Prefect discusses history, limits of Vatican II document on communications

December 04, 2015

Msgr. Dario Edoardo Viganò, the prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications since its establishment in June, said in a December 3 talk in Barcelona that no document of the Second Vatican Council garnered more opposition than Inter Mirifica, the Decree on the Means of Social Communications.

The document, he said, was criticized as “banal, moralizing, petty,” was downgraded from a constitution to a decree, was reduced from 114 to 24 paragraphs, and even then attracted a significant number of “no” votes (the final margin was 1,960 in favor and 164 opposed).

The document’s main drafter, said Msgr. Viganò, was Jesuit Father Enrico Baragli, whose view of communication was “essentially consistent with the idea of communication in vogue” at the time-- a view “light years away from modern theories of communication.”

In time, the document, despite its limits, became a resource that was supplemented by other conciliar and papal documents. Thus, said Msgr. Viganò, Inter Mirifica helped overcome “a past prejudiced by doctrinal verticalism and cultural rigidity.”

 

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Further information:

• Opportunità e rischio (L’Osservatore Romano, p. 4)
• Vatican communications efforts merged, new office will supervise work (CWN, 6/29)
• Inter Mirifica