'Voice' of the Vatican prepares to be silenced

Federico Lombardi, the soft-spoken papal spokesman whose face has become familiar to millions of TV viewers, is about to make a statement on Irish church affairs – admittedly not often – he usually rings your correspondent.

"Agnew, you had better get in here, I am making a statement on Ireland this morning," goes the edict.

The kindness he shows a correspondent who is often critical of the church is typical. The entire permanent press corps agrees that the 70-year-old Jesuit is an unfailingly courteous and decent man.

Modest and understated, he must be the only spokesman for a major world “voice” who goes everywhere on foot. He has never had a driving licence.

He almost always answers his mobile, working long days, seven days a week. His BlackBerry, he says, with a giggly sort of laugh, is his “instrument of torture”.

You could argue that he has just about the most difficult public relations job in the western world. In his calm way and with a wry smile, however, Fr Lombardi begs to differ. He claims to be no spin doctor.

“The religious and moral criteria of my work give me a certain serenity. I say the things I know and I try not to say the things I don’t know . . . Anyway, in this current climate of global crisis, it is not easy being any sort of spokesman.”

Sex abuse survivors
Appointed

by Pope Benedict XVI in July 2006, Fr Lombardi is a very different figure from his predecessor, Spanish doctor, layman and Opus Dei member Joaquin Navarro-Valls.

He developed a much more understated, less personalised style. Unlike Navarro-Valls, who always seemed to have a direct line to John Paul II, Fr Lombardi appears to go through the more traditional channel of the secretariat of state.

In November 2010, during the "Reformation Day" protest on the Vatican 's doorstep by clerical sex abuse survivors, Fr Lombardi stepped out to talk to the organisers, Bernie McDaid and Gary Bergeron. He wanted them to understand he would be more than willing to meet the group.

Clearly no issue has been more polemical during his time as papal spokesman than clerical sex abuse. He has conceded that the crisis has severely tested the church’s commitment to be open with the world about the failings of its priests.

He introduced the section on the Holy See’s website, “Abuse of Minors, the Church’s Response”, containing a record not only of church norms for the handling of priests’ sex abuse crimes but also just about every statement Benedict made on the issue.

Holy heads in the sand
It may not

convince those who feel outraged about the church’s response but it is an attempt to look at the ugly monster rather than stick holy heads in the sand.

The new pope will almost certainly opt for a different voice. How does he see his future?

“As a Jesuit, I am in service to the church. I do what I am told . . . If they tell me, ‘look, you’ve done enough, we’ve got another guy for the job’, that’s no problem with me.”

Unassuming to the last.