Sometimes you’ve got to hand it to the Vatican. Here’s what its spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said in Rome yesterday:

This is the age of truth, transparency and credibility. Secrecy and discretion, even in
their positive aspects, are not values cultivated in contemporary
society. We must be in a position to have nothing to hide.

Think about that for a second. According to Lombardi, the Vatican has not been about truth, has not been transparent, has not been credible. Rooting in a prior age, it has been been about secrecy and discretion–i.e. protecting the Church from Scandal. To become true, transparent, and credible, it needs to imbibe the spirit of the present day. Wow.