• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Effie Caldarola
          • John Garvey
          • Father Ed Dougherty, M.M.
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
  • CR Radio
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
Free copies of L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, with the front page about Pope Francis' new encyclical, "Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship," are distributed by volunteers at the end of the Angelus in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Oct. 4, 2020. (CNS photo/ IPA/Sipa USA, Reuters)

Pope: Vatican media must be creative, take risks, fulfill purpose

May 24, 2021
By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service
Filed Under: Feature, Journalism, News, Vatican, World News

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Do not let a complex organizational hierarchy stifle creativity, hamper decision-making and impede serving its actual purpose, Pope Francis told the Vatican’s communications office.

He also said employees of its two outlets, Vatican Radio and L’Osservatore Romano newspaper, should be asking themselves every day how many people are they really reaching “because there is the danger — for all organizations — the danger of a lovely organization, a lovely job, but it does not get to where it has to go.”

At the start of the Pentecost season, the pope visited May 24 the headquarters of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication, whose different entities supply images, news and features in almost 50 languages for radio, video, print and internet. The dicastery coordinates the efforts of the Vatican publishing house, the Vatican press office, the Vatican’s video, television and photography services, Vatican Radio — which was celebrating its 90th anniversary — and L’Osservatore Romano, which was celebrating its 160th anniversary.

After visiting managers and staff in the building, the pope delivered impromptu remarks in the ground floor conference room, thanking employees for their work, and noting how the different entities were all together and well-organized.

“The problem is (making sure) that this system that is so big and complicated works,” he said.

A problem he noted in Argentina, he told them, is when someone got an important new position at a company, the first thing they would do was order elegant new furnishings at an upscale office supply store without having even looked at what the office already had because it had to be “all new, all perfect, beautiful.”

But the person would not ensure that the actual enterprise would work, he said, adding that “it is important that all this beauty, all this organization work (and) to work is to go, to walk” or journey.

Another example of organizational “functionalism” getting in the way, he said, is having too many “undersecretaries” or administrators serving under a director. Whenever someone needs something to get done, “they go to the undersecretary who has to fix it and who says, ‘Wait a second, I’ll get back to you,’ and they have to call the director … namely, it doesn’t work.”

It ends up being a system where the person cannot decide or have his or her own say, making it “lethal” for the organization by putting it “to sleep and killing it,” he said.

He asked the dicastery’s management and staff to be careful and make sure that the organization is working by helping foster creativity.

“Your work should be creative, always, and go above and beyond” the usual, he said. If everything is “too well ordered, in the end, it ends up being caged and not helping.”

To make sure an organization is really working, “it is necessary to make sure everyone has enough freedom to work, that they have the ability to take risks and not go and ask permission, always permission … this is paralyzing,” he said.

The pope also sat in a studio with two Vatican Radio journalists to offer a brief reflection live to listeners.

Massimiliano Menichetti, editor-in-chief of Vatican Radio and Vatican News, explained that offering programs in multiple languages via traditional broadcast radio, satellite radio, Internet and short wave was part of fulfilling the pope’s mission to “go to the peripheries where no other means (of communication) arrives.”

“We try to never leave anyone all alone, even during this time of a pandemic,” he said.

Pope Francis responded by thanking staff for their work, but he said there were many reasons to be worried about the radio and the newspaper and that there was one thing he was most concerned about: “How many people listen to the radio and how many read L’Osservatore Romano?” he said.

“Because our job is to reach the people, that the work that is done here — which is beautiful, it is great, it is tiring — get to the people,” he said, recognizing their service in multiple languages and shortwave transmissions.

“But the question that you must ask is: how many? It gets to how many people?” he said.

The danger all organizations face, he said, is ensuring they accomplish what they set out to do.

Pope Francis said it reminded him of the fable of the mountain groaning in labor only to give birth to a tiny mouse. The classic fable by Aesop is often interpreted as a warning against believing in big or boastful talk because some promise more than they can deliver.

According to the Vatican press office, there were 250 million page-views on Vatican News in 2020, with an average of 21 million page views a month, peaking at 46 million during the first COVID-19 lockdown in early spring.

More than 1,000 radio stations around the world are partnered with Vatican Radio to rebroadcast its transmissions and about 21,500 people read the Vatican newspaper — either online or in print — each day, and there are about 40,000 subscribers to its print editions published in Italian and other languages, the press office said.

Also see

Desire for eternal youth is ‘delusional,’ pope says

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, pope tells young people

Cardinal Tomko, oldest member of College of Cardinals, dies at 98

Vatican reports $3.3 million deficit was significantly less than expected

Ambassador says pope will visit Ukraine before Kazakhstan trip

Be vigilant to God’s presence in life, pope says

Copyright © 2021 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Print Print

Primary Sidebar

Carol Glatz

Catholic News Service is a leading agency for religious news. Its mission is to report fully, fairly and freely on the involvement of the church in the world today.

View all posts from this author

For the latest news delivered twice a week via email or text message, sign up to receive our free enewsletter.

Latest Local News

Young adults from Archdiocese of Baltimore invited to experience local and international World Youth Day events

Archdiocese of Baltimore welcomes new school leaders

RADIO INTERVIEW: Camp St. Vincent

Archbishop Lori decries Biden executive order, ‘continued promotion of abortion’

Archbishop Lori urges Congress to ‘seize hopeful moment,’ vote to protect life, common good

Latest World News

Overturning of Roe provides ‘chance to win fight for life,’ says top Knight

Desire for eternal youth is ‘delusional,’ pope says

Father Carl Kabat, a former Baltimore resident, spent 17 years in prison for anti-nuclear protests

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, pope tells young people

5th Circuit urged to keep injunction in place on HHS transgender mandate

Catholic Review Radio

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Young adults from Archdiocese of Baltimore invited to experience local and international World Youth Day events
  • Overturning of Roe provides ‘chance to win fight for life,’ says top Knight
  • Desire for eternal youth is ‘delusional,’ pope says
  • Archdiocese of Baltimore welcomes new school leaders
  • Father Carl Kabat, a former Baltimore resident, spent 17 years in prison for anti-nuclear protests
  • Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, pope tells young people
  • 5th Circuit urged to keep injunction in place on HHS transgender mandate
  • MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Predator’ prequel hunts for ‘Prey’
  • Cardinal Tomko, oldest member of College of Cardinals, dies at 98

Search

Membership

Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2022 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED