Rev. Ralph Wiltgen: The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber: A History of Vatican II

[Stone]

THE FIRST SESSION
October 11 to December 8, 1962

THE PRESS AND SECRECY

Everyone connected in any way with the First Vatican Council (1869-70) was ordered by Pope Pius IX to observe strict secrecy on every conceivable aspect of Council business. The Pope explained that secrecy had also been imposed upon those partaking in earlier Councils, whenever the occasion had warranted it. “But now more than ever such caution appears necessary,” he said, “since every opportunity is quickly seized by the powerful and destructive forces of wickedness to inspire hateful attacks against the Catholic Church and its doctrine.” This rigid secrecy obligation, and the lack of a Council Press Office, forced journalists assigned to cover Vatican I to obtain their information in devious ways. The resultant coverage was considered by Church authorities to be lacking in objectivity and balance, however good the intentions of the journalists concerned might have been.

To avoid any repetition of this situation at Vatican II, it was early decided to make special efforts to provide journalists with authentic information. At a press conference held by Cardinal Tardini on October 30, 1959, and attended by over a hundred journalists, it was announced that a Council Press Office would be established to give journalists an opportunity to obtain “precise and topical information on the various phases of the Council.” This Press Office opened its doors on April 18, 1961, operating first as an information service for the Central Preparatory Commission. In this capacity, it issued a total of 112 news releases during the preparatory phase of the Council.

In June 1961, Pope John told those engaged in the preparatory work that he did not wish to “forget the journalists,” whose desire for news on the Council he appreciated. “Nevertheless,” he added, “we invite them courteously to reflect that an ecumenical council is neither an academy of science nor a parliament, but rather a solemn meeting of the entire hierarchy of the Church to discuss questions regarding the ordinary life of the Church and the good of souls. It is clear that all of this interests the journalists, but it also requires special respect and reserve.”

In October of the same year, Pope John received the press in audience and said that everything would be done to provide them with detailed information on the preparation and development of the Council. In fact, we are fully conscious of the precious service that the press will be able to perform in making the Council known in its true light, and in making it understood and appreciated by the public at large as it deserves to be. Indeed, it would be most unfortunate if, for lack of sufficient information, or for lack of discretion and objectivity, a religious event of this importance should be presented so inexactly as to distort its character and the very goals which it has set for itself. A month later, the Pope told the Central Preparatory Commission that not everything could be made known to the press. There are some deliberations which necessarily . . . must remain veiled in silence.”

Six days before the opening of the Council, Amleto Cardinal Cicognani, the Secretary of State, blessed and inaugurated the newly expanded Council Press Office, facing St. Peter’s. The office was equipped with all modern facilities, and in the course of the four sessions issued 176 news bulletins and 141 special studies in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Arabic and Chinese. Even before the Council opened, over a thousand journalists from around the world had been accredited.

Monsignor Fausto Vallainc, the Director of the Council Press Office, was immediately responsible to the Secretary General during the first session, an arrangement which proved most unsatisfactory and was changed before the second session. On the opening day of the Council, he issued a bulletin to the effect that the Council Press Office would do all in its power to fulfill the requests of journalists and facilitate their work. . . . Naturally this office has certain necessary limitations, since the information to be given out must always first be approved, and may never violate the laws of necessary reserve, discretion and secrecy required for the good of the Council.”

The matter of secrecy was specifically treated in three different articles of the Rules of Procedure of the Council, endorsed by Pope John two months before the Council opened. In its mildest form it was imposed upon observer-delegates from non-Catholic Christian Churches invited to attend the Council. Article 18 provided: “The observers may inform their own communities of those things that take place in the Council. They are bound to observe secrecy, however, with regard to all other persons, in the same way as the Council Fathers, as indicated in Article 26.” The wording of the obligation as it related to the Council Fathers was very brief: “The Fathers are obliged to keep secret the Council discussions and the opinions of individuals.” The secrecy obligation imposed by Article 27 was even more stringent: Procurators, Council periti, ministers, officials and all others who have anything to do with Council affairs are obliged before the Council opens to take an oath in the presence of the President or his delegate, stating that they will faithfully fulfill their office and observe secrecy regarding documents, discussions, opinions of individual Fathers, and votes.”

Although Monsignor Vallainc made heroic efforts to supply information, it was so anonymous that the press could quote no one. He was in a dilemma. He knew what the reporters wanted, and realized the validity of their requests, but he could not oblige. And this angered the journalists with whom he was in daily contact. If he ventured to give more detailed information than usual, those Council Fathers who believed this to indicate partiality toward conservatives or liberals, or to be injurious to the Council, complained to the authorities, and Monsignor Vallainc would receive new instructions from Archbishop Felici. His job was to remain as neutral as possible.

Throughout the first session, representations were made through a variety of channels urging improvements in the press arrangements. Notably, the Spanish Information Center drafted a memorandum on the subject for presentation to the Council Secretariat; more or less formal representations were also made by the press committee of the United States hierarchy, by many individual bishops of various countries, and by individual journalists. Although there was some improvement in the bulletins issued to the press, they never became quite satisfactory. There continued to be emphasis on basic agreement among the Council Fathers, with disagreement being evident only on minor points, even in cases where it later became apparent that the disagreements were much more than minor. And the presentation of arguments on both sides of an issue tended to give the impression that there was about equal division, when this was not at all the case in fact.

