While today was scheduled to bring the traditional release of the Pope's message for World Communications Day, as he ever tends to do, Francis gave the news something of a Turbo Boost: a week after granting the first private audience in memory to a multinational executive – the Google chief Eric Schmidt – today's Holy See briefing announced that the pontiff met this morning with the Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Unless Vatican diplomacy's suddenly been called upon to negotiate peace between the oft-warring Silicon Valley multinationals, the dots are lining up for something very interesting in terms of the church's digital engagement. Yet even beyond the massive institutional significance of the Roman pontiff receiving the head of the world's most valuable corporation in the Vatican – a moment without precedent in itself – given Cook's 2014 disclosure of his sexuality, today's encounter appears to be the first time an openly gay person has ever been given a full-tilt private audience in the Papal Apartment. Whatever else might come of the meeting, in the protocol-crazed world of the Holy See, that in itself represents a watershed, all the more in light of Cook's heavy commitment of Apple's clout and visibility to social causes, including LGBT efforts.
More to come.
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by Rocco Palmo via Whispers in the Loggia
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