Extra Muros: Les réactions de la presse belge à trois voyages de Paul VI (Jérusalem, ONU, BIT), 1964-1969 by Anne Cornet, Michel Dumoulin and Yves Stélandre (review)

BRIEF NOTICES137 Cornet, Anne, Michel Dumoulin, and Yves Stélandre. Extra Muros: Les réactions de la presse belge à trois voyages de Paul VI (Jérusalem, ONU, BIT), 1964-1969. [Saggi 2, Istituto Paolo VL] (Rome: Edizioni Studium. 1993. Pp. 138. Lire 20,000 paperback.) As the subtitle ofthis slim volume indicates, Anne Cornet, Michel Dumoulin, and Yves Stélandre examine the reports of the Belgian press in order to assess the public opinion's perception of the changing role of the Roman Catholic Church in the modern world. The authors painstakingly read and analyzed fifteen French and sixteen Flemish dailies and twenty-five French and twentyfour Flemish periodicals which reported on three of Pope Paul VI's unprecedented trips outside the walls (extra muros) of theVatican. The trips selected were spectacular though not necessarily diplomatically or politically as significant as other voyages, but they symbolized the opening of dialogue with non-Christians (1964 to Jerusalem), with the international community (1965 to the United Nations in New York), and with workers (1969 to the Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration of the International Labor Organization in Geneva). The book's organization is both logical and straightforward. It begins with the context for the papal visits, then provides an overview of the Belgian press, offers both a quantitative analysis and a qualitative analysis of first the French and then the Flemish press coverage, and finally ends with a few general conclusions. The final forty pages include extracts from the Belgian press, a list of the press consulted in this study, and five indexes (i.e., names ofpersons, institutions, newspapers, periodicals, and books). One value of this book consists in the discussion of the Belgian press itself. It clearly delineates the three trends of the press which reflected Belgian society: the Catholic, the liberal, and the socialist. Nevertheless, the basic criterion for comparison and contrast in this book is language. Both a plus and a minus of this book is its brevity. The plus is that the book provides a useful model for using the press to gain insight into the changing interaction of the Church and the modern world; the minus is that the reader wants more development and explanation of conclusions. For example, why was there more distinction between the Flemish Catholic and Flemish liberal/ socialist papers than between the French Catholic and French liberal/socialist ones. While the focus of the book is the Belgian press and not Paul VI or his message, this volume reveals the extraordinary steps taken by Paul VI to open dialogue with the world around him. M. Patricia Dougherty, O.P. (Dominican College ofSan Rafael) ...