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.