See something, say something. Is that gossip?

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Dec 31, 2024

Each year, sometime shortly before Christmas, the Pope holds an audience with leaders of the Roman Curia. Traditionally this meeting has been described as an opportunity to exchange Christmas greetings, with the Pontiff offering some encouraging reflections on the work of the Holy See. Under Pope Francis the meeting has taken on a different tone. In some years he has told the top Vatican officials how their work could be improved; other years, the Pope’s talk has been a thorough scolding.

This year, on December 21, the Pope’s tone was not harsh, but his message was severe: a caution against gossip. No doubt that message is an important one, in the close quarters of the Vatican bureaucracy, where rumors fly at lightning speed. But at one point in his address, the Pope made a potentially troubling remark.

Breaking away from his prepared text (as he is wont to do), Pope Francis said:

When we see a defect in someone, we should only talk about it with three others: with God, with the person in question, or, if that is not possible, with the person in the community who can take care of the situation. No one else.

Perhaps under ordinary circumstances that would be good advice. But for the past 25 years the Catholic Church has not been operating under ordinary circumstances. Apply the Pope’s suggestion to, say, the case of McCarrick. Or Zanchetta. Or Rupnik. Or any of the hundreds of other cases in which, when an abuse was reported to “the person in the community who can take take of the situation,” that person buried the evidence.

Gossip is deadly. But equally deadly, in some cases, is the culture of silence. When will that message get through?