Pope Francis is perhaps the most controversial personality captured by the media in the religious sphere today. Journalists and photographers who report on the Pope’s interactions with the world are conscious of his relational approach of communication, unlike that of his predecessors who in the past complied with the hierarchical distance between themselves and the public. However, time and time again, Francis has proved that this style of communication is not for him.
Considering ongoing news coverage of Pope Francis and international trips, meetings with leaders, and visits to in different cities, it can be seen that Francis intends to be perceived as a leader who is unafraid of a low power distance. Francis is often photographed in action touching gently or speaking intimately with others, most notably children and devoted followers of the Catholic faith who will travel great distances to meet him. Francis’s encounters with foreign leaders are characterized by Francis’s “tenderness”, as explained by religious communication scholar Dr. Carlo Nardella, as a means to “demonstrate his ability to enter consciously into the normal dimension of everyday life” (Nardella, 2019). Additionally, Francis’s style of communicating tends to sway him in and out of the political realm; while his personable pretense tends to overstep the formal boundaries of bureaucracy, the Pope is often also picked apart in media when it comes to his indirect political leanings. In result, Francis is seen in juxtaposition to the current Catholic Church and most notably when scandals in the media arise against the Church.
In an article published by The Local Italy in February, the Pope was praised for his criticism of “remaining silent” amidst accusations against the church regarding sexual abuse scandals. Francis was recognized for defrocking the cardinal Theodore McCarrick over such allegations, in lieu of hidden scandals that were allegedly hushed by Francis’s priors, Benedict and John Paul II, who may have “taken part in the cover up” (Pope defrocks US priest over child abuse scandal, 2019). This Italian news article, though published in English, most accurately depicts the Italian media’s view of Pope Francis in regards to maintaining a tone of appraisal and respect for the Pope’s actions. In contrast to an American article, which criticized Francis on the same subject, Italian media seemed more forgiving. The American article published by Breitbart in April, however, used Francis’s mentions of “remaining silent” as a key point to argue against Francis’s failure to address scandals upfront more recently (Williams, 2019). Such media draws negative attention to Francis’s communication style by politicizing his quotes and placing them in a bureaucratic context, when the same topic could be perceived by foreign media as genuine and conventional of the Pope’s communicative tendencies.
References:
Pope defrocks US priest over child abuse scandal. 2019. The Local Italy. Retrieved from https://www.thelocal.it/20190216/pope-defrocks-us-priest-over-child-abuse-scandal
Williams, T.D. 2019. Pope Francis: We Imitate Jesus by ‘Keeping Silence’. Retrieved from https://www.breitbart.com/faith/2019/04/15/pope-francis-we-imitate-jesus-by-keeping-silence/
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