This is how the big international organizations promote their agenda. The agenda of the counter-ideology of gender and personal freedom is promoted in a subtle way. Often, a “soft law” process is followed. The ‘soft law’ consists in pressuring states to adopt legislation domestically that reflect principles embraced in international forums (general articles in conventions and treaties, optional protocols, etcetera). Other pressures come through the “final observations” of the UN committees that oversee the implementation of conventions by the states parties. The observations are non- binding, but are nevertheless a means to influence legislation in states.

Secular media has already started to speculate that the Holy See will want to hide information about the abuse of minors by the clergy. This line of argument is misleading. The Convention Against Torture addresses different issues. And – since it is torture that it deals with – the Committee Against Torture should really be looking at the cases of children born alive after an attempted abortion and left to die (600 in Canada from 2001 to 2011). Or late-term abortion methods, such as that of “dilatation and evacuation” that really constitute forms of torture.

These are issues that may come to the fore when the Holy See presents its report regarding how the Convention is applied in Vatican City State and how the Holy See, as a moral authority, is committed and promotes around the world a culture against torture. The presentation of the report may also show some of the biases in the public controversy about the Church’s response to sex abuse of minors by the clergy, because the Holy See did reform its laws to address the issue and new Vatican procedures brought about a decrease in the number of cases of clergy abuses of minors, as data from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith shows.

But these arguments may not be sufficient.

Public opinion is now very accustomed to attacks against the Holy See. Vatican communications advisers have tried to insert “positive viruses” in the secular media stream. For example, by leaking to the Associated Press that about 700 priests had been defrocked by Benedict XVI because of sex abuses of minors. The Holy See’s communications gurus have even tried to ingratiate themselves with the secular media by favoring it when it comes to breaking news, or transmitting the Pope’s words or visual footage.

The assumption behind this course of action is that it will finally make the media take note of the Catholic Church. However, this approach does not actually work. The media, under the control of publishers and financial interests that pursue specific agendas, will report objectively about the Church when there is a major event, but will not hesitate to lead the charge against her if it advances their interests.

The work of Accuracy in Media provides insights about how the “media pendulum swings according to convenience.” Accuracy in  Media is a conservative watchdog group which mission is to promote accurate, fair and balance media reporting.  Even if conservative, Accuracy in Media  raises issues to be taken in consideration.

In 2010 the New York Times stood as one of the newspapers most active in criticizing the Catholic Church over the scandals of the clergy sex abuses of minors. But before that, Accuracy in the Media had launched the campaign “Boycott the New York Times”. Accuracy in the Media showed that the weight of the leftist lobbies (those who promote the “right” to an abortion and individual freedoms, and claim the gender ideology as the only legitimate view on gender issues) swung the pendulum of every single article to fit within a preset agenda.

The qualitative jump that Vatican communications must take means going beyond the secular media. Informing public opinion about the Church correctly is something that has been perhaps missing in recent years. Sensationalism won over information. The same Pope Francis seems to be a victim of this general climate in which there are attacks against the Church, yet the Pope’s character is exalted. Pope Francis’ pontificate risks to be known as what it is not.

Last week, Pope Francis launched via twitter an appeal to politicians to defend the dignity of all.  He has upheld the indissolubility of Christian marriage. In the last general audience, he asked God, and requested all present to do the same, for the gift of understanding, which means seeing through God’s eyes. At the same time, he met the Council of Eight cardinals looking into the reform of the Curia (and the streamlining the Curia was discussed yet again). He met the newly established Council for the Economy for its first meeting, held May 2, when it discussed its statues. Finally, the members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors gathered in Rome from the May 1 to 3 and started their works.  

The Pope’s statements on the position of the Church on different issues have underscored continuity. The Pope’s series of meetings show that a reform, not a revolution in the Church, is what’s being carried forward. After one year of pontificate, the challenge for the Pope remains balancing a huge popular wave of positive feelings around his pontificate, the need for a sensible governance of the Church, and the defense of that very same Church from the attacks of the secular media.

