CNS Rome: full, accurate church reporting for 70 years

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

As Catholic News Service celebrates its centennial, the CNS Rome bureau is marking its own anniversary as a unique newsgathering satellite at the center of the universal church.

Over its 70-year history, the Rome bureau has chronicled a multitude of epochal Catholic events, including the Second Vatican Council, six conclaves, papal trips to every corner of the globe, Vatican reform efforts and several hundred sainthood causes.

What began with a priest and a typewriter has grown to a six-person team, providing coverage in print, photo and video. The CNS bureau today is arguably the most muscular presence in the Holy See press office, the primary source of Vatican news.

But the Rome bureau’s role has never been limited to rewriting official press releases. From the beginning, it operated as a pivotal communications liaison between the church in the United States and its central offices in Rome.

In doing so, it offered U.S. bishops and diocesan newspapers an inside and accurate perspective on issues that are often muddled or misrepresented.

When St. John Paul II convened interfaith leaders in Assisi, Italy, in 1986, the Rome bureau examined the fine line between interreligious cooperation and syncretism, or the casual blending of religious practices and worship.

When the Vatican accelerated the opening of archives for the World War II period, CNS carefully surveyed the debate over the wartime role of Pope Pius XII, his beatification cause and the church’s dialogue with Jews.

When the Vatican revealed the third secret of Fatima, the Rome bureau clarified how St. John Paul’s mystical interpretation of the text fit into the Vatican’s more carefully worded analysis.

Time after time, the Rome bureau was called upon to clear up popular misunderstandings: What did the pope really say about evolution? How did the catechism’s language on the death penalty change? What exactly are the “non-negotiable” issues for Catholic politicians? Did the Vatican modify its views on the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine?

While the news service had a Rome correspondent as early as 1921, Msgr. Enrico Pucci, the first Rome bureau was established in 1950. It was opened in a ceremony attended by 10 bishops and the Vatican’s apostolic delegate to the United States, who all crowded into a small office located next door to the Italian Parliament.

The agency was called NCWC — for National Catholic Welfare Conference — News Service at the time, and the bureau’s inauguration came on a busy news day for the two staff members: a few hours earlier, Pope Pius XII had proclaimed the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin as a dogma of faith.

Few news conferences

The role of reporter was different back then, as described at the time by chief correspondent Msgr. Joseph J. Sullivan. The Vatican had no spokesman and few news conferences. A good journalist kept his ear to the ground, but carefully avoided publishing unsubstantiated rumors and gossip. And the bureau’s reporters were not shown any favoritism — as journalists, they were regarded with the usual caution by Vatican officials.

By the time the Second Vatican Council was convened in the 1960s, the bureau had added a secretary-translator and, during the council sessions, up to three additional reporters. With the attention of the Catholic world focused on Rome during the council, diocesan newspapers and their bishops depended on the bureau to follow the debate over proposed major changes in liturgy, ecclesiology and dialogue.

At that time, routine news stories were airmailed to the news service’s Washington office for distribution to client papers, but breaking news was sent by cable. Eventually the mailers disappeared, and then digital transmission replaced the teletype machines.

When St. Paul VI launched the era of papal travel in the 1960s, CNS soon had a seat aboard the papal plane — a practice that continued with globetrotting St. John Paul and his successors. Diocesan newspapers ran our stories under datelines such as Calcutta (now called Kolkata), Bogota and Ouagadougou.

With St. John Paul, the tempo of the papacy increased dramatically, and with it the news flow. Documents gave way to actions, inside and outside the Vatican walls, as the pope interacted more with the universal church and with other religions. When St. John Paul made his historic entry into Rome’s synagogue in 1986, a CNS reporter was a few steps behind him.

Rome itself became a crossroads for Catholic news, with frequent synods on important global issues, Vatican-sponsored conferences and consistories to install new members of an expanded College of Cardinals. The CNS news package became more universal, too. Where else could you read about ethnic issues in Rwanda, social justice efforts in East Timor or persecution in Pakistan?

In the 1980s, the Rome bureau expanded its coverage of Catholic affairs, with reporting trips to the Middle East, Europe and communist Eastern Europe, where the “underground” church was about to reemerge. When Russian tanks rolled past the rebel Lithuanian Parliament in 1990, a CNS reporter was one of the few remaining journalists inside.

In the 21st century, the bureau added a full-time photographer and a video editor, launched social media platforms and moved next door to the Vatican press office, in a building that houses the audio and video feeds of key Vatican events.

The news business had changed, and with it the needs of diocesan clients. But the main purpose of the bureau has remained the same: providing full and accurate reporting to help people understand issues at the heart of the Catholic Church.

Thavis joined Catholic News Service in 1983 and was CNS Rome bureau chief from 1996 until he retired in January 2012.