Federico Lombardi

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
General Director of the Vatican Television Centre
(2001-2013)
Ordination history of
Federico Lombardi
History
Priestly ordination
Date1972

Federico Lombardi

SJ (born 29 August 1942) is an Italian Catholic priest and the former director of the Holy See Press Office. He succeeded Joaquín Navarro-Valls and was succeeded by Greg Burke
.

Lombardi also serves as the postulator for the sainthood cause of Fr Bernardo Mattio.[1]

Early life and ordination

Lombardi was born on 29 August 1942 in

Jesuit priest in 1972, and then worked for the influential Jesuit-run magazine, La Civiltà Cattolica, and served as superior of the Jesuits' Italian province.[3]

Vatican Radio

Lombardi was named program director (1991) and later director general (2005) of

Vatican Television Centre in 2001; a position he held until 2013 and in which Dario Edoardo Viganò
succeeded him.

Press Office of the Holy See

On 11 July 2006

Vatican Television Center as well, as he continued to hold those directorships.[3]

Upon assuming the directorate, Lombardi said he would not be a papal "spokesman" since he believes Benedict XVI did not need an interpreter, saying, "I don't think my role is to explain the Pope's thinking or explain the things that he already states in an extraordinarily clear and rich way."[5] He is considered to have taken a more low-key approach than his predecessor.[5]

Crises in communication

In an editorial for "

Dario Castrillon Hoyos over the problems in communication revealed during the affair.[7]

Lombardi said that the Pope had never been a member of the Hitler Youth, but journalists quickly pointed out to him that Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope, had admitted this himself in the 1997 book Salt of the Earth.[8]

In 2009 Lombardi said that in "cases like Pope Benedict XVI's Regensburg discourse, the Bishop Williamson affair, or the controversy over Pope Benedict XVI's statements regarding condoms and the spread of HIV and AIDS in Africa, ... once the first wave of criticism had passed, people were able to do some real hard thinking; ... subsequent reflections were serious, penetrating and well-argued."[9]

In September 2012, Lombardi released a second statement on the

2012 diplomatic missions attacks which clearly condemned mob violence; his first statement had been criticized by Catholic bloggers for omitting to condemn the violence, and for emphasizing primarily the religious feelings of offended Muslims.[10]

Other

In addition to his native Italian, Lombardi speaks French, German, and English, as well as reading and understanding Spanish and Portuguese.[5]

At the end of October 2011, he addressed his weekly editorial as a letter of welcome to the 7 billionth baby born on Earth.[11]

Succession

His resignation as Director of the Holy See Press Office, which had been expected for reasons of age, was accepted by

Saint Louis, Missouri, who had held the Deputy Director's post since 2015, having worked beforehand in the Secretariat of State of the Holy See in the General Affairs Section, as Assessor for Communications.[12] Burke was succeeded as Deputy Director by Paloma García Ovejero, a woman and a native of Madrid, Spain, who has been serving as a correspondent for Italy and the Vatican, and earlier as an editor and presenter for Cadena Cope, Radio Española.[13] Both Burke and Ovejero resigned their positions on 31 December 2018, upon which Pope Francis appointed Alessandro Gisotti as provisional director.[14]

See also

References

  1. ^ "1914". Hagiography Circle. 4 March 2016. Retrieved 5 March 2016.[permanent dead link]
  2. Vatican.va. Archived from the original
    on 21 April 2013. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
  3. ^ a b Glatz, Carol (11 July 2006). "Pope accepts resignation of longtime Vatican spokesman, Navarro-Valls". Catholic News Service. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Archived from the original on 11 July 2006. Retrieved 14 January 2009.
  4. ^ [unattributed] (12 July 2006). "Federico Lombardi is the new Head of the Vatican Press Office". SIGNIS. Brussels, Belgium: World Catholic Association for Communication. Archived from the original on 5 December 2013. Retrieved 14 January 2009.
  5. ^ a b c Thavis, John (8 September 2006). "'Sala Stampa' style change: From toreador to low-key mathematician". Catholic News Service. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Archived from the original on 5 October 2009. Retrieved 14 January 2009.
  6. ZENIT. Innovative Media, Inc. 30 January 2009. Archived from the original
    on 2 February 2009. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
  7. ^ "Le cardinal Hoyos donne sa version des faits de l'affaire Williamson". La Croix. Bayard Presse. 17 March 2009. Archived from the original on 22 February 2012. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
  8. NCR Online
    . Retrieved 20 September 2019.
  9. ^ "Vatican spokesman: Pope's PR controversies led to 'some real hard thinking'". Catholic Culture. Trinity Communications. 20 May 2009. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
  10. ^ Speciale, Alessandro (13 September 2012). "Vatican recalibrates response to Middle East riots, says violence is never justified". The Washington Post. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
  11. ZENIT. Innovative Media, Inc. Archived from the original
    on 11 November 2011. Retrieved 9 November 2011.
  12. ^ Schneible, Ann (11 July 2016). "Pope names American as new Vatican spokesperson". Catholic News Agency. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
  13. Vatican.va
    . 11 July 2016. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
  14. ISSN 1134-6582
    . Retrieved 2019-11-18.
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