How to Cover the Vatican Without Really Praying

At the end of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, an American reporter compared Vatican watching with Kremlin watching--unfavorably. The Kremlin, he argued, at least had some concern for world opinion. The comparison may have been exaggerated, but it reflected the traditional frustrations of newsmen trying to cover the capital of Roman Catholicism. Until 1966, for instance, there was no official Vatican press officer or any individual who could be singled out as a "Vatican spokesman." Even after the press office was set up, a reporter might wait a week to have a question answered, and then perhaps only with a "No comment." Newsmen covering the Bishops' Synod this month were therefore pleasantly surprised to find basic official information almost as plentiful as holy water at Easter.

True, the 650 accredited correspondents were not admitted to the synod sessions in the Hall of Broken Heads (where they would have outnumbered the bishops by more than 4 to 1). But if they couldn't go to the prelates, many of the notable prelates came to them to answer questions at the official press office. Vatican briefers daily provided extracts for attribution from every synod speech.

Why the improvement in Vatican press relations? Experienced correspondents doubt that Pope Paul VI (whose father was a newspaperman) is yet a complete believer in the virtues of a free and informed press, at least as far as Vatican affairs are concerned. More likely, the Vatican is simply reacting to reality. Newsmen will get information one way or another (there have always been paid informers within the papal enclave, and there still are); it is obviously better for the Vatican that at least some of the news at such an important conference come from official sources.

One unofficial source that has delighted journalists and displeased the Vatican is the liberal, scholarly International Documentation Center. Set up in Rome during Vatican II to provide the Dutch press with detailed background information, IDOC has since become an international clearinghouse for information on the renewal movement in all churches. During the synod, an offshoot of IDOC presented daily a panel of four theologians and historians to analyze the Vatican bulletins.

Crumbs with Wine. For $30 a head, more than 100 correspondents were treated not only to nuances but to the best show in town. Conservative priests pitched curves at the liberal panelists; ladies from obscure papers posed puzzles that glazed the panel's eyes; a German asked his questions in Latin; and an Englishman periodically stood up to say, with plaintive sincerity, "I don't understand . . ."

After an hour of official briefing and an hour of unofficial panel analysis, many correspondents remained unsated. For them there was still perhaps the oldest method of probing the Vatican, a method used by diplomats, spies and merchants long before there were newspapers: taking a cleric to dinner. At such restaurants as Romolo's, where Raphael is supposed to have found his model for The Baker's Daughter, or Galeassi's, which also attracts a movie and theatrical crowd, the clergy last week responded as usual to the pleasures of the table, and crumbs of information mingled with the wine.

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