There’s a kind of Pavlovian reflex that kicks in every time InfoVaticana publishes something that bothers some powerful figure. It never fails. If we criticize a bishop who lives like an emir, we’re from the Yunque. If we denounce a politician with a mental cilice, we’re from the Opus. And if we uncover a clerical scandal in Latin America, of course, we’re from the Sodalicio.
How convenient, right? That way, you don’t have to think. Just pull out the right wildcard and done: the problem isn’t the denounced fact, but who tells it.
We’ve become, for some, a kind of cursed mirror. Instead of looking at themselves and asking why what they read bothers them, they prefer to accuse us of being part of some secret or disturbing organization, depending on the day’s taste. And meanwhile, the core of the issue—which is usually serious, documented, and real—takes a backseat. After all, it’s easier to shout “Yunque!” than to read.
Three ghosts for the price of one
It amuses us somewhat because, if one takes the trouble to review our publications, they’ll discover that we’ve published things that didn’t please the Yunque, the Opus, or the Sodalicio. We’ve bothered all three, and we’ll probably do it again. Not for sport or hatred, but because we’re not beholden to anyone (earthly).
Truth be told, those three institutions mean very little to us. We neither hate nor venerate them. They simply exist, like so many ecclesial realities, with their lights and shadows. But it seems that to prove we don’t belong to them, we’ll have to criticize them more often, lest someone think we receive coded orders from a clandestine sacristy.
The obsession with finding “hidden interests”
Some people live convinced that behind every critical news story there’s an invisible hand, a conspiracy, a spurious interest. If we talk about abuses, it must be because “someone” pays us. If we denounce a bishop, we’re surely trying to favor another. If we publish internal documents, obviously it’s because we “belong” to some lodge or prelature I don’t know what.
Well, no. What’s behind InfoVaticana is much more prosaic and, at the same time, more subversive: the desire to tell the truth. To say what others silence. To remind that the Church is not the property of those who administer it, but of Christ. And to denounce those who use it for their personal benefit or, worse still, to subject it to human agendas completely alien to its mission.
That’s all. No robes, no secret rituals, no passwords. There are journalists. And documents. And uncomfortable truths.
Discomfort as a thermometer
In the end, being accused of being from the Yunque, the Opus, or the Sodalicio is an unwitting compliment. It means we’re still uncomfortable. That we’re not at the service of anyone but the truth. That we haven’t signed up for the media incense club where errors are perfumed to smell like obedience.
Sometimes it seems that for some, a “good” Catholic media outlet is one that doesn’t bother anyone. That stays silent when it should, smiles when ordered, and limits itself to repeating episcopal press releases with a mothball scent. Well, no. We weren’t born for that.
A final plea (though it won’t do much good)
We’d like to ask, with all the irony in the world, that the next time someone wants to discuss one of our publications, they do so about what’s published. Not about who they think we are. Not about whether we have an invisible membership card from some organization. Not about whether we pray with a cilice or a guitar.
Discuss the facts, the data, the documents. Because that’s where the truth lies.
And if the truth hurts—which it usually does—don’t heal it with labels, but with conversion.