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CV NEWS FEED // According to publication The Daily Compass, Pope Francis was not happy when he learned on Feb. 12 that a video recording of himself was played at the Sanremo Festival, the longest-running television-broadcast annual national music competition in the world.
The premier Italian music festival on Feb. 11 played a video message from the Pope that was not intended to address the festival audience; it was recorded in May 2024 to thank artists who had participated in World Children’s Day, the Italian news outlet reported.
Carlo Conti hosted both the 2025 Sanremo music festival and World Children’s Day. During a press conference for the Sanremo festival, a journalist from the Italian news outlet Dagospia asked Conti about the video. Conti answered that he had received the video from Father Enzo Fortunato, the former coordinator of Universal Children’s Day and the former Director of Communications of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.
The Daily Compass reports that Dagospia’s article on the incident -behind a paywall- implied that Fr. Fortunato resigned because of the fake video; however, he had privately resigned a week before the video was aired in order to serve as President of the Pontifical Committee for the World Day of Children.
The Vatican’s press office has not commented on the intent or recording of the video, or its airing at the festival.
The Daily Compass argues that the incident points to a failure in the Vatican’s communications office.
“If it is difficult to believe that the Pope–and this Pope in particular–could end up, without his knowledge, as the protagonist of the most-watched television programme in Italy,” the outlet stated, “it is easier to believe that it was the Holy See’s impressive communications machine that was unaware of it.”
The article concluded by proposing that the Vatican press office rethink the communication strategy of “excessive media coverage.”
