Vatican City – For months now, part of journalism – most visibly in Italy, where the slide has become worrying – has been covering the pontificate of Leo XIV by shifting attention away from the substance of his governance and teaching to the stage-set of his personal daily life. It is a mechanism already tested during the pontificate of Pope Francis: a slice of the audience drawn to gossip is indulged, and what promises immediate clicks is prioritised. That is how a headline such as “where will the Pope live?” or “who will the Pope live with?” ends up looking more attractive – and more profitable – than a serious analysis of the weight of his words, his decisions, and the spiritual horizon they open up.
The temptation of the “behind-the-scenes” and surrender to the click
It is a drift that also captures journalists who, in chasing the logic of the web, end up using the like-counter as their compass. Online it often happens that posts by conmen and “lace obsessives” receive more approval than a sober, checked, patient piece of analysis. But this is the crux: anyone who truly practises this profession cannot reduce their work to the hunt for the click, nor hand themselves over to the sterile dynamic of instant approval from those who spend hours in front of a screen. A different standard has to be protected: verification, proportion, depth. And this applies with particular force to the Catholic journalist, who carries an added responsibility to truth and to the good of the ecclesial community.
When a professional adopts the grammar of the bluffer – inflated headlines, manufactured and sometimes invented “backstories”, historical photographs lifted from elsewhere and claimed as “exclusives” – the issue is not merely decorum but credibility. Professionalism ends up chasing people who possess neither method nor ethics. It is an inversion: reporting becomes an imitation of imposture, and information allows its agenda to be set by those who live by artifice.
The method: verification, sources and responsibility to the truth
Against this backdrop, today’s impoverishment of church reporting becomes easier to understand. Too often, journalism chases the domestic anecdote, amplifies it until it becomes a symbol, and offers it to the public as a universal interpretative key. The result is a language of insinuation: not because the personal dimension is irrelevant, but because it is bent into a pretext – a hint, fodder for “the backstory”.
At that point, almost inevitably, the serial comparison with Leo XIV’s predecessors kicks in: every choice is set alongside Francis; every gesture is turned into a banner. Traditionalists read it as a hook with which to strike Francis; modernists look for proof of absolute continuity that dissolves any question. How limited and personalised these readings are becomes clear if one looks at the chronological succession of Peter’s successors. The Papacy did not begin with John Paul II, nor with Benedict XVI. Yet with this method a hall of mirrors is created that has exhausted readers and, more importantly, betrays reality: it produces mechanical interpretations, often groundless, built to serve a faction more than to understand a history. In this circuit, the Church is reduced to a stadium of rival fan-bases; while ecclesial life, in its real fabric, lies elsewhere – in content, decisions, the care of people, and the long time-scale of responsibility. It is within this framework that the story of the Pope’s “attic flat” belongs: a completely false report and, precisely for that reason, a revealing one. Revealing not about the Pope, but about the method of those who claim to cover the Church as one would cover a party or a court. When information that has not been properly checked is treated as fact, the narrative rests on suggestion: a housing detail becomes a political signal, an indication of a line, proof of a strategy. The reader is given a simplified image and, without realising it, is pushed to interpret ecclesial reality through categories foreign to its nature: factions, tactics, coded messages, power plays. The Church, by contrast, lives by longer rhythms, by languages that cannot be reduced to the noise of immediacy, and by responsibilities that do not coincide with managing appearances.
This time the name that surfaces is Jacopo Scaramuzzi, a byline at La Repubblica, already involved more than once in reconstructions later shown to be inaccurate. But it would be a mistake to turn one case into a scapegoat: the problem is broader and, in a sense, structural. A few days ago it happened again with a report concerning the French President, where a convicted conman used an anonymous tweet to relaunch an “exclusive” that was, in reality, false. The problem is always the same: today these journalists – or even those who pretend to hold the title without being journalists at all – do not verify and write without understanding what they are writing about.
It would also be necessary to dwell on the sources used by certain figures who present themselves as “journalists” without truly being so. These individuals – placed at sensitive points in the “machine” – are a real thorn in the side for Leo XIV: sooner or later he will have to cut that circuit off, if he does not want his private life exposed and consumed as public material. Here a decisive distinction becomes clear, and it will return later. One thing is the proximity of someone who lives the Vatican and ecclesial life, sees much and for that very reason also knows when to keep silent, holding back what does not help. Quite another is the person who brandishes the little information they possess to flaunt power, to try to build a reputation lost over the years in political circles, or to boast of “connections”. One thing is to report facts from within so that the Church can move forward in clarity, responsibility and – when necessary – correction. Another is to talk about people and events second-hand, trying to turn rumour into influence. We have already touched on these matters, and we will certainly return to them in a fuller way.
