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OCTOBER 13, 2008
Is the Pope's Newspaper Catholic? With New Editor, It's Broader Than Ever
Retooled Vatican Daily Covers Market Crisis, Extraterrestrials; More Photos,
Says Pontiff
By STACY MEICHTRY
VATICAN CITY -- The newspaper industry might be on the ropes, but one staid
broadsheet is getting a makeover at the behest of a lofty patron: Pope
Benedict XVI.
In its 147 years as the Vatican's newspaper of record, L'Osservatore Romano
has rarely chased advertisers, or even news. Hard to find beyond the world's
smallest state, the Vatican's daily paper largely dedicated its pages to
theological monologues with headlines like "The Leprosy of Sin."
Those days are over. Now, the Vatican mouthpiece has orders to carry
hard-hitting news, international stories and more articles by women.
L' Osservatore Romano
The Vatican's newspaper of record, L'Osservatore Romano, has been undergoing
a makeover at the behest of Pope Benedict XVI.
"There was a really precise request from the paper's publisher," Giovanni
Maria Vian, the paper's new editor in chief, said in a recent interview at
his office within the medieval walls of Vatican City. "In this case, the
publisher just happened to be the pope."
A church historian and longtime journalist, Mr. Vian was tapped by Pope
Benedict a year ago to make the sleepy, parochial paper a bit more worldly.
In recent weeks, the Vatican daily has been giving somber, blow-by-blow
accounts of the international financial crisis.
Few topics are deemed too bizarre or mundane. In May, L'Osservatore ran an
interview with the Vatican's top astronomer. "If we consider earthly
creatures as 'brother' and 'sister,' why cannot we also speak of an
'extraterrestrial brother'?" mused Father José Gabriel Funes, director of
the Vatican Observatory. Pressed on whether heaven might be open to such
beings, the Rev. Funes said: "Jesus has been incarnated once, for everyone."
Read Along
Take a look at a L'Osservatore front page from 2001, and Saturday's
post-overhaul front page.
A month later the paper counterattacked the international media for
speculating that the pontiff's preferred ruby-red loafers were made by Prada,
insinuating he had a taste for material goods. In an article, Spanish
novelist Juan Mañuel de Prada -- no relation to the Italian fashion house --
wrote: "The pope does not wear Prada, but Christ."
Mr. Vian says Pope Benedict grants him considerable editorial independence,
most of the time. Stories about countries that have troubled relations with
the Vatican, such as China, are vetted by the Vatican's secretary of state,
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, says Mr. Vian.
Then there are the pontiff's personal requests.
During a meeting between Pope Benedict and Mr. Vian soon after the editor was
hired, the conversation turned to layout.
"He looked at me and said, 'Perhaps the pages could use an extra photo or
two,'" Mr. Vian recalls. "Well, we now have more photos."
On a recent morning, Mr. Vian directed coverage of a Vatican synod, a
world-wide meeting of bishops, from his office. On one wall hung a poster of
French comic-book hero Tin Tin, the death-defying journalist. On another was
a portrait of Pope Benedict and a crucifix.
Speaking as reporters, including one nun, floated in and out of his office,
Mr. Vian concedes that L'Osservatore's overhaul has left some readers "a bit
disoriented." But he believes that others had long been calling for a
shake-up.
Founded in 1861, L'Osservatore Romano has served as a mouthpiece of Vatican
news, reporting the daily routines of popes and providing ample space for
their writings, often in Latin. It was also considered a clearing house for
semiofficial thinking on touchy issues such as birth control and women in the
clergy.
The broadsheet has long drawn criticism, often from within the highest ranks
of the church. In 1961, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, then the
Archbishop of Milan, penned a stinging critique of the paper and published it
on L'Osservatore's 100th anniversary.
"Even when the headline page is not in Latin, one cannot always say that it
provides enjoyable reading," wrote Cardinal Montini, who later became Pope
Paul VI. "A serious newspaper, a grave newspaper, but who would ever read it
on the tram or at the bar, who would ever strike up a discussion about it?"
The decades that followed were ones of steady decline. The paper bled readers
by the tens of thousands; its daily edition, published in Italian and sold
for €1 on newsstands, currently has a circulation of about 15,000.
Advertisers all but disappeared. The sole ad in a recent edition announced
that the southern Italian town of Brindisi was delaying the hiring of a
contractor to upgrade computer systems at the local public-health department.
Mr. Vian's appointment as the paper's first new editor in chief in more than
two decades is a renaissance and a homecoming. He grew up in the shadow of
St. Peter's Basilica. His father ran the Vatican library and counted Pope
Paul VI among his friends.
Mr. Vian began writing for the Italian Catholic daily Avvenire at the age of
21, though he was working toward a Ph.D. in philology. Poring over the
ancient manuscripts of St. Athanasius of Alexandria, Mr. Vian says, was
excellent training for the news business. "Reporting that is worthy of being
called journalism always relies on the strength of sources," he says.
Among L'Osservatore's 100 or so reporters, editors and administrative staff,
Mr. Vian is known as "the professor."
As the new editor began playing with the paper's layout, he elicited protests
from its graphic designers. Black-and-white photos of the pope's daily
routines were now off-limits on the front page. Mr. Vian prefers color
photos, fewer banner headlines and more stately typefaces.
In his quest to expand readership, while keeping to his annual budget of €
4.5 million (about $6.1 million), Mr. Vian has cut back on free
subscriptions. He recently struck a deal with a northern Italian newspaper to
include L'Osservatore as a Sunday insert.
So far, response to the revamp has been mixed. Lucia Annunziata, the
well-known host of a television news talk show, says the paper has become a
"must-read."
Father Juan Diego Chavez, a 33-year-old priest who lives in Rome, called the
changes "pleasant," though he says he still prefers to get his nontheological
news from other papers.
Still, stories that fall beyond Vatican walls are fair game, Mr. Vian says.
In a recent front-page editorial, the Vatican mouthpiece put a biblical spin
on the financial crisis. "Money disappears. It is nothing. We see this now
with the collapse of big banks," the editorial quoted Pope Benedict as
saying. "He who builds his life on material success...builds on top of sand."
—Davide Berretta contributed to this article.
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