Inside NCR: New style of papal PR meets
old-style intrigue
The current Synod for Asia and the unfortunate killings in Vatican
City prompt some thoughts on the churchs public relations. We knew the
Vatican was more than usually concerned when we saw press spokesman
Joaquín Navarro-Valls himself on the TV evening news saying the
suspected member of the Swiss Guards had gone temporarily mad.
In a bureaucracy where, if the term éminence grise
did not exist we would have to invent it, Navarro-Valls has become that rare
Vatican phenomenon, a lay gray eminence. Nowadays he steps before the cameras
only for big occasions, but observers have no doubt he is still pulling the PR
strings.
Navarro-Valls may yet rank as one of the great image-builders,
doing for this pope what Michael Deaver did for Ronald Reagan. Granted, he had
better material to work with than Deaver. Yet it takes more than John
Pauls charisma or sanctity or world travel to explain how he came to be
the preeminent world leader late in the second millennium. Whatever people,
including church people, might say against the media, it was the media that
brought this pope into all our homes, usually looking good.
It was not the staid old Osservatore Romano, which one
seldom hears mentioned nowadays. Nor Vatican Radio, still on the air in many
languages but lucky to get a seat on the papal plane. Navarro-Valls either took
the Catholic press -- and by implication the regular faithful -- for granted,
or concluded they wouldnt count ultimately in delineating the wide sweep
of history.
Thus, Archbishop John Foley, with the grand title of president of
the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, does color commentary for
papal Masses and appeared at the Catholic Press Association recently to talk on
advertising, a worthy theme but scarcely central to Vatican aspirations.
Navarro-Valls, meanwhile, who is a member of Opus Dei, and
obviously high in the popes favor, went after the bigger fish, the major
secular media. However important a pope, it doesnt happen automatically
that he gets good press. John Paul has been Man of the Year for Time and
on the cover of Newsweek, Parade and other magazines.
The authors of major papal biographies of recent years have
likewise not been closely associated with the Catholic press: Tad Szulc (Pope
John Paul II); Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi (His Holiness); Jonathan Kwitny
(Man of the Century); Darcy OBrien (The Hidden Pope). This proliferation
of titles testifies to how papal PR has been going out on a different limb.
These books and cover stories invariably view the pope as world
leader rather than church leader. They present John Paul in expansive fashion,
a towering moral force for justice and peace. What they rarely deal with is the
popes more domestic role as leader of the Catholic church, an area in
which he might not get the same high ratings.
It has been a master strategy. Only history will determine whether
the globetrotting pope or the rigid restorationist will have made the most
lasting impact.
It is NCRs custom to tell our readers whos
writing what. We have bylines at the top of nearly every article, except
editorials, which are regarded as the voice of the paper. We believe this lends
credibility to the material and implies responsibility on the part of the
editors.
We make one of our rare exceptions on page 11. Church leaders have
managed to keep a tight lid on the story of the killings within Vatican City. A
reading of the page 11 article will quickly indicate a more intimate than usual
knowledge of how things are done and how the thinking goes at the Vatican. The
writers position is such that to disclose the name would be to jeopardize
the position. We hope for further contributions from this same source. In due
time we also hope to be able to reveal the source.
National Catholic Reporter, May 15,
1998
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