Word: vatican
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...suggested that the synod have some voice in choosing its own agenda but continue to be convened only at the Pope's pleasure. "Synods should never be a way of 'getting the Pope,' " said John Cardinal Wright, former Bishop of Pittsburgh and now head of the Vatican's Congregation of the Clergy. He warned that yearly synods could become a prime example of Parkinson's Law and a burden...
...Second Vatican Council in 1965, an American reporter compared Vatican watching with Kremlin watching-unfavorably. The Kremlin, he argued, at least had some concern for world opinion. The comparison may have been exaggerated, but it reflected the traditional frustrations of newsmen trying to cover the capital of Roman Catholicism. Until 1966, for instance, there was no official Vatican press officer or any individual who could be singled out as a "Vatican spokesman." Even after the press office was set up, a reporter might wait a week to have a question answered, and then perhaps only with a "No comment." Newsmen...
...synod sessions in the Hall of Broken Heads (where they would have outnumbered the bishops by more than 4 to 1). But if they couldn't go to the prelates, many of the notable prelates came to them to answer questions at the official press office. Vatican briefers daily provided extracts for attribution from every synod speech...
...improvement in Vatican press relations? Experienced correspondents doubt that Pope Paul VI (whose father was a newspaperman) is yet a complete believer in the virtues of a free and informed press, at least as far as Vatican affairs are concerned. More likely, the Vatican is simply reacting to reality. Newsmen will get information one way or another (there have always been paid informers within the papal enclave, and there still are); it is obviously better for the Vatican that at least some of the news at such an important conference come from official sources...
...unofficial source that has delighted journalists and displeased the Vatican is the liberal, scholarly International Documentation Center. Set up in Rome during Vatican II to provide the Dutch press with detailed background information, IDOC has since become an international clearinghouse for information on the renewal movement in all churches. During the synod, an offshoot of IDOC presented daily a panel of four theologians and historians to analyze the Vatican bulletins...