THe Vatican Newspaper is Getting Aggressive in Marketing and Ideas

I have always hoped the Vatican media would get up to date and be more aggressive on getting their message out there. Pope Benedict made some changes there that are showing some fruit. Two articles here that are showing the fruit of that as to the Vatican Newspaper L'Osservatore Romano .

I think this translation of an article that appeared this week in L'Osservatore Romano and translated by the Ratzinger Forum is a hopeful sign of forward thinking. Perhaps if there is a grant or money can be found one day a full English edition of the paper can done and sent to the US and other areas in a similar fashion
In today's issue, L'Osservatore Romano formally announces that starting Sunday, March 2, it will be distributed in Italy as a Sunday supplement, free of charge, to L'Eco di Bergamo, a regional newspaper based in the northern Italian city of Bergamo, hometown of Blessed John XXIII. To spread the Pope's word

What has always been a sore point for L'Osservatore Romano - and one of its problems - is the 'restricted range of its radius of circulation', in the words used in 1961 by then Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, writing on the centenary of the Vatican newspaper.

These circulation and distribution problems have only increased in the past few years, in the context of a communications panorama that is increasingly richer and also more confusing. But obviously, the Pope's newspaper deserves to become more known and more widely circulated. First of all in Italy, because of the natural relation of the Vatican newspaper with the great nation in which the Pope is also Bishop of Rome and Primate of Italy.

Osservatore deserves to be more widely read, especially since it has been reforming in order to better serve the needs of the Pope and the Holy See, which has raised new interest. Two small examples. One of our habitual readers was pleasantly surprised to find it available among the newspapers placed at the disposal of patrons in a small but very popular trattoria in Verona. Equally glad was a young employee of the newspaper to see it available for customers of a bar in the center of Rome.

Small signs, surely, but there are others like subscriptions from new readers, as well as requests from newspaper kiosks in Rome that previously did not carry it. Therefore, on March 2, the newspaper will take a very important new step in its history: At least for 2008 initially, our newspaper will be distributed every Sunday with another important Catholic newspaper, L'Eco di Bergamo, which was edited for decades by Don Andrea Spada, also known by the pseudonym Gladius, and edited today, with great professionalism and continuing success, by Ettore Ongis.

The Sunday edition of the Pope's newspaper will be transmitted electronically from the Vatican so it can be printed and distributed by the Bergamo paper, to go with its own Sunday edition without added cost to the buyer. [Sandro Magister says the Sunday circulation of Eco is 70,000.]

This unprecedented initiative - it is also the first time since 1929 that the newspaper will be printed outside the Vatican - is made possible by the generous offer to Benedict XVI from the Diocese of Bergamo and its bishop, Mons. Roberto Amadei, to mark the 50th anniversary of the election of Cardinal Angelo Roncalli who become Pope John XXIII. We are humbly confident that, under the aegis of Benedict and Blessed John XXIII, L'Osservatore Romano will continue to build up its circulation. [The item is signed with the initials GMV at the end, for editor Giovanni Maria Vian.]

Now also there was a very interesting post at the Action Institute that is related. It shows that the Vatican Newspaper is not only getting better, but it engages ideas that I suspect many "progressive Catholics" would be shocked about.

On their blog in a article called Solid Economics at L'Osservatore Romano they said:
Good news is not always so hard to find. Case in point: Free-market economics is making a comeback at the Vatican’s daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.

Previously known as a dry read, L’Osservatore Romano (which means The Roman Observer in English) now contains provocative interviews and real news stories from around the world. This is attributable to the paper’s new editor, Giovanni Maria Vian, who was appointed to the post by Pope Benedict last October (see here for the interesting background on the change by the Italian journalist Sandro Magister.)

Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, a well-known Italian economist and banker, has been given prominent space to comment on current economic developments. He is a strong defender of the link between Christian principles and free markets, having authored a 2004 book titled, Money and Paradise: The Global Economy and The Catholic World.

In a February 13 article titled “The capital we should value most is human,” he warns against the temptation to resolve economic problems by merely increasing public spending. As Italians know only too well, high public spending will at some point translate into higher taxes. He stresses that these, in turn, diminish human liberty and dignity.

He is also critical of the Italian welfare state which only distributes resources without enhancing individual responsibility and future opportunities. His solution to the current economic difficulties is to leave more space for the market to push Italian businesses to a higher level of competitiveness, which then helps to increase investments and create jobs.Gotti Tedeschi’s latest front-page article deals with an equally important subject -- the high price of oil and economic development. He directly confronts those who argue that we need to reduce economic growth in order to adapt to falling energy supplies. I

n his view, this would signal an unwarranted pessimism and distrust in human creativity. Instead, future energy problems should be combated with more research in new technologies and through using existing technologies more efficiently. Getting human anthropology right and showing confidence in human inventiveness are crucial.Gotti Tedeschi’s ability to combine economic issues with Christian thought greatly enriches L’Osservatore Romano and all supporters of the free market should be thankful for this turn to sanity. Three cheers for the Pope’s newspaper!