokes- woman for the U.S. bishops, said they would not publicize any as- sistance they might offer. “Any conversations between us and the Vatican I wouldn’t mention,” she said, hastening to add, “and that’s not to say that there have been any conversa- tions.” Walsh, who worked with the bishops’ press office during the U.S. scandal, said the Vatican
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didn’t see the need to speak out extensively during the scandal, as “it was seen as an American problem.” There appears to be a more or- ganized effort, particularly in the United States, to defend the pope. American bishops across the country, including Washing- ton Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl, took to the pulpit and op- ed pages over the Easter week- end. “What happens when a pope is persecuted?” was the ti- tle of a news release by the At- lanta-based Catholic public rela- tions firm Maximus. “Martyred Popes” was the name of a blog post by American Catholic writ- er Robert Moynihan.
But still, there is sense that
U.S. expertise is going largely untapped by the Vatican. “Over the years, there has been frustration [that] we’re not consulted,” said Matthew Bun- son, editor of the Catholic Alma- nac.
American supporters of the pope say he should pay more at- tention to his — and the Church’s — image.
Structural impediments
In addition to modernizing its approach to public communica- tions, one suggestion made by many is that the Church should apply worldwide the tougher rules against child abuse that its U.S. bishops put in place in 2002.
They say the Vatican can ap- pear tone deaf, even on the most sensitive subjects, and have the- ories why. One is structural, with a system that harbors a military respect for rank and fiefdom and is a massive, centuries-old theo- cracy that still requires some of- ficial documents to be in Latin. Experts say there is no uni-
fying figure or office to pull to- gether a team during a crisis. Public communications are dealt with by multiple institu- tions: Lombardi, a Jesuit priest, runs the Vatican’s media and press office. The secretary of state’s office is also a key player, and the Pontifical Council for Social Communications has doz- ens of advisers around the world to help it spread the faith, in- cluding a Bombay filmmaker, a TV executive from Indonesia and a radio correspondent from Africa. The council isn’t charged with
getting involved in news. But to some, it’s emblematic that dur- ing an epic crisis, this panel of communications experts doesn’t meet again until next year. Lom- bardi recently made a point of saying that he speaks for the Vatican, not the pope. “The mind-set is that no one speaks for the pope,” Shaw said. “If the pope wants to speak, he’ll speak for himself.” Barry McLoughlin, who holds crisis management seminars for U.S. bishops and helped them
craft the tougher 2002 rules, said he’s “in agony” watching the Church fail to get its footing. He said people around the pope may be too intimidated to deliv- er bad news to his face. “Whether it’s a golfing super- star or an international auto- maker, the communications ad- visers have to have direct access to the decision maker,” McLoughlin said. “That’s just a rule.” To those less supportive of
Church leaders, there seems an- other reason why they don’t communicate more: They don’t want to. The pope and those in the Vatican, these people say, wish to remain in another world, focusing more on traditions and customs, even if that means in some cases keeping sex-abuse al- legations private or letting the Church’s internal justice system grind away slowly as victims suf- fer.
But that’s not how pope de- fenders might frame it. “One thing that makes [Vatican crit- ics] bonkers is this idea that everyone’s spiritual welfare might be handled better inter- nally,” Bunson said. “But the civil system doesn’t have to worry about eternal life.” Even as Lombardi framed the problem as coming from an out- side world that doesn’t under- stand the Church, he said, “We have a long way to go.”
boorsteinm@washpost.com
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