Information “from within”: proximity, proportion and discernment
First, one decisive point must be clarified. There is a kind of reporting that comes from within, because it knows the real life of the Church and its institutions: it moves in those places, understands their rhythms, recognises their languages, measures their procedures and responsibilities. This proximity is not claimed as a privilege or a licence to shout “exclusive” – the typical formula of certain bluffers who often speak about things they do not do and people they do not know – but as a demand of truth. Not to erect barriers, but to accept the duty to explain what would otherwise remain opaque, with greater precision and proportion.
That is why the stance of certain polemicists can appear almost grotesque: lacking history, formation and real experience in the contexts they presume to judge, they attack those who know those places from the inside by applying alien categories, often born of personal fixations and then projected onto others as though they were objective standards. Yet the difference is obvious. How could one equate the analysis of a bishop, a priest, a monk, a seminarian – someone who lives certain dynamics daily, knows their spiritual and institutional weave, and bears their responsibilities – with the output of a bluffer who parades titles they do not hold, mixing politics, the Church and a folklore of lace and decorations according to the obsession of the day? When analysis comes from within, what changes is not some supposed “superiority” of the writer, but the quality of understanding: facts are read as a whole, placed in context, and made intelligible to those who do not inhabit that world. This is true for the Vatican, and it is equally true for the many ecclesial realities across the world, where concrete dynamics cannot be reduced to slogans.
When one speaks of information “from within”, this is not about having a badge from the Vatican Governorate or a contract with the Holy See. Real belonging here has another name: sensus Ecclesiae – familiarity with the language, canonical categories, the lived history of institutions, and the responsibilities they entail.
Even apparently minor but telling incidents are enough. In an official communication issued by the Holy See Press Office today, a prelate was described improperly as “Archbishop-Bishop” of a diocese in which he has not yet taken canonical possession. In such cases the correct term is “bishop-elect”: not pedantry, but because in the Church words register a legal status and a real step. Beyond the legal point, there is an ecclesiological and theological question behind it. Those who know ecclesial life immediately grasp the difference; those who pass through it only for a salary do not. The same applies to certain editorial directors who are keen on cultural self-display and invoke having written “hundreds of books” as a guarantee of authority, forgetting that the publishing world knows the practice of ghostwriting and, above all, that quantity does not certify quality. A text can carry a signature and still be weak: in content, historical reconstruction, even basic proofreading. Here too credibility is measured by a harsher and simpler criterion: precision, competence, and fidelity to what is true.
Deontology versus corporatism: credibility must be earned
The outcomes? We have seen them, for example, in the case of Alessandria and Bishop Guido Gallese: it is one thing to repeat generic slogans such as “rich Church”, “powerful Curia”, “exclusive Vatican”; it is another to know from within people, structures, dynamics, needs, constraints, responsibilities, and to give readers the complexity of situations without distorting it. In the first case you produce a comfortable, emotional, predictable story; in the second you provide a service: you shed light on what is happening, distinguish levels, and offer tools to understand.
There is also a point – evident to many – that deserves to be stated: each time these foolish reconstructions are published, the Holy See Press Office is routinely forced to step in to clarify and correct. It is an instructive paradox for the average Italian reader. Those launching these fake stories are often the same people who claim reliability by virtue of belonging to a professional order; sometimes they even pretend to that belonging, trusting that readers will mistake a badge for a guarantee of reliability. But credibility is not inherited: it is demonstrated, line by line, through method. That is why, in many countries, there is no “order of journalists” conceived as a corporatist structure: those who report are expected to answer above all to explicit, verifiable rules of professional ethics, to shared standards, and to concrete responsibility for their work.
On this level, the experience of Silere non possum is straightforward to verify: when it publishes a report – from full investigations to a simple advance appointment – denials never arrive. In five years, it has never happened. And above all, time has confirmed the facts reported. That does not justify boasting; it does indicate a concrete measure, the only one that matters: corroboration, reporting from within, precision, and sustained verification.
