Word: popes
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...week after Pope Benedict XVI crashed onto the front pages with his controversial remarks on Islam, two central questions hang over the Holy See: How did that inflammatory quote get into the speech in the first place, and how do we get him out of this fix (and off the front pages)? The answers - tied both to the Pope's old habits and recent changes in the Roman Curia bureaucracy - are key to helping Catholicism's communicator-in-chief manage his message more smoothly and prevent another PR disaster like this one from happening again...
...speech last Tuesday at his old university in Bavaria was undoubtedly provocative and open to a range of interpretations. And for that reason, any course in Communication 101 - not to mention centuries of Vatican diplomacy - could have seen this coming. So much so that one wonders if the Pope didn't show his speech to even a single top collaborator...
...actually wrote the speeches themselves. But the effective No. 2 man in the Curia bureaucracy, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, had been a lame duck over the last two months after Benedict announced his replacement as Secretary of State would begin this fall (Sep. 15, in fact, the day after the Pope's return from Germany). Insiders say the 78-year-old Italian hadn't had an effective working relationship with the German Pope since he became Pope (some believe he may have even tried to block the election of the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in the conclave of April...
...words of a 14th century Byzantine Emperor - "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached" - without some context or interpretation. One might even defend the Pope's use of the historical quote in order to pursue his intellectual point - but not his simply leaving it there to flap in the wind, without saying what he thought of its merits. At his Sunday Angelus prayer, Benedict in fact stated clearly that he did not agree with...
...Tarcisio Bertone, was Ratzinger's top deputy in his former job as the head of the Vatican's doctrinal office. From his first day on the new job last Friday, Bertone has led what for the Vatican has been a rather rapid response to the precipitous fallout from the Pope's speech. Benedict's public declaration Sunday of his regret, and his clarification of his remarks, was an unprecedented example of papal backtracking. Behind the scenes, Bertone has also launched a diplomatic campaign, as the Holy See's representatives - or nuncios - in Muslim countries have been dispatched to meet government...