A Warning to the Press

When correspondents picked up application forms for new press cards at the Vatican press office last week, they were handed a little leaflet. Newsmen, the leaflet said, would be expected to maintain "an attitude completely proper regarding the Holy See and the Catholic Church." Anyone who demonstrated an "incorrect attitude" might lose his credentials.

While reporters fumed, Monsignor Fausto Vallainc, head of the Vatican press office, excused the standards as "merely a rephrasing of the old rules." In point of fact, only three journalists, have had their Vatican credentials lifted in the past 18 years--and only one lost his permanently. Vatican press briefings, moreover, have increased and improved (TIME, Oct. 31). Yet some officials--among them Deputy Secretary of State Archbishop Giovanni Benelli--apparently felt the need to protect themselves against misinterpretation. Explained a Vatican insider: "Journalists today try to write like theologians, getting involved in highly controversial doctrinal matters. Any journalist who behaves irresponsibly in doing this kind of reporting can damage the religious consciences of Catholic readers around the world."

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