This is where Silere non possum has introduced something genuinely innovative into journalism, and it is also why its voice has long since travelled beyond Europe. We do not offer a narrative entrusted to observers external to ecclesial life or driven by the fetish of the scoop or by lace-obsession; we provide reporting built by clergy and lay people who live the Church, move through it, and know its faces and practices. People who frequent environments and interlocutors, understand the real steps by which decisions mature, know how the Dicasteries move, and understand the limits of what can be said, the procedures, the institutional time-frames and the spiritual ones. But competence alone is not enough. The decisive element lies in the order of priorities. Before publishing, the question is not “how much noise will this make?”, but: is this news useful to the Church? Can it generate a concrete good? Can it foster clarification, correction, change? In many circumstances, seeing and hearing does not mean having to report: there is a responsibility to remain silent when disclosure risks distorting facts, feeding misunderstanding, or striking without serving any good.
That choice has nothing to do with concealment. It is discernment: it takes into account the people involved, what the public can realistically understand, the foreseeable consequences, how a given environment will read that information, and the proportion between the datum and the effect it will produce. And above all, it does not coincide with the logic of a statement “granted” by whichever power happens to be in charge. It is not the stance of a spokesperson repeating what suits the “master”; it is the stance of someone who intends to remain free, answering to truth and to conscience before God, aware that not everything that can be said deserves to be said, and not everything that is withheld is a lie. Proximity to certain environments or persons is therefore not a trophy to display, nor a credential to boast about. It confers no licence to infallibility: it remains only a standpoint – an angle. Yet it can offer a rare and often decisive advantage: a sense of proportion.
Those who inhabit certain places know that the Church is not contained in a room, a staircase, a flat, an attic; they understand that ecclesial life is woven of people, liturgy, pastoral care, discernment, daily struggles and often invisible fidelities. It is this familiarity with what is real – not privileged access, not an insider tone – that prevents a logistical detail from being mistaken for a revelation, and the accidental from being turned into an interpretative key for what is essential.
In recent years a way of reporting “from outside” has taken hold, observing the Church as a foreign body, to be interpreted through the lenses of politics and intrigue. In that gaze, complexity is not something to be understood: it is reduced to noise, compressed into a headline. What grips attention is favoured over what endures; symbolic detail is preferred to verified reconstruction; an obsession is fed for gesture and insinuation, because gesture sells quickly, while substance demands listening, time, effort – and sometimes silence. Now and then someone dares to say: “But Silere non possum articles are a bit long.” Yes – because one has to choose to think. This is not a TikTok video to scroll. It is not a pseudo-psychology post with two photos of lace to inflame fan-bases and crucify a priest without a collar. It is something else. Understand what you are looking for, and orientation comes quickly.
A concrete example helps. What purpose would be served by indiscriminately amplifying a papal measure that revises or cancels what Francis established at the Fabbrica di San Pietro and at Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore regarding oversight by Vatican bodies? And what sense would it make to magnify an act by the Pontiff that corrects the predecessor’s heavy-handed decisions on the rules governing the flats of cardinals and bishops? Without serious context and rigorous explanation, the effect would be null in informational terms and damaging in terms of perception. It would merely provide raw material for a pre-packaged narrative – both in mainstream press and in certain “pro-Vatican” outlets – ready to turn every governing decision into a moral label: the idea of Leo XIV being set against Francis through the slogan of the “Pope of the poor”. A thin reading, and above all a misleading one, that mistakes acts of governance and justice for instruments of identity propaganda.
Unfortunately, there are still loose tongues with little awareness of what they are doing. Feeding information to controversial figures, openly partisan and often tied to pseudo-blogs that narrate the Church through factions, means handing them raw material to turn into propaganda. They are not people capable of discernment. That is exactly what feeds them: the self-satisfied display of the thesis that “the new pontiff does the opposite of the previous one”, as though ecclesial life were a boxing ring of oppositions. The result is predictable: what ought to unfold in discretion and peace is instead “sold” as conflict and ends up producing division. It preserves nothing, builds nothing, clarifies nothing; it merely chips away at that climate of serenity which – visibly and to the relief of many – Leo XIV has helped to restore.
Journalists or hacks: a fundamental distinction
Too often, those reporting on the Church are people incapable of holding their tongue with sources, incapable of staying in listening. How can one understand a world if one is not willing to listen to those who live in it? It is not rare for priests or bishops to say they were contacted by the “journalist of the day” not to gather elements, but to obtain confirmation of a reading already prepared. At that moment, the search for truth stops; what is sought is a pretext to legitimise a thesis. What is the point of that?
