Sister Mary Ann Walsh, Director of Media Relations of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, had organized daily press conferences with two American Cardinals each day in the Pontifical North American College - and provided exclusive access of a few American networks to some Cardinals.
Four Cardinals took part in the suspended press conferences: Cardinals Wuerl and George on Monday, Cardinals O'Malley and DiNardo on Tuesday - with Cardinal Dolan providing an exclusive interview to ABC News also on Tuesday. (Source)
Today, the conferences and interviews were cancelled. Giacomo Galeazzi reports for La Stampa (Italian):
"Concern was expressed in the General Congregation about leaks of confidential proceedings reported in Italian newspapers. As a precaution, the cardinals have agreed not to do interviews," [that] is the succinct communiqué from the spokeswoman of the US prelates, Sister Mary Ann Walsh....During his briefing, [Father Federico] Lombardi [Holy See spokesman] answered with a certain annoyance the repeated questions on the cancellation of the press conferences of the US Cardinals. "Ask them," he said curtly.
Regarding the cancelling of the press conferences that some of the American cardinals were giving in these days, Fr. Lombardi observed that “the Congregations are not a synod or a congress in which we try to report the most information possible, but a path toward arriving at the decision of electing the Roman Pontiff. In this sense, the tradition of this path is one of reservation in order to safeguard the freedom of reflection on the part of each of the members of the College of Cardinals who has to make such an important decision. It does not surprise me, therefore, that along this path there were, at the beginning, moments of openness and communication and that afterwards, in harmony with the rest of the College, it has been established whether and how to communicate.”
