The Vatican Spokesman - Dr.
Joaquín Navarro-Valls
According to Himself
INTRODUCTION
Following are key excerpts of an interview with Dr. Joaquín
Navarro-Valls, Spokesman to H.H. John Paul II, conducted by John
Tagliabue and published by the New York Times on June 29, 2002. The
original article appeared at
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/29/international/europe/29NAVA.html
The M+G+R Foundation has added commentaries where appropriate. In other
cases we chose to leave the underlying message for the discernment of
each reader. Those who have eyes to see, will see; others, even if we
explained Dr. Navarro-Valls statements extensively, will not.
ANNOTATED
EXCERPTS OF INTERVIEW
June 29, 2002
A Doctor-Spokesman Attends to Papal
Image
By JOHN TAGLIABUE
Nineteen years into his career as papal spokesman, Dr. Navarro-Valls,
now 65, still has occasional headaches with the centuries-old papal
bureaucracy, the Roman Curia.
The M+G+R Foundation Comments: No one has had that much continuous
and intimate influence in the Papacy since time immemorial. Sign of the
times?
"The Roman Curia is, historically, a very old organization," he said.
"We are talking in terms of centuries. Its formal organization goes
back to Sixtus V." Sixtus was a 16th-century pontiff known as the "iron
pope," for creating the curial machinery essentially to crush the
influence of cardinals and bishops.
The M+G+R Foundation Comments: An example of Papal obstructionism.
The Holy Spirit is indeed the infallible guide of the Church... the
question is: Is anyone paying
attention to such infallible guidance?
Dr. Navarro-Valls took up his work after a career as a physician and
psychiatrist. Early on he saw religion, medicine and psychiatry as
linked: religion would answer the questions that psychiatry could not.
"I was fascinated at the time," he said of himself as a young man, "by
those big questions, about life and death, and what makes man happy."
In his dealings with the press, Dr. Navarro-Valls acknowledges that he
finds uses for his psychiatric training. But he struggles with the
question of whether to follow the suggestion that the church should
"use the media."
The M+G+R Foundation Comments: At least he is honest about his
ability to manipulate the media using his professional psychiatric
training.
A medical doctor and professor of psychiatry at the universities of
Barcelona and Granada in his native Spain,... He worked as a journalist
until 1983, and just as he had decided to return to medicine, he
received an invitation to lunch at the Vatican.
The M+G+R Foundation Comments: An invitation to lunch from the
Vatican... just like that... or is it that he had the perfect
qualifications needed by the Opus Dei Masters to manipulate the Papacy?
It seems that Pope John Paul, then five years into his papacy, had
heard praise of him from a number of people - some belonging to the
secretive Catholic men's society Opus Dei, which the doctor had joined
in his early 20's. Several months later, the pope invited Dr.
Navarro-Valls to overhaul the Vatican press service.
The M+G+R Foundation Comments: As we were saying above...
"My hobby became my profession," he said, laughing. "And medicine
became my hobby."
The M+G+R Foundation Comments: We fail to see the
humor, and he will too at the end.
Dr. Navarro-Valls waved a copy of an unclassified cable relating to
that conference - a message to the State Department from President Bill
Clinton's ambassador to the Holy See, Raymond L. Flynn. It described
the irritation of some delegates over perceived Vatican obstructionism
and manipulation, but added that the "skill and tenacity" of the
Vatican's diplomats "and the public affairs virtuosity of its chief
spokesman - the Spaniard Joaquín Navarro-Valls, a close confidant of
the pope - took many by surprise."
The M+G+R Foundation Comments: Pride - satan's vehicle to the heart
of men.
"I began from the question that arises in psychiatry of how the media
in general, including advertising, influence human attitudes, both for
better and for worse," he said. In 1970, his first book, "Manipulation
in Advertising", appeared; three others have followed, on the
media,
education and the family.
The M+G+R Foundation Comments: His first book: Manipulation in
Advertising. How appropriate...
Talking of those years, he described a "pilgrimage" to the London house
where Freud had lived.
The M+G+R Foundation Comments: Pilgrimage to Sigmund Freud's house...
the father of the sexual revolution and the amoral society in which we
live today. How appropriate too...
He is still very much involved with Opus Dei, in which he now holds a
senior rank that entails a commitment to celibacy.
The M+G+R Foundation Comments: Hell would freeze over before he would
be allowed to quit Opus Dei even if he wanted to.
Early on, the pope, whom he sees daily, assured him of access to the
Vatican bureaucracy. "He opened doors," Dr. Navarro-Valls said.
"Without his approach to the media, without the mentality of the pope,
change would have been impossible."
Getting information from the Vatican can still be laborious (though Dr.
Navarro-Valls bridles at comparisons to Kremlin secretiveness).
The M+G+R Foundation Comments: Bridles because it is true. Secretive
and deceitful.
He is highly regarded by the Vatican press corps, whose members
appreciate what he has achieved given the peculiarities imposed by
Vatican constraints.
The M+G+R Foundation Comments: The Stockholm syndrome... therefore,
he plays them like a fiddle.
To this day, for example, the pope does not hold news conferences or
grant interviews.
The M+G+R Foundation Comments: Which means, brothers and sisters,
that it is only Dr. Joaquín Navarro Valls who speaks on behalf of H.H.
John Paul II. Are you beginning to understand what has really been
going on for years?
EPILOGUE - Original
As we have demonstrated in
a number of articles, His Holiness John Paul II was not a free man.
His "keeper" was an Opus Dei psychiatrist whose first book was entitled
Manipulation in Advertising,
and that was what he did with the Papacy for nineteen years.
Yes, H.H. John Paul II was indeed Mary's Pope and because Her Maternal
guidance and protection he did much in
spite of his keepers.
Why did God allowed this to happen? We refer the reader to The Trajectory of H.H.
John Paul II - in there you should find the answer.
EPILOGUE - Added on May 2,
2005
On an extensive interview granted by Dr. Joaquín Navarro-Valls to his
former employer the Spanish Daily ABC and published by said daily on
Sunday, April 17th, 2005, pp 10-12 there are two statements which we
find of interest enough to include them in this document.
When Dr. Navarro-Valls is asked:
How was your journalistic inclination
born?
Dr. Navarro-Valls answered:
Although it may seem incredible, it
was as a natural consequence of my psychiatric profession. I asked
myself: "How do today's media - press, radio, television, advertising -
shape habits and emotional states of anxiety?"
When Dr. Navarro-Valls is
asked: You have maintained
very close contact with John Paul II. What single personality trait of
his do you believe defined his personality/character?
Dr. Navarro-Valls answered:
His sense of humor.... I have been
fortunate to be next to him day after day, in his apartment as well as
traveling with him - including during his vacations. Many of the
photographs that are in circulation where he can be seen in the
country, in the latter part of his life, were taken by me.
It does not seem necessary for us to comment upon those remarks. May those who have Eyes will See
what they must.
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