There was an attempt among some Council Fathers, especially those from Canada, to do away with the secrecy obligation altogether and to allow the press to attend all meetings inside St. Peter’s. This proposal, however, met with strong opposition not only from Council authorities, but also from many Council Fathers. The secrecy obligation was never formally revoked or even mitigated during the first session.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Manuel Cardinal Gonsalves Cerejeira of Lisbon should have risen in the Council hall on November 16, to say that he was obliged to make “a sad observation,” namely, that the secrecy obligation regarding Council matters was very poorly observed, since everything said at the previous meeting two days earlier was already public knowledge. Actually, much of what Council Fathers regarded as leakage of Council information was news that had been issued by the Council Press Office itself. Each day, shortly after a meeting, there was an oral briefing for the press in the Council Press Office, and two or three hours later the same information was available to the press in bulletin form. Many Council Fathers found themselves in the embarrassing position of withholding information from persons outside the Council, only to find the selfsame news in the next morning’s paper.

The French La Croix, a daily published in Paris by the Augustinians of the Assumption, enjoyed the special confidence of the French hierarchy. These bishops knew that La Croix would faithfully print what they said, and would not sensationalize the news. As a result, numerous and lengthy direct quotations of statements by French bishops in the Council hall appeared in La Croix. Archbishop Rene Stourm of Sens, press representative for the French hierarchy, later said that the French bishops regarded themselves as responsible to their people, and wanted to keep them informed; hence they had used the press.

Many Council Fathers from Italy, France and Canada sent weekly newsletters on the Council to their diocesan newspapers. Some of these newsletters, such as that of Cardinal Montini, were widely reproduced in the press. Coadjutor Archbishop John Patrick Cody made a weekly broadcast from Rome to New Orleans via telephone to keep the people of his archdiocese informed about the progress of the Council.

Simultaneously with the opening of the Council, several national information centers were established. These grew rapidly in importance, because of the general need of the press for information about the Council, and they also began to exert an altogether unexpected influence on the Council’s deliberations.

The most elaborate, most influential and most regular service was the one provided by the United States hierarchy; it might well be regarded as one of that hierarchy’s greatest contributions to the Council. Officially it was known as the U. S. Bishops’ Press Panel. It operated within the limits of the rules governing the Council, and its principal purpose was to provide more information on Council proceedings and throw light on the highly complex questions treated in the debates. The panel during the first session regularly numbered eleven members, all experts on subjects related to the Council’s work—dogmatic theology, moral theology, sacred Scripture, ecumenism, council history, canon law, liturgy, seminaries, etc. These experts would clarify definitions and positions, and provide the press with background material on matters under discussion in the Council hall on any one day. As the Council progressed, these briefings were increasingly well attended.

The German hierarchy established an information center at which a bishop or theologian read a weekly background paper. The Spanish hierarchy opened an information office which was concerned chiefly with supplying information to the Spanish bishops themselves. The Dutch hierarchy opened a documentation center which during the first session issued a series of forty research papers in Dutch. The French and Argentine hierarchies also established information offices.

In a pre-Council survey that I made of press attitudes in regard to Council coverage, the chief of the Rome bureau of Newsweek, Mr. Curtis Pepper, told me, “Nothing can substitute for interviews with important people.” He cited the meeting of the World Council of Churches in New Delhi, where he and other representatives of the press had been given every opportunity to interview churchmen. “This,” he said, “cleared up ambiguities and led to more accurate reporting on the part of the press.” These views were confirmed by Mr. Robert Kaiser of the Rome bureau of Time, who said, “What the press needs is access to bishops and theologians who have the freedom to speak frankly about something which is a human event involving intelligent men in dialogue.”

Most of the Council Fathers who came to Rome distrusted the press. They believed they would be misquoted, and therefore refused to meet and cooperate with journalists they did not know. And such a vast assortment of tongues were spoken by the Council Fathers that most journalists would be automatically restricted to their own linguistic groups. Because I was a priest and a member of an international and multilingual missionary order, I was in a more advantageous position to make contact with Council Fathers from many different parts of the world.

Like all other journalists, I had to overcome the obstacle of secrecy. Convinced by Mr. Pepper and Mr. Kaiser of the importance of press conferences, I felt it imperative to find a way for a Council Father to speak before the press without fear of breaking the obligation of Council secrecy. At the same time, his words must obviously have some direct bearing on the Council; background talks were not enough. The solution reached was actually very simple. Instead of asking a Council Father to speak about what was going on in the Council hall, I would merely ask him to state in practical terms the needs and wishes of his own diocese in regard to the matter currently under discussion. This did not violate secrecy, and was still topical information for the press. For it was clear that what a bishop might say in this connection would echo views that he, or someone else, was voicing in the Council hall.

To overcome a bishop’s fear of being misquoted, I suggested that he first give me a private interview, which I would then write up and submit to him for his approval. After the transcript was cleared, translations of it would be made. At the subsequent press conference, each journalist would receive this bulletin in his own language. It contained numerous direct quotations, which the press was free to use. This procedure guaranteed the accuracy of the substance of any story which the press might carry, and it allayed the fears of the Council Father concerned. The press conference itself was conducted in two, and sometimes three, languages; the bulletins were available in six languages. In this way, the Divine Word News Service was able to organize fifteen widely quoted press conferences for seven bishops and eight archbishops from twelve countries during the first session. This practice was widely adopted in subsequent sessions.