It's a bit of a head-scratcher.

The news was widely covered - but not by Vatican media.

The weekly Spanish-language edition of L'Osservatore Romano that came out last Friday had a piece that took note of the weekend meetings and briefly mentioned the Wednesday press conference.

Otherwise, crickets.

Sources inside the Secretariat for Communications, which oversees most of the Vatican's media and public relations apparatus, including the new Vatican News web portal, suggest the decision not to cover the event - which received worldwide press attention - was in keeping with the Holy Father's wishes that the meetings be private and reserved.

The acting head of the Secretariat for Communications, Mgr Lucio Ruiz, did not respond to repeated requests for a statement, while the Press Office of the Holy See declined to comment.

"It's a bit surprising," the Wall Street Journal's Vatican correspondent, Francis X Rocca, told the Catholic Herald.

"After the Pope's dramatic gesture, and given his willingness to field tough questions, it's puzzling that his own media apparatus would keep silent on such a major event and an important topic."

Rocca saw both sides of the question.

"I can understand the desire to exercise discretion, so as not to be seen to ‘spin' the event," he said.

On the other hand, the argument could be made that a brief statement acknowledging the presser might have shown the Pope's willingness to face criticism; it was a judgment call. Continue reading

• Christopher Altieri is a contributing editor of the Catholic Herald
• Image: Twitter

Francis invited the survivors, Juan Carlos Cruz, James Hamilton and Andres Murillo, to stay in the Santa Marta residence where he lives.

In a series of meetings that began in the Vatican on Friday, continued over the weekend and finished on Monday, Francis and the three survivors spoke privately.

One of the three survivors, Hamilton, tweeted that his more than two hours of conversation with Francis were "enormously constructive".

Murillo also tweeted about his meeting, saying he stressed the importance of understanding sexual abuse as "abuse of power" when he met with Francis.

The third man, Cruz, has not yet commented about his meeting, which was on Sunday.

However, he said in a tweet he was happy his friends were "calm and in peace and feeling very welcome by the Holy Father" after their visits with Francis.

Before the meetings, Francis vowed to ask for the men's forgiveness for not believing Bishop Juan Barros covered up the abuse meted out to them by Fr Fernando Karadima who is held to be the Chilean church's most notorious sex predator.

Francis initially believed Barros and, while in Chile at the beginning of the year, defended him publicly several times.

He even said the accusations against Barros were "calumnies."

However shortly after returning to Rome, Francis decided to send Archbishop Charles Scicluna - a former top prosecutor on sex abuse crimes - to investigate the allegations.

After reading Scicluna's 2,300-page report, he invited the three survivors to the Vatican to meet with him.

The Vatican says Francis hopes to use the meetings with the three survivors as a "fundamental step forward" in ridding the church of abuse.

Source

• ABC News
• Crux
• The Salt Lake Tribune
• Image: The Telegraph