by Fred Moleck
Vatican Watch (It's Not a Rolex)
It may have been John Paul II who made life in the Vatican a hot media commodity. That fascination is still around.Look at the big splash Pope Benedict XVI made with his trip to Der Vaterland. Of course, the waves are still crashing from the Regensburg speech, which drew and still draws so much ire from the world of Islam.
There’s even interest in his ermine-lined cape and red shoes with his matching red hat. It all looked so Ferragamo.
I learned about that fashion statement by reading a fascinating addition to my cyberspatial mornings with coffee cup in hand—decaf, of course. I’m fascinated.
The most recent manifestation of my addiction of “Vaticana” is a daily dose of what’s happening in the Vatican. Every morning I bring up the website Whispers in the Loggia.
Every day there is a scoop of an official appointment in the Vatican or, say, a newly appointed American bishop to a diocese that has been without a bishop for nearly two years.
The thoroughness of the reporting and the credibility of the subjects far exceed any L’Osservatore Romano article. With that realization, I became hooked.
Whispers in the Loggia is a blog of a 23-year-old south Philadelphia Catholic, whose site is hit six thousand times a day. Those hits totaled 1,299,502 at last count.
The blogger is Rocco Palmo, whose name I recognized as one of the writers for the London Tablet.
He received special attention during the September 11 edition of NPR’s “All Things Considered.”
It wasn’t until two weeks ago, however, that I heard about him and his blog site. Now, every day after morning prayer, I hit the site and become fixated on “what’s the latest.”
How does this guy know so much about Vatican stuff? I initially guessed that he is an older priest who has lived in Rome for most of his priestly life, thus building up a good-sized network of Vatican cronies who talk only in whispers.
Not the case. As I mentioned above, it’s the work of a Penn graduate of a couple of years ago.
His office is the basement of his parent’s house in south Philadelphia (an Italian-American neighborhood). With a name like Rocco Palmo, why am I surprised?
There is no advertising. Free-will offerings are accepted. In other words, no agency or polity owns him.
His sources include the daily news release from the Vatican. Some Vatican insiders phone newsy items to him. Clearly, he is well connected.
He has revealed more juicy stuff about Vatican appointments, decisions, and changes in policy. This news has always been around but only whispered in the loggias of the Vatican. (A loggia is an open arcade alongside a building.)
For example, two days ago the site displayed the picture of Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, the newly appointed archbishop of Naples.
So what? Sepe was the Assessore of the Vatican Secretariat of State. So what? Rarely is a cardinal taken out of his position and sent to an archdiocese as its ordinary.
Some Vatican watchers see this appointment as a sign of things to come as Pope Benedict XVI begins to make his mark on the Vatican.
What ushered me into this “loggia” was the rapidly spreading rumor two weeks ago that a local ordinary would be leaving his diocese.
The reason for such a quick departure was that he could very well be named to a high ranking position in the office of Cardinal Bertone, the new papal secretary of state.
The rumor spread like wildfire. It became so widespread that it was necessary for the diocesan news spokesperson to issue a rumor alert to quell the anxieties.
Well, no appointment was made . . . at least, not yet. We were all transfixed and waited for the other shoe to drop. To date, the shoe is still on the other foot.
Nevertheless, local Vatican watchers rise early every day, say their prayers, and make another hit on Whispers in the Loggia.
Who knows? Maybe one of us will be the subject of Rocco Palmo’s daily masterpiece.
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@earthlink.net