Communication in the Curia: Fr Lombardi Looks at Problems
(February 7, 2009) In the wake of the turmoil over the lifting of excommunication
for four Lefebvrite bishops, the Vatican spokesman says, much of the misunderstanding
could have been avoided. Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican
press office and Director of Vatican Radio, spoke Friday with the French daily La
Croix, acknowledging that sometimes there are communications problems in the Roman
Curia. He addressed this most recent case, wherein the excommunication of four Society
of St. Pius X bishops was removed by a January 21 decree of the Congregation for Bishops,
working under papal mandate. The decree was made public by the Vatican three days
later, on January 24. However, the lifting of the excommunication caused a stir
largely because almost simultaneous to the release of the decree, a November interview
with one of the prelates in question, Bishop Richard Williamson, aired on Swiss television.
He claimed that there is no historical evidence to confirm the gassing of 6 million
Jews in Nazi concentration camps. But an immediate note from the Vatican Secretariat
of State affirmed the Pontiff's own position of solidarity with the Jews. According
to Father Lombardi today, the decree lifting the excommunications "was negotiated
at the last moment" and "some points were not made clear." "It was not the end
of a process, but a stage; therefore, it didn't give clear results," he explained.
" In any case, Father Lombardi acknowledged, "for the Church, the problem of communication
is not easy." "I think," Father Lombardi continued, "that there is still a need to
create a culture of communication in the heart of the Curia." In the case of the decree
on the excommunications, for example, there was a lack of time after the negotiations
to be able to foresee and explain to the bishops of the world.