Corporate Communications: An International Journal

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study three apologies or statements offered by the Vatican and/or Pope Benedict XVI after a much-debated lecture at the University of Regensburg in Germany in 2006. The rhetorical model of apologizing and apologetic ethics proposed by Hearit is applied and tested in the study with the aim of expanding his theory.

Design/methodology/approach – The research design is qualitative and based on a case study methodology combining rhetorical criticism and ethics with crisis communication theory.

Findings – The analysis shows that although Hearit's approach allows us to both describe, explain and evaluate the apologies or statements offered by the Vatican and/or the Pope during the crisis, it does not take into account the globalizing context, or the more complex and less evident sociocultural order, into which their crisis communication is embedded.

Originality/value – The paper introduces and discusses the new concept of meta-apology, i.e. an apology where the apologist is no longer apologizing for what he or she may have done wrong – because he or she does not have to, according to their own sociocultural order – but for the negative effects that the act committed by the apologist may possibly have caused.