[aimhigh]

Someone please explain: is this coming from the Pope, or from a committee at the Vatican, or just one person? Who is the “Vatican”? I’ve seen a lot of previous posts where some Vatican annoucement is not well received, said to not represent the Pope.

[thefrankbaum]

That is a good question - especially since the BBC really has no idea about the Church. This is actually coming from L’Osservatore Romano, the semi-official Vatican newspaper. While the paper is owned by the Vatican, and is generally faithful to the Magisterium, it does not itself speak in an official capacity.

[annalex]

Who is the “Vatican”?

I could not find the original source of this -- I checked Zenit in English. Indeed, often a cardinal or even the pope himself say something which is their private opinion, and then, since people are ignorant of how the Church operates, it gets projected as a new Catholic dogma. This in particular is simply a matter of artistic preference, with some valid theology af the Incarnation undergirding it.

Pope Benedict has an excellent taste and wrote on Christian art with insight:

“All sacred images are, without exception, in a certain sense images of the Resurrection, history read in the light of the Resurrection, and for that very reason they are images of hope, giving us the assurance of the world to come, of the final coming of Christ.”

—Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger From The Spirit of the Liturgy

See, for example, his "Images of Hope", from Ignatius Press.