Reform of Vatican media operations seen as long-term project

June 01, 2015

The effort to reform and update the Vatican’s media operations will be a long-term process, reports Andrea Gagliarducci of the Catholic News Agency.

Lord Patten, the British peer who chaired a special papal commission created to suggest changes in the Vatican’s communications system, last week told a London audience that the group found an urgent need to streamline the operations, providing for central planning and coordination of the various offices involved in radio, television, publishing, and public relations. The Patten commission’s recommendations were accepted by Pope Francis, who appointed a new committee to plan the implementation of a new communications plan.

The Patten commission, Galgliarducci reports, initially hoped to find means of achieving a substantial reduction in the costs of Vatican communications, which now exceed $76 million. However, the commission determined that deep budget cuts would require layoffs of personnel, which “we judged not to be ethically appropriate.”

The commission reportedly proposed that the Vatican’s media operations should be centralized in one office, which would be divided into five departments: one to plan pastoral strategy; one to handle administration; one to handle legal and financial concerns such as publications, sponsorships, and commercial partnerships; one to handle technology; and the last to handle the “core media activities” including a modernized and expanded press office.

 

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Further information:

• The Vatican's arduous task of communicating in the modern age (CNA)
• Vatican communications offices must be streamlined, says head of papal commission (CWN, 5/27)