Pope to Vatican Journalists: “Build bridges instead of divisions”

By Devin Watkins (Vatican News)

“The beauty of your work around Peter is that it is founded on the solid rock of responsibility in truth, not on the fragile sands of gossip and ideological interpretations.”

Clementine Hall. January 22, 2014. Francis addresses Vatican journalists for the first time (Vatican Media)

Pope Francis offered that reminder recently to 150-odd journalists accredited to the Vatican, frequently known by the insider term “Vaticanisti.”

Francis met early on January 22 with members of the International Association of Journalists Accredited to the Vatican and noted that being a journalist is a vocation, something like that of a doctor, “who chooses to love humanity by caring for its illnesses.”

“In a way, this is what a journalist does, choosing to personally touch the wounds of society and the world,” he said. “It’s a calling that emerges from a young age and leads to understanding, shedding light on, and recounting.”

Loving humanity, learning humility

The Holy Father went on to express his gratitude to the Vaticanisti for their journalistic work and for their “constancy and patience” in building “bridges of knowledge and communication instead of divisions and diffidence.”

Reflecting on the identity of a reporter, the Pope cited the words of an 80-year-old Vatican journalist — Luigi Accattoli.

“In my many years of Vatican journalism,” wrote Accattoli, “I have learned the art of seeking and narrating stories of life, which is a way of loving humanity […]. I have learned humility. I have encountered many men of God who have helped me to believe and to remain human.”

Pope Francis repeated Accattoli’s summary of his life as a Vaticanista. “Despite the difficulties, this is a beautiful encouragement: love humanity; learn humility,” he said.

Subtlety of spirit, journalistic skill

The Pope also recalled an admonition given to reporters by his predecessor, Pope St. Paul VI, soon after his election and ahead of the continuation of the Second Vatican Council.

He said the work of journalists covering the Vatican and the Church should not be guided by secular and political categories.

Rather, he added, their service “must take into account what truly informs the life of the Church, namely its religious and moral purposes and its unique spiritual qualities.”

Pope Francis thanked the Vaticanisti for seeking to look beyond appearances and avoiding the twin pitfalls of turning news about the Vatican into a mere spectacle or of idealizing it under the guise of politics.

Respectful handling of scandals

Departing from his prepared text, Pope Francis thanked the Vatican journalists for “the delicacy that you often show in speaking about the scandals of the Church,” referring to respect for the victims and to the “silence” full of shame regarding the more lurid details.

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for this attitude when you have to talk about scandals.”

The work of journalists covering the Vatican, he said, requires combining “subtlety of spirit” with journalistic skill, in order to communicate Vatican events “with testimony, even before using words.”

Their task, he concluded, “lies in not hiding reality and its miseries, not sugarcoating the tensions but at the same time not creating unnecessary noise, rather striving to capture the essential, in light of the nature of the Church.”

The Pope answers to Traditional Mass question

Speaking to British reporter Michael Haynes, 28, of LifeSiteNews at the Pope’s January 22 audience with journalists, Pope Francis defended his 2021 restrictions on the Church’s traditional liturgy.

“Read the motu proprio; everything is there for you, ” Pope Francis told Haynes when asked why – given that so many young people love the traditional Mass – he had enacted restrictions on it.

In the letter explaining his reasons for releasing Traditionis Custodes, Pope Francis said he was trying to stop “the instrumental use of the Missale Romanum of 1962,” which he said “is often characterized by a rejection not only of the liturgical reform, but of the Vatican Council II itself, claiming, with unfounded and unsustainable assertions, that it betrayed the Tradition and the ‘true Church.’”

Further, Francis cited a survey of the world’s bishops carried out by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) regarding the Traditional Mass as another reason for the suppression of the Traditional Mass.

The actual survey results have never been released, however, prompting some, like the late Pope Benedict XVI’s longtime secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, to view this rationale as “mysterious.”