Until now, everything seems to be going smoothly. Even the Irish premier Enda Kenny has invited Pope Francis to visit the country, following the news a month ago that Ireland would re-open the Rome’s residence of the Irish Embassy to the Holy See. The embassy was closed in November 2011, purportedly for economic reasons.

In fact, the strong disagreements between the Irish government and the Holy See about the Church’s response to the clergy abuse of minors weighted heavily on the decision to close the embassy. Nowadays, according to Enda Kenny, that issue has been overcome, since «Pope Francis has made it clear that his pontificate focuses above all on issues like social justice, poverty and human rights.»

The pendulum of Vatican communications has swung away from highly contested topics and towards social issues, which find more echo in public opinion and with governments. However, it is also true that behind the words “human rights” there are many hidden dangers. Since the Cairo and Beijing conferences, the Holy See has argued for the notion of human rights as individual rights, trying to focus on the defense of the most poor and helpless. This is something rarely encompassed in the States’ agendas and hardly ever fostered by international organizations.

Attention to the poorest and helpless is always secondary in coverage that praises the Pope only if he does take a strong stand on a sensitive issue. A coverage by a media ever ready to attack him as soon as he uses his moral authority to enlighten consciences. At the same time, the news put out by the secular media keep on eroding the notion of the Holy See as an entity recognized under international law which can legitimately engage in diplomacy. It is part of a specific plan begun many years ago, meant to exclude the Holy See from the international community of nations-states and its deliberations.

Will Pope Francis and his team be able to defend the Church from the attacks? A good response to this questions will be provided May 10, when Pope Francis reportedly would address all the heads of the agencies of the United Nations.

Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), said the meeting «could be  very important» if the Holy Father «takes the opportunity to call the agency heads back to their original purposes, rather than pursuing radical agendas.»

What do the two men who will be canonized together next April 27 have in common? First of all, they have both been Popes — saintly Popes. They profoundly lived out their priestly spirituality, as their episcopal mottos show. John XXIII had chosen «Oboedientia et Pax» (Obedience and Peace); John Paul II «Totus tuus», an affirmation of our placing of trust in the Virgin Mary.

Their life stories are different. John Paul II had lost his mother before his first communion and his father at the age of 21, and lived his priestly vocation as a parish priest and then a bishop in Poland. John XXIII was raised in a large family, and was sent by the Holy See to Bulgaria, Turkey and France as pontifical legate and apostolic nuncio. His diplomatic work forged the faith and vision of the Church. A Church that is inclusive, ecumenical and in dialogue with the world. The homily at the Pentecost Mass in Turkey in 1944, his last there before leaving for France, is a vivid example of Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli’s thought. He said that Christians in all confessional groups loved to make a distinction between themselves and those who do not profess their faith, be they «the orthodox, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, believers and non-believers.» But – he went on – even if «diversity in races, language, education, or the painful differences of a sad past keep us at a distance from each other, under the light of the Gospel we see that Christ has come to tear down walls; he died to proclaim our universal fraternity; the center of this teaching is the love that links every man to him as the first of brothers, and that links him and us to the father.»

Tear down walls: These words are the marching orders that, more than anything else, bind together the two saintly popes. The ecumenical effort was vigorously pushed forward by John Paul II, who going beyond diplomacy embraced prophetical gestures in dealing with the politics of religions. When he went to Greece in 2001, the first pope going there in 1291 years, he listened calmly to a list of accusations (13 offences) levied against the Catholic Church by the Greek Orthodox. Then, he apologized for errors that had been made. Finally, during a historical meeting at the Areopagus, he affirmed with Archbishop Christodoulos their common commitment to defend the Christian roots of Europe. After that, he broke the taboo of orthodox and Catholics praying together, reciting the “Our Father” with the Greek archbishop.

John XXIII had already begun to tear down the invisible wall of the Iron Curtain when the Soviet Union experienced its first cracks.  In 1961, the then Secretary of the Russian Communist Party Nikita Krushchev made a first move to establish communications with the Pope, sending a best wishes message to John XXIII for his 80th birthday. John XXIII responded, and a channel of informal contacts was thus opened. When the Cuba missile crisis broke out in 1962, John XXIII was the only moral authority recognized by the two opposing sides. The Pope’s public remarks – which he rewrote almost in their entirety – in the midst of the crisis were even published in the Pravda newspaper, the Communist mouthpiece. The missile crisis was thus overcome.

