5 Feet of Fury

These people aren’t smart enough to tell me how to live

Vatican needs to learn basic PR:

Lombardi said modern communications made it difficult for the Vatican to issue some statements.

“Certain documents are meant for specialist of canon law, others for theologians, others for all Catholics or all people,” he said. “But today, whatever the type of document, it all ends up directly in the public sphere. It gets difficult to manage.”

The announcement on lifting the excommunications was negotiated “up to the last minute,” the spokesman said, and some points remained a bit confusing.

“The communique accompanying it left too much in doubt, giving rise to different interpretations,” he said.

I’ve received numerous emails these past weeks, scolding me for scolding the Vatican’s beyond-retarded PR non-sense: “Oh please! As if we should expect the (gack!!) MEDIA to report on this correctly. Their ignorant reporting is the cause of all these problems.”

No.

Ever heard the expression “garbage in, garbage out”? Probably not. That’s part of the problem.

Yes, reporters are bigoted dimwits. They also work under immovable deadlines and don’t have time for “nuance” and additional research.

If they consistently screw up the Vatican’s message, at least some of the blame must fall on the Vatican.

MUST READ:

Sandro Magister, a correspondent for the weekly magazine L’Espresso and one of Italy’s most highly respected Vatican experts, offered extensive background on this “tempest” which he describes a double disaster of “governance and communication” within the church.