Edit: the following is from Sandro Magister, espressoonline's resident Vaticanist who sits at the center of the storms racking the Church and its leaders in Rome. It's interesting to see how Father Lombardi is slowly being pushed into further retirement and irrelevance at 74. Will the Vatican's communications and press service be dominated by a dominated by a Godless global corporation?
ROME, October 30, 2016 – Jorge Mario Bergoglio is the first Jesuit in history to sit on the throne of Peter. And yet precisely during his reign the Society of Jesus is at risk of disappearing from the Vatican.
It still has charge of the astronomical observatory. But it has lost command of the press office, the radio network, the television station, the heart of the communication system of the Holy See.
For a few years Fr. Federico Lombardi was at the head of all three of these installations. But one after another they have been taken from him, and no other Jesuit has replaced him.
The new boss of the Vatican media, placed by Pope Francis at the helm of the newly created secretariat for communication, is the Lombard monsignor Dario Edoardo Viganò, an expert on cinema, as far as can be imagined from the vision of his predecessor.
Link to Chiesa...
The Holy See should reconsider eliminating its ShortWave radio for 2 reasons. First, for some elderly across the globe it is their only source of Church news. Secondly, for Missionaries. My lay Missionary friend far off in the mountains had only Shortwave radio for his spiritual substance at times. I hope the Vatican reconsiders this...sometimes prudence-business acumen and balance sheets should not always win over the salvation of Souls.
ReplyDeleteThere's only about 8 Jesuits left at Vatican Radio anyway....mostly from India or Africa and a few aged men from Europe. Even the Indian ones are in their 60's.
ReplyDeleteThere was a time when the Jesuits had an army of priests at the Vatican, manning Vatican Radio, the Astronomy Dept, and also on staff in research departments. In the time of Pius XII thru the early reign of JP II, there were at least 30-50 Jesuits there. Today, there are about 8, including the Observatory. Mostly all old.
There are only about 150 Jesuits left in Rome...those staffing the Jesuit MOtherhouse and the Church of San Ignazio, the Church of Il Gesu, the Gregorian University and Bibilical INstitute, and those posts in the Vatican Radio/Observatory and other posts in the Vatican. In Italy, Jesuits are down below 400 (over 3,000 before Vatican II in Italy). Italy,Spain, and the USA were the largest concentration of Jesuits before Vatican II.
Italy had over 3,000, Spain about the same, and the USA with over 10,000 !! Can you imaging?! France,Germany, Netherlands,Belgium.Austria accounted for another 3,000. Eastern Europe boasted about 2,500 (mostly in Poland and also Hungary). Latin America/Mexico had another 3,000+, England and Ireland had about 750. Then in Africa was another 2,000, and India close to 3,000. Australia and Japan combined had about 400 (Japan having only about 100).
Today, Italy has less than 400, Spain about 700, England and Ireland less than 200 combined, USA barely 2,000, Latin America less than 1,000, Eastern Europe about 700 combined(mostly in Poland), India has remained rather stagnant at 3,500, Australia has less than 200 and Japan, about 30.
There is only 1 country in all of Europe where Jesuit life is fairly disciplined and traditional, and where they are still getting some vocations of note (50-60 novices a year). Take a guess. It's where a fairly decent and orthodox Pope came from awhile back.
In all Europe, this year there were less than 75 novices....and of that 75, 80% came from this country!
Damian Malliapalli
Fantastic, now if we could get the Jesuits permanently suppressed. Sorry Jesuits that your order betrayed Christ years ago, your order serves the king of this world.
ReplyDeleteVatican Radio on shortwave was difficult to receive in the US during the tumultuous 1980's, but it was a treat when we got it, static and all. What little we could get included a faint, weekly TLM from some remote corner of the globe and the welcoming chimes of "Christus Vincit", the station's unforgettable Interval Signal announcing its online roll-in.
ReplyDeleteIn charge of Vatican Radio in those days was Fr. Federico Lombardi SJ, recently retired as Press Secretary to Pope Francis. He was very unfriendly and would not answer inquiries on getting better reception of the TLM and English language shortwave broadcasts in the US.
Visiting arrogant Vatican Radio in Rome during the early 1990's was useless. Fr. Lombardi was still in charge and the staff were ice-cold. All they had for sale were souvenir cassette tapes of minor 1950's talks by Pope Pius XII. If you couldn't understand Italian, tough!
E-mail requests for better US shortwave broadcasting continue to be met with silence through the present. Sadly, they're forced to cease. Our very expensive portable shortwaves did a yeoman's job in their day, but they're literally doorstops now. There hasn't been any decent Catholic broadcasting since Mother Angelica (RIP) was brutally forced out of EWTN by heretical bishops.
Based on personal experience with Vatican Radio for around 30 years, the Jesuits won't be missed. VR's US shortwave service was always on the edge of death and their multimedia website is a dud that only works in spurts. It's almost as bad as the Internet-based Vatican TV station which doesn't work at all in the US.
With such rotten mass communications outlets, is it any wonder that most Catholics are disinterested in the Vatican? I'll wait to see what the new VR administration actually does before criticizing it. The first thing they should do is fire all of those Vatican Radio snobs and start over with a professional staff that responds to the public.
Shortwave radio cognoscenti say that Vatican Radio is switching from international broadcasting to social media next month because they're going broke.
ReplyDeleteWith no income from advertising, Vatican Radio is a cost center that loses over $30 million per year. Special arrangements have been made for intermittent Web broadcasting to Africa. However, it's also said that VR's operational role will be significantly reduced. Like many Catholics, I don't like intrusive social media and I won't be involved with them.
Loss of the Vatican Radio network which broadcast in 45 languages is inexcusable. Shortwave radio was an invaluable educational tool in poverty-stricken, remote areas and Vatican Radio's daily Masses were a great comfort to people who have no access to priests. Although I don't live in a developing country, I have fond memories of trying to hear VR's spotty shortwave broadcasts over the years.
Sadly, mainstream Catholic broadcasting is dead. People are being forced to take sides, and I won't do that either.
Is this Msgr. Vigano who's now running Vatican Radio related to the outgoing US Papal Nuncio? If so, there's something rotten in Denmark.
Pope Pius XI and Marconi must be spinning in their graves watching all of their splendid communications work going down in flames. There are some excellent YouTube videos of Vatican Radio's inauguration by them in 1931.
ReplyDelete