No one knows what is happening in the Vatican, not even Francisco, assures Spanish journalist Juan Vicente Boo Efe, who humorously collects what the Pope told him to summarize the difficulty of portraying ‘the strangest mixture of man and man’. lay. Divine, artistic beauty and administrative mediocrity “that exists even for a seasoned Vaticanist with 22 years of experience.
“It’s a joke by Francis, but it reflects a reality: no one knows what is happening in the Vatican, a series of ninety departments, each of which has long been considered autonomous and important,” he explains. on the nomination that opens his book “Deciphering the Vatican. Inside and out” (Ed. Espasa), a whole manual on that small state that “rules” more than 1,300 million Catholics.
Now the Pope is “ turning all that around, ” which in the medium term will “ turn the useful out of the useless, improve the organizational chart and increase the effectiveness of the organization, ” said Boo, correspondent for the Spanish newspaper ABC. Brussels and Nueva York, with a short hiatus in Hong Kong, before arriving in Italy and the Vatican in 1999.
The oldest institution in the world “fulfills its function thanks to a strange miracle with the help of the person who started it,” says the author, who uses a pleasant style, simple language and an original scheme with twelve columns (the basic sections) and seven arches. (giving perspective) to answer two questions: what is the Vatican and how does it work?
Secrecy, mystery and a certain fascination have surrounded the Vatican ‘since the fourth century, when Constantine manipulated the bishops to form an’ imperial church ‘, which deteriorated from the eighth with the establishment of the papal states, in those where the Pope is present. used to be. at the same time king of an area in the center of the Italian peninsula and that separated him from the faithful in a very sad way ”.
The Italian patriots, from 1870 onwards, with the unity of Italy, achieved “the popes and the Vatican machinery are getting closer together, but they still have a long way to go”.
Boo explains in the book that when he reported on the European Union and the UN, he managed to access 80 percent of the information and 40 percent in NATO, but only managed to reach 20 percent in the Vatican.
“There is a legitimate role, as the appointment of bishops or changes of dioceses must be confidential, but in many other areas it is the result of a ‘culture of bureaucrats’ who tend to play the important role through the information always hide with whom they work., whether or not relevant. “
In his book, Boo speaks of “fakenews”, “caused” confusion, “crows” or information buffs, “liars of denial and apology”: “The turbulence a journalist encounters in the Vatican has no truce as that of any state. unite those of the Italian and those of an ecclesiastical and carrere culture “.
And to that we must add “the sensational elements” that many media, although not the permanent Vaticanists, add to the information and attempts to influence some power groups, such as “some millionaires” who are close to the Democratic Party of the United States. United States.
Many tried to corrupt the American Church before Donald Trump, but people around him, like Steve Bannon, staged a real offensive that discredited Pope Francis by all means and even established a ‘pseudo-Vatican’ in a Carthusian monastery. 80 kilometers from Rome, it is what he called the ‘gladiatorial school’, which presented it as Christianity when it was the exact opposite, ”he says.
Francisco is struggling to make changes and while he doesn’t seem to have achieved communication with the media, he has made progress in others: ‘The most important and already very striking change is the cultural one, towards a culture of service to the others. that it hardly existed in a world of middle bureaucrats who only thought about their promotions. “
Also ‘the beneficial effect of opening many doors and windows so that everyone in the Vatican thinks of the peripheries, of the believers who are undergoing aggression or persecution in so many parts of the world and of the refugees who risk their lives to enter Europe, Colombia reach of Bangladesh “.
“Francisco’s defense of the Rohingya, including his visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh, has been a lesson to all of humanity,” he said.