Did an Archbishop from Kentucky troll the Pope?

[Octafish]

14. Yeah. He came all the way to the USA to talk to Fox News' favorite former Democrat.

The PR Guru Behind the Pope Who Is Charming the World

by Katie Engelhart
Vice.com, November 21, 2013

EXCERPT...

Far and wide, observers speak of a “Francis Effect”.

But every modern-day media darling needs a PR machine, and Pope Francis is no exception. Enter Greg Burke: the 53-year-old Fox News correspondent turned Holy See handler (officially, Senior Communications Advisor to the Vatican’s Secretariat of State) who is quietly changing the way things are done in Vatican City.

To some, Burke may have seemed an unlikely candidate for papal spin-doctor. He’s a layman without PR experience: a cheery American with a penchant for sports analogies. He’s also a member of the controversial Catholic order Opus Dei: a traditionalist and a celibate whose spiritual practice reportedly involves self-flagellation. But after a year and a half on the job, Burke is credited with helping to open up and rejuvenate the Holy See. Of course, Burke would say it’s all Francis’s doing. “I’m going to kick the ball to the Pope,” Burke explained at a recent lecture in London. “I mean, the Pope scores goals, you know? The Pope scores goals for us... The people are just eating this stuff up.”

SNIP...

Flash back a few years to the reign of Pope Benedict XVI: The Catholic Church was awash in scandal. In 2006, Benedict gave his now infamous “Regensburg lecture”, in which he quoted a brutal critique of Islam and irked Muslims the world over. Three years later, he left many aghast with his decision to reverse the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop. In 2010, the Church was slammed with a new wave of paedophilia allegations – and then the Vatican Bank controversy, and then “Vatilieaks”. Added to all that, the people didn’t seem to take much to Pope Benedict. “Benedict doesn’t smile,” a young Italian woman working at a tourist shop by St Peter’s Square told me earlier this year. “He is too much German!”

In June 2012, the Vatican poached Greg Burke – then a Rome-based reporter for Fox News. Burke’s job would be to manage “communications issues” and to integrate the Vatican’s many media organs, explained a Vatican official. Burke himself said he was hired “to formulate the message and try to make sure everyone remains on message”.

“I know what journalists are looking for and what they need,” Burke told reporters, “and I know how things will play out in the media.”


CONTINUED...

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/greg-burke-pope-pr

Nothing like PR skills, huh, Arugula Latte?