Vatican backtracks on Synod media blackout

Despite Pope Francis’s insistence on a media “fast” during the Synod on Synodality, Vatican officials now say engagement with the press is a personal decision, and participants who choose to give interviews will not be “punished.” The clarification came after Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, gave an October 5th interview on EWTN’s “The World Over.”