ROME – At year’s end, it’s standard journalistic practice to look back at the most important stories of the past 12 months. Since plenty of people already do that on the Vatican beat, I decided a long time ago to go another direction by offering a list of the most under-covered Vatican stories of the year.
By that, I mean stories which were important, but which, for one reason or another, didn’t generate a lot of buzz, either in the mainstream media or the specialized Catholic press. It’s not that they weren’t covered at all, simply that the volume of coverage wasn’t proportionate to the inherent merits of the story.
So, let’s begin.
A Vatican trial regarding alleged sexual abuse in the Pre-Seminary of St. Pius X, then located on Vatican grounds, had the misfortune of unfolding around the same time as the “Trial of the Century” pivoting on charges of financial crime against a Prince of the Church, Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu, and nine other defendants.
There’s only so much airtime or column inches news outlets are going to devote to Vatican trials, and the one involving a cardinal in the dock was destined to be the clear winner.
Nevertheless, the fact that in January 2024, on appeal, Father Gabriele Martinelli, a 32-year-old priest from the northern Italian city of Como, became the first cleric ever convicted by a papal court for sexual abuse committed on Vatican grounds is significant in itself. That the conviction involved abuse committed when Martinelli himself was a seminarian, against a fellow (though younger) seminarian, makes it precedent-setting.
For bonus points, it also raises questions about the role of Cardinal Oscar Cantoni, the bishop of Como, the diocese which sponsored the pre-seminary. Cantoni ordained Martinelli in 2016, despite the fact that allegations against him were already in the air.
The first time in 2024 that Pope France used the term frociaggine , a bit of Italian slang roughly meaning “faggotry,” it certainly wasn’t under-covered: It created a global sensation, with the basic conclusion being that an aging pontiff and non-native Italian speaker simply had a slip of the tongue. The media conclusion appeared to be that the pope of “Who am I to judge?” certainly wouldn’t use a term seen as pejorative towards gays on purpose.
The second time Pope Francis used the term, just one month later, it didn’t generate anything like the same attention, for the simple reason that it contradicted the narrative from the first go-around: Obviously by then Francis knew full well what the term signifies, and to employ it a second time in public proves it wasn’t an accident.
Bottom line: This pope clearly does believe there’s an unhealthy gay element to clerical culture, however much that assertion may contradict his generally liberal reputation (and therefore draw less coverage than it deserves.)
Vatican law does not permit worker strikes, and one understands why. Italians love their scioperi, or “strikes,” so much so that newspapers actually carry columns noting who’s on strike today. Yet if strikes were permitted in the pope’s backyard, 2024 might have set a new record.
The Associazione Dipendenti Laici Vaticano, or “Association of Vatican Lay Employees,” which is the closest thing to a union the place has, issued a series of increasingly plaintive and alarmist communiques throughout the year, warning that “financial reform” is a codeword for trying to balance budgets on the backs of workers who’ve already put up with freezes on hiring that mean everybody has to work harder and longer, suspensions of pay increases based on seniority, a suspension of overtime pay, increases in rent for their Vatican apartments, and warnings that their pensions may not be there when they retire.
In a grand irony, while participants in the Synod of Bishops on Synodality extolled dialogue and inclusion, the workers who set their tables, photocopied their documents, made their coffee and rolls and swept up after them, couldn’t even get higher-ups in the Vatican to acknowledge their existence, much less have a serious conversation.
If the pope wants reform to work, opening a dialogue with his own workforce is probably a good idea.
During 2024, a criminal charge was filed in a Peruvian court against Spanish Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu by two individuals who were witnesses in a Vatican investigation concerning the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, an inquiry which Bertomeu had been in the country to help lead.
The two individuals have also filed a canonical complaint against Bertomeu in a Vatican court, which is a different matter. In both cases, the charge is that he violated their confidentiality by leaking their identities and details of their testimonies, claims which have been disputed by several other observers.
The fact the criminal charge in Peru wasn’t immediately dismissed, but instead is apparently under consideration by the Peruvian Attorney General, is astonishing and unprecedented. (Frankly, it’s also astonishing that private citizens in Peru can file criminal charges at all, but that’s a topic for a different day.)
The Vatican is a sovereign entity under intentional law, so its officials merit diplomatic protection – either personal, in the case of embassy staff, or conduct-based, for other personnel in a foreign country on official business. In addition, the Catholic Church is also a religious organization, so to interfere in the way its leadership conducts internal church affairs is an obvious violation of religious freedom.
Beyond those concerns, allowing private citizens to file criminal complaints against Vatican investigators also would undercut the ability of the Holy See to investigate abuse complaints around the world, at a time when pretty much everybody is demanding that the Vatican act decisively to deliver swift and sure justice.
However this case is decided, it will set a massively consequential precedent, and the fact it’s drawn such relatively scant attention is, frankly, startling.
2024 opened with the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, using a Jan. 17 address at the Jesuit-run Gregorian University to denounce what he called “regressive theology and substantial misunderstanding of the situation” by the Vatican since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of Gaza, complaining of “a jumble of political and religious declarations that have left us confused and offended.” Di Segni said it all added up to “many steps backward” in Jewish-Catholic dialogue.
The year ended with three distinct vignettes.
First, on Dec. 7 images made the rounds of Pope Francis gazing up a nativity set in the Paul VI Audience Hall with the baby Jesus resting on a black-and-white checked keffiyeh, a key symbol of Palestinian resistance. Naturally, the tableau ruffled feathers in Israeli and Jewish circles.
Second, on Dec. 22, Pope Francis opened his annual address to the Roman Curia with impromptu remarks on Gaza, claiming that the Latin Rite Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, had been blocked from entering by Israeli authorities. The Israeli Embassy to the Holy See issued an immediate denial, and the next day Pizzaballa’s delegation entered Gaza as planned.
Third, also in those Dec. 22 remarks, Francis referred to Israeli airstrikes that struck children as “cruel.” The Israeli Foreign Ministry immediately responded: “Cruelty is terrorists hiding behind children while trying to murder Israeli children; cruelty is holding 100 hostages for 442 days, including a baby and children, by terrorists and abusing them,” adding, “Enough with the double standards and the singling out of the Jewish state and its people.”
Reports in the Israeli media also suggest the government has summoned the papal ambassador for a formal protest.
In between those bookends, 2024 saw a group of Jewish scholars write the pontiff to ask him to do more to show sympathy for Israel’s suffering as a result of Oct. 7; an Italian Cardinal praising an Italo-Tunisian rapper who cried out “Stop the Genocide!” during Italy’s most popular annual music festival; the pope’s top diplomat calling the Israeli military response to Oct. 7 “disproportionate”; and an essay in L’Osservatore Romano arguing that anti-Semitism has been a curse not only for Jews but also for Palestinians, because it was the legacy of the Holocaust that set the stage for the partition, the 1948 war and the Palestinian exile.
That, by the way, is just a partial list of contretemps. Many drew a bit of coverage when they occurred, others didn’t, but few observers connected the dots to present the big picture: All in all, 2024 was probably the most difficult year for Catholic-Jewish relations since the Vatican and Israel launched full diplomatic relations in 1993.
After Nostrae Aetate in 1965, coupled with St. John Paul II’s watershed visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem in 2000, it’s been taken for granted that Jewish-Catholic friendship is forever. This is perhaps the first year in the last quarter-century which has caused experts on both sides to question that assumption.
