Marco Tosatti: Who is Austen Ivereigh? 

Veteran Vatican journalist Marco Tosatti recently received a letter from one of his sources, who goes by the name "Romana Vulneratus Curia," about who English Catholic journalist Austen Ivereigh really is. RVC knows Ivereigh well and worked for years in the Vatican in a post of the highest responsibility, and was unjustly dismissed from his post.

Dear Tosatti, I would like to help your readers get to know Austen Ivereigh better, as well as what the "reframing" of Austen Ivereigh is, and the role that he really plays. Believe me, he is more "relevant" than we know.

Austen Ivereigh is not simply an English Andrea Tornielli, as many think. Let's start by looking at his creation, [the media group] Catholic Voices, whose stated objective is to teach people how to communicate the Christian message, beginning with the presupposition that contemporary Western culture impedes it.

Today's culture, in fact, does not allow people to be heard when they speak about God, the Church, et cetera. Catholic Voices thus pretends to teach the method for doing evangelization in the 21st century, thanks to "reframing" (a "frame" literally means a picture frame, so then "reframing" would mean to change the picture frame) which in fact means reformulating the interpretation of a problem, especially in order to modify an irrational or malevolent interpretation, translating it into a positive evaluation. And behold, this is the product sold by Catholic Voices.

The Dominicans, who have been doing exactly this as their career for more than eight centuries, must see Ivereigh as a competitor! But instead, he actually has the Jesuits as his clients. Indeed, he perhaps only has one client: Pope Bergoglio.

In fact Ivereigh's "hand" is found (he himself has said so) in the first Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, where Bergoglio speaks of the "necessity of credibility, of an original apologetic that helps to create dispositions through which the Gospel will be heard by all." And in this regard, Ivereigh has publicly declared that Francis is the great example of the renewed approach that the Synod on the New Evangelization called for.

As an example of this holy and enlightened capacity to touch the hearts and minds of those who are distant from the Church in order to draw them back to faith in Christ, Ivereigh pulls out the famous phrase of Francis from July 2013, which apparently he himself suggested: "Who am I to judge?" These words went around the world "causing joy and disturbance." It occurred to me that Ivereigh already saw in Bergoglio that sign of contradiction of Christ: "He is here for the fall and the rise of many in Israel, as a sign of contradiction! And you yourself a sword shall pierce" (Luke 2:34–35). And of course, ever since then, the conversions of people distant from the Church have just exponentially exploded, as well as priestly vocations!

Well, I cannot do an analysis of all of the Catholic thought — or pagan thought — of Austen Ivereigh; I can only attempt a synthetic evaluation. I believe that there are at least three Austens.

The first is a professional who has taught "reframing" to Pope Bergoglio, the one who explained to Bergoglio that he ought to begin by saying "Buonasera" ("Good evening"), not with the customary, expected and worn-out Apostolic Blessing, or with "Praised be Jesus Christ!" — which incidentally was the motto of Vatican Radio when the Jesuits ran it ...

But if we look at the actual results of this "reframing" by Catholic Voices, after six years of this pontificate, we must declare the failure of the project that Ivereigh himself declared.

The second Ivereigh is someone who is underemployed (just like Tornielli) looking for a lucrative job, and he seeks it out only by justifying and singing the praises of whatever nonsense the Pope says or does.

The third Austen is probably what is implied by the blogger Eccles: a "pagan" disguised as a candid Catholic who has succeeded, as a counselor of the Pope, in making him cause confusion to the souls and the thought both of those who were far from the Faith as well as of those who already possessed the Faith and see it wavering today because Bergoglio is not a Pastor of souls.

It is said that it was Ivereigh who suggested to the Pope another famous expression, speaking of the feminine presence in the Church: "The Church is a woman ... it's LA Chiesa, not IL Chiesa … ." Genius! Applause!

Translated by Giuseppe Pellegrino. Originally published at Marco Tosatti's site.