The outcome of that initiative convinced John XXIII to write an encyclical, the “Pacem in Terris”. The encyclical – built on truth, justice, freedom and love as its four pillars – was John XXIII’s utopian goal, and is still current today. John XXIII wanted the encyclical to be written in an innovative way. The encyclical has as its basis the sign of the times, men’s longing for dignity, freedom and peace. From this perspective, the whole of human aspirations are read in the light of the Gospel, and efforts for their realization constitute the pursuit of that integral humanism which would become Paul VI’s marching orders.

For the first time, an encyclical had not its basis in Revelation, but in the signs of the times. This inductive method was then applied in the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution “Gaudium et Spes”.

The aura of “Pacem in terris” also captivates a young bishop taking part in the Second Vatican Council, Karol Wojtyla. He had experienced Nazism and Communism, two forms of totalitarianism that had shaken Europe. His opposition to all forms of totalitarianism led to a particularly strong stance against communist regimes. He opposed them not through direct protests or a frontal attack. Instead, he nurtured young people, educating them on what is freedom and human dignity. It’s humanism saving the world.

Wojtylas was one of the most active drafters of the conciliar document “Dignitatis humanae”.  The document was an incredibly valuable tool for all the bishops on the other side of the Iron Curtain, who took inspiration from it to form a silent opposition. Wojtyla linked the defense of human dignity to the notion of Nation, which he leveraged in contrast to the notion of State.

In the meantime, the so-called Vatican Ostpolitk had begun. Agostino Casaroli is sent to countries on the other side of the Iron Curtain by John XXIII first, and later by Paul VI. He initiates a difficult dialogue, a ‘step by step’ policy which Casaroli defines “the martyrdom of patience.” He builds relations that succeed in substantially alleviating the conditions of Christians in Communist-ruled countries.

Once elected Pope, John Paul II chooses Casaroli as Secretary of State. The Pope’s strong stance on freedom and human dignity stirs the aspirations of those living in countries of the Warsaw Pact. At the same time, the diplomacy of Cardinal Casaroli maintains relations with communist countries active, affording the Pope’s position some protective coverage. 

In the meantime, Paul Poupard, who served in the Secretariat of State under John XXIII and Paul II, is appointed by John Paul II to lead the Secretariat for non-believers, and in that capacity he starts a cultural dialogue with philosophers and intellectuals of the countries beyond the Iron Curtain.

On one side, John Paul II’s stances. On the other, Casaroli’s diplomacy. In the background, a behind-the-scene cultural dialogue. This is how another wall is torn down, the Berlin Wall. The images of the fall of the Wall represent the fall of European communism, and a triumph for Catholics.

Had there not been a John XXIII, none of this would have been possible. The “shepherd Pope” John XXIII was in fact a fine diplomat. From his pontificate on, the influence of the Holy See in the international arena has increased considerably.

John Paul II embraced this legacy. He challenged the United Nations more often, speaking about religious freedom at the UN Headquarters in New York and also criticizing the gender ideology and the notion of reproductive health of the Cairo and Beijing conferences during the nineties. Meanwhile, Vatican diplomats, with skill and finesse, managed to insert the notion of integral human development, like a sort of “positive virus”, in international documents. For example, in a UN document issued in 1985.

Ultimately, John XXIII and John Paul II followed the same method, comprised of dialogue with the world and action. John Paul II, recounting in an off-the-cuff remark how the idea of World Youth Day came up, showed how this method is carried out: «It was 1984, and a big friend of us, the United Nations, established a Year for the Youth. They made announcements, they made plans.  We did it!»

This spontaneity tears down walls. John XXIII opened a window into the Second Vatican Council by opening out the window of the Apostolic Palace on October 11, 1963, and pronouncing his famous sermon of the moon, asking people to “caress their kids.” John Paul II opened a window into what to expect from his pontificate in the Mass beginning his Petrine ministry: «Open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power the boundaries of States, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization and development open. Do not be afraid. Christ knows “what is in man”. He alone knows it.»