As the establishing of a Secretariat for Communication among the offices of the Roman Curia seems imminent, the closing of a missionary magazine has again led to questions about the very communication of faith to the peripheries of the world, Pope Francis’ favorite theme. While communications are ever more professionalized (a needed [...]
On July 1-4, another meeting of the Council of Cardinals appointed by Pope Francis to counsel him on the Curia reform and on the government of the universal Church will take place. It is an important meeting, since it would reportedly set for the first time the new ‘blueprint’ of the Roma [...]
The members of the board of the Financial Information Authority (AIF), the Vatican’s financial watchdog, hailed all from Italy. Taking a decision which shows his wish to give the Holy See an international profile, Pope Francis replaced them all with international experts held in high regard. Among them, there is just one Italian, [...]
Perhaps a Pope coming from the ends of the world was needed to put an end to the so-called “Italian exception”. Id est, that privileged relationship between Italy and the Holy See that tightly linked the two banks of the Tiber. The relation was tight because of geography: Rome is in Italy, and [...]
Last Monday, Pope Francis was the first Pope to deliver the inaugural speech of the General Assembly of the Italian Bishops’ Conference. The Pope asked the Italian bishops to change the statutes, to make them more democratic, being this Conference the only one in the world whose president is directly elected by the [...]
Pope Francis, some say, may be the first Pope to earn a Nobel Prize, for Peace. Only a few people know that, before Francis, the idea of proposing Benedict XVI for the Nobel Prize, in Literature, had been seriously considered.
Father Giuseppe Costa, director of the Vatican Publishing House, had this idea, as he [...]
Paul VI will be beatified Oct. 19 at the end of the extraordinary synod on the family, being the synod a body the late Pope wanted and promoted. A Paul VI that is to be proclaimed saint, probably as soon as 2015, through an accelerated process pursuant to Pope Francis’ wishes. Pope Montini is [...]
This week the Holy See will present a report to the UN Committee Against Torture. It will be challenging, especially for Vatican communications, called once more to respond to the attacks of the secular media. As it was the case for the report presented to the UN Committee on the Rights [...]
In his last meeting with Roman clergy, Benedict XVI spoke about a «Second Vatican Council of the media and a real Second Vatican Council,» complaining that the media wanted to set the agenda of the Conciliar fathers. Nowadays something similar is happening again, with respect to Pope Francis’ papacy. One could speak about [...]
To canonize John XXIII and John Paul II at the same time, Pope Francis has not hesitated to slightly bypass canonization procedures in not waiting for confirmation of a second miracle attributable to John XXIII. And this was most certainly the right course to take. John XXIII and John Paul II are of [...]