{"id":6008,"date":"2006-09-08T13:05:08","date_gmt":"2006-09-08T13:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/change-at-the-top.html"},"modified":"2006-09-08T13:05:08","modified_gmt":"2006-09-08T13:05:08","slug":"change-at-the-top","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/change-at-the-top.html","title":{"rendered":"Change at the top"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Thavis of CNS looks at the change in leadership in the Vatican news offices:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Father Lombardi professed admiration for his predecessor’s work, but journalists immediately noticed a difference in the air. One telltale sign was that the first Vatican communique issued under Father Lombardi did not mention his own name. Under Navarro-Valls, these statements, although drafted in the office of the Vatican secretary of state, were released as if they were direct declarations of the papal spokesman.<\/p>\n

Father Lombardi said Pope Benedict did not give him precise instructions on how to run the press office, but his self-effacing style seems a perfect match with the pope’s own low-key approach.<\/p>\n

Trained in mathematics and a one-time student of theology in Germany, the 64-year-old Jesuit speaks French, German and passable English, in addition to his native Italian, and can read and understand Spanish and Portuguese. His linguistic skills were important over the last 16 years as program director, then general director, of Vatican Radio.<\/p>\n

Because he remains director of Vatican Radio and of the Vatican television station, CTV, Father Lombardi’s workday is an exercise in musical chairs. He begins his morning at Vatican Radio’s headquarters, then spends several hours at the press office, heads to CTV in the early afternoon, and in the late afternoon returns to the radio, where he works until about 9 p.m.<\/p>\n

He said he reads the Vatican’s daily packet of press clippings in rapid fashion — perhaps too rapidly, he added, saying he may have to devote more attention to that task. Given his schedule, he has little time for browsing the Internet during the day.<\/p>\n

Father Lombardi well understands that journalistic and Vatican priorities are not always a perfect match. On a recent morning, for example, the pressing question from reporters was whether the pope’s new red hat was made of felt or straw.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Priorities, man – priorities!!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Thavis of CNS looks at the change in leadership in the Vatican news offices: Father Lombardi professed admiration for his predecessor’s work, but journalists immediately noticed a difference in the air. One telltale sign was that the first Vatican communique issued under Father Lombardi did not mention his own name. Under Navarro-Valls, these statements,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nChange at the top - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/change-at-the-top.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Change at the top - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"John Thavis of CNS looks at the change in leadership in the Vatican news offices: Father Lombardi professed admiration for his predecessor’s work, but journalists immediately noticed a difference in the air. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}