It’s time for them to change the man at the helm.
They threw the US bishops under the bus for the sake of what the Secretary of State (Bertone) perceived as the needs of diplomacy with Obama. See
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2009/05/rodari-interviews-vian-on-what-he-is-up-to-with-losservatore-romano/
The key passage is one that Fr. Zuhlsdorf did not excerpt in English but it’s present at the above url in Italian:
L’«aspettiamo e vediamo» vaticano, comunque, potrebbe avere anche una motivazione pratica. È, infatti, in vista del G8 di luglio che le diplomazie vaticana e americana stanno lavorando per organizzare un incontro tra Obama e Benedetto XVI.
In other words, the practical motivation for this Vatican perspective, in light of the G8 meetings in July in Rome is that the Vatican and American diplomats are trying to arrange a face-to-face meeting between Obama and Benedict XVI and being too hard on Obama now would jeopardize that-because the real dispute is between the bishops and the Catholic universities, not the bishops and Obama.
I don’ know that it would have to jeopardize such a meeting and even if it did, I don’t think it justifies pulling the rug out from under those bishops who stood up against Jenkins.
But be that as it is, the source of the problem seems to lie in the Vatican diplomatic corps.