Tag Archives: vatican

Dear Vatican: Fire Your PR Agency

Because your messaging is all kinds of messed up—much more than usual.

The Vatican today made the “attempted ordination” of women one of the gravest crimes under church law, putting it in the same category as clerical sex abuse of minors, heresy and schism.

Vatican makes attempted ordination of women a grave crime

CatholicCulture.com helpfully explains that these are simply separate issues, and offers suggestions for how to educate the public about what is meant here:

From the Vatican’s perspective—the canon-law perspective—the issue of women’s ordination belongs in the same category as the issue of sexual abuse; they are both among the most serious offenses that clerics can commit. Fine. But the rest of the world sees these things from a different perspective, and can’t make the same associations. So provide two briefings. First tell reporters about the norms as they apply to sexual abuse, providing story #1 for the headlines. Then, a day or two later, hold a second briefing and explain the norms about women’s ordination. That story will then run separately. The issues won’t be confused, and perhaps the stories won’t be so sarcastic.

Remedial public relations for Vatican officials

No, actually. The people who actually read the source document will go ahead and discuss them together, and even the people who are late to the party will still make the connection.

Oh, really, it’s just hopeless, isn’t it?