VATICAN CITY, December 19
By Philip Pullella
The Vatican said international management consultancy company McKinsey had been hired to come up with a plan to make its communications "more functional, efficient and modern."
The Vatican has six distinct communications departments - a press office, television, radio, newspaper, an internet office and a communications council, which exercises an academic and policy-making role.
They have been known to not communicate or cooperate with each other and sometimes have appeared to be in competition. In the past, one department has published important information without telling the others.
The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, is 150 years old, and its editor is trying to modernise it to help shed its drab and staid image.
Vatican Radio, which broadcasts in 40 languages, takes up a big chunk of the Vatican's budget and some officials have questioned whether such a big structure is necessary in the Internet age.
Some of the languages the radio uses are holdovers from the period when it, like Radio Free Europe, was one of the few sources of independent information in the communist East bloc.
The Promontory Financial Group and Ernst and Young are already looking into other Vatican departments.
(BBG)