“Readjusting the pontificate”: Parolin's words, his clarification and the reactions

Two days, one word. On Thursday Pietro Parolin raised the possibility that Pope Leo XIV might “readjust” his pontificate; on Friday the Secretary of State clarified that he was referring to papal trips. Here are the facts, the reactions and our reading.

The facts
Thursday, 15 October. On the sidelines of an event at the Embassy of Iraq to the Holy See, Parolin answered journalists' questions about the future of the pontificate: “It has only been two days since the Pope was admitted to hospital; no forecasts of any kind can be made. We now have to see when he returns, in what condition he returns, what the doctors will say. And, on the basis of all these elements, the Pope will also readjust his pontificate, if it is necessary to readjust it” (our translation; L'Altravoce). On the same occasion he said: “I continue to be concerned, because I am truly enormously sorry for what has happened. But I trust the news we have been given in the bulletins.” On the Latin America trip, he added that it “will depend on how things go” (AgenSIR).

Friday, 16 October. On the sidelines of an event at the Catholic University, near the Gemelli, Parolin clarified that by “readjusting the pontificate” he meant papal trips: “for instance, at least with regard to this next trip.” On the Pope's condition: “the surgery went well, the hospital stay seems to be going well, and so does the convalescence.” He said he had not yet seen the Pope and, on the Angelus, that “there is no precise information” (ANSA; Leggo).

Friday evening: “positive signs”. In a later exchange with journalists on the sidelines of the congress “The Splendour of the Human” at the Catholic University, reported by SIR, Parolin said: “The signs we are seeing are undoubtedly positive signs”; “it was a successful operation,” and the convalescence is “perfectly in line with what the doctors predicted.” Asked whether the Pope had left a precautionary resignation letter, he replied: “No, no. Not that,” adding that “it did not even seem to me that there was any need.” Rumours of a months-long flying ban are “just talk for the moment”: trips “will depend on how he comes out of hospital and on what the doctors prescribe.” The cardinal said he had initially been “a little worried”: “Now I feel a little more serene” (our translation; SIR).

The context. Pope Leo XIV is at the Gemelli hospital after lung surgery on 13 October; today his doctors reported a “steady improvement.” This morning the Holy See Press Office published the list of journalists admitted on the papal flight for the trip to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, from 6 to 17 November. In the afternoon Matteo Bruni told journalists that the doctors had sent no communication about discharge “beyond the initial one of about a week.”

Reactions
- la Repubblica headlined on Thursday: “Parolin's concern: ‘The pontificate could change’” (la Repubblica).
- According to La Voz de Galicia, Francesco Capozza, Vatican correspondent for Il Tempo, wrote on Facebook that Parolin's words were causing panic and were “extremely serious” (our translation from Spanish); the daily La Sicilia headlined on a possible restructuring of the pontificate (La Voz de Galicia).
- Infovaticana wrote that if the intention was to reassure, “the result has been the opposite,” and that the phrase fuelled the very speculation Parolin said he wanted to avoid (Infovaticana).
- Taking a different view, the blog The Letters from Leo read the words as a description, in the cardinal's “diplomatic cadence,” of a natural reassessment of priorities (The Letters from Leo).

We found no official reactions from other Curia figures.

Our reading
What follows is the opinion of Vatican Report.

Thursday's words were, in some respects, a misfire. Meant as a call for caution, they had the opposite effect: a word like “readjust,” placed next to “pontificate” during a hospital stay, was bound to be read in its broadest sense, and so it was. Friday's clarification brings the matter back to the trips, and in particular to the November journey; in the evening the cardinal spoke of “positive signs” and ruled out a precautionary resignation letter.

That said, the criticism that followed seems to us at times excessive, and hard to reconcile with the style of Vatican diplomacy, which proceeds through caution and open formulas rather than announcements. Parolin spoke as a diplomat, hedging on an agenda that depends on the doctors. To read into his words the omen of a diminished pontificate is to give the phrase a weight its author, by habit and by profession, hardly intended.

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