The real journalist knows first the discipline of silence: they listen, verify, weigh words; and when they speak, they do so because they are sure of what they state. That is precisely why, on Silere non possum, when the reader finds: “The Pope has appointed…”, it means that appointment has already been made. It is a fact. It may not yet be public, or officially announced, but the reality of the act is certain. You will not find evaporated formulas – “perhaps”, “it is said”, “who knows”, “it could be” – used to cover a lack of corroboration with a fog of conditionals. “If a cardinal’s term is ending and you say he might be reappointed or he might not, what ‘news’ is that? Thank you – those are the only two possibilities. Better to keep quiet,” a priest remarked a few days ago, referring to the usual contact-boasters.
The grammar of “it is said” belongs to improvised pages, pseudo-blogs, and those who live off winks and boasting. Not to a craft that makes verification its rule and truth its measure.
The “attic” affair
That is why the “attic” story should not be dismissed as a simple misstep: it is a symptom. And, as often happens, it is not even an isolated case. Earlier still, around the Pope’s residence, other bluffers had already pushed the tale that the Pontiff would “live with the Augustinian friars” – a claim the Pope himself denied, showing no small irritation at this morbid curiosity. In recent days, the usual “experienced Vatican watchers” have launched invective and knowing winks from their digital salons, drawing on the familiar repertoire of sensationalism: “disgruntled Vatican employees”, “restaurants on the dome of St Peter’s”. Phrases thrown to the public to create an atmosphere, not to bring clarity. What stands out is the selective memory of those who now suddenly discover severity but, in past years, frequented the extra-luxury third floor of the Fabbrica di San Pietro, choosing not to publish the results of documented investigations in exchange for “hospitality” and “consideration”. During the years of Francis, when discontent was far higher and deeper, many of these voices chose silence; and if today there are tensions and disorder, they are the outcome of those seasons, those choices, those omissions. The on-off indignation of these press hacks, instead, serves only to generate clicks and to build a narrative around Leo XIV, not to describe reality.
Some only “notice now” that something is not working in St Peter's Basilica, as though the problems began today. Silere non possum has long been documenting – with documents in hand and never a denial – the mismanagement of Mauro Gambetti. As often happens, the “news” circulated by these pseudo-journalists is inaccurate and laden with banality, while what truly deserves attention is carefully avoided. No one, for example, has lingered on a concrete fact that Silere non possum had already brought to light some time ago: in expansion works linked to commercial activity – whether bar or restaurant – the pre-existing floor has been damaged, with effects reaching as far as the underside of the Basilica’s nave vault.
Uncredible journalism
Today the balance of power is shifting: some no longer have any interest in keeping Gambetti onside, having understood that his institutional fate will soon change; and they no longer have an interest in flattering the Pope either, because they sense that the era of easy access is over – the granted interview, the appointment handed out as a prize. Here a knot emerges that belongs to the Francis years, but above all concerns the reliability of the journalistic system. It is not so much the “drama” of a pontificate that proves revealing, as the bad faith – or at least the structural unreliability – of a certain way of doing journalism.
For years, part of the press cultivated a relationship built on waiting and convenience: the idea of “getting to” the Pontiff, securing a word, a fast track, an access that generated legitimacy and prestige. In that context, many stories were buried for reasons of expediency; many indulgences did not arise from balance, but from calculation.
Now that horizon is narrower, and the narrative changes. Deference fades, resentment grows, “backstories” multiply; the tone becomes louder, more insinuating, more geared to producing atmosphere. Not because reality has suddenly become more scandalous, but because the possibility of turning information into a form of income has changed: less access, fewer advantages, fewer returns. And when convenience disappears, what remains – if method is absent – is the temptation to replace verification with gossip. The point, therefore, is not to protect the Pope from worldly curiosity: where will he live? will he sleep in an attic or train there? how will he live? what will he do? why? with whom? and so on. The point is to protect journalism from a degradation that reduces it to an industry of insinuation and intrigue. To defend journalism means demanding rigour, insisting on clear corrections when needed, recognising that access to “press rooms” or “registered orders” does not replace competence, and that competence does not replace the integrity of method. It also means remembering that the life of the Church cannot be told adequately if it is observed only as a field of manoeuvres: knowledge is required, respect for facts and above all for people, and the awareness that ecclesial reality does not end with what is visible, but is often measured precisely in what does not make noise.
fr.S.V. and M.P.
Silere non possum