All the Pope's Men (13 page)

In the Roman Curia, there is deep awareness that Roman Catholicism is a worldwide communion of 1 billion people, representing every culture, language, and worldview on earth. Inevitably, to be part of this global family of faith means sacrificing a bit of one’s own personal vision for the sake of maintaining the bonds of communion. For example, some Western reformers and activists are passionately convinced that the ordination of women to the Catholic priesthood is a matter of justice. Setting aside the theological merit of that view, what if large majorities of Catholics across the developing world think differently? African Catholics, for example, tend to be conservative on matters of sexual morality and gender roles. Are the activists willing to be patient, bracketing their own visions, in order to remain in communion? This question can pose a special challenge for American Catholics, who can be somewhat jingoistic when it comes to ecclesiastical matters. Americans often want to do things their own way, and if Rome puts on the brakes, it’s a form of oppression. From Rome’s point of view, however, sometimes it’s precisely the reverse—they’re saving the rest of the Church from being involuntarily “Americanized."

One danger inherent in this cosmopolitan approach is that it can end up in paralysis, since the simplest way not to “rock the boat" in a complex global system is not to do anything. Moreover, sometimes cosmopolitanism is more honored in the breach than in the observance. I have often spoken to Third World bishops, for example, who complain about curial officials who either know nothing about their local situations, or who treat them like children because they assume that a bishop from the developing world can’t handle theological and political complexity. In fact, when the
National Catholic Reporter
broke the story in 2001 about the sexual abuse of nuns by priests in Africa and elsewhere, one African bishop said: “This is all we need, since a black bishop already has to work twice as hard to be taken seriously by Rome."

The Vatican’s cosmopolitanism can also breed a kind of arrogance, a sense that “we here in Rome" always see farther and deeper than anyone else. This is sometimes especially pronounced among the Italians in the Curia, who tend to believe that they have a “vocation" for governance born of Rome’s long centuries as
caput mundi
, “head of the world." One Italian monsignore in the Secretariat of State put it to me this way: “Italians by nature tend to have a more universal vision. It’s part of our psychological structure. The unity of Italy happened just one hundred years ago, and our national identity is still not very strong. We tend not to be confined by nationalism as much. . . . I worked for Cardinal X, and he’s a great man, but very American. I also worked for Cardinal Y, another great man, but extremely French. I think what we Italians bring is a more intuitively international approach." At its best, this Italian sense of cultural openness can be enriching and broadening; yet it’s also true that career Italian Curialists can sometimes be condescending toward other nationalities they consider narrow and juvenile.

At bottom, however, this cosmopolitan perspective, kept in the proper balance, is valuable for the Holy See because it reflects a real justice issue. The Vatican is the only agent in the Church in a position to ensure a kind of rough global equilibrium, seeing to it that the sensibilities of all parties, all local churches and all cultures, are taken into consideration when decisions are made. Inside the Church it shouldn’t be the case that “money talks," that those national churches with the most resources and the biggest media megaphones always get their way. The culture of “thinking globally" that characterizes the Roman Curia, when it works the way it’s supposed to, is a guarantee of “Catholicity" critical in a Church becoming steadily more global.

Loyalty

Italians in curial service have a shorthand way of referring to someone they trust. They say that he or she is della famiglia, “of the family." What they mean is that this person can be counted upon to be loyal, not to betray the institution or its members, to stand by them in times of trouble. The saying reflects the deep emphasis on loyalty within the institutional culture. The Vatican is a small, 108-acre island surrounded by what is sometimes perceived as a secularized, postreligious, uncomprehending world, and it’s easy to imbibe a “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers" sort of attitude. In such a context, loyalty becomes critical. One archbishop put the point to me this way: “The only real currency in the Church, besides faith, is loyalty." In part, loyalty in ecclesiastical life can be a noble instinct of gratitude, trust, and common purpose; in part, it can also become an insistence on muzzling legitimate criticism. Where one ends and the other begins is often difficult to distinguish.

For certain offices in the Church, this bond of loyalty is formalized in what is known as an “Oath of Fidelity." Canon 833 of the Code
of Canon Law
obliges vicars general, episcopal vicars, judicial vicars, pastors, rectors, and professors of theology and philosophy at seminaries, rectors of universities, and anyone who teaches subjects dealing with faith and morals, and superiors in religious orders to take this oath, along with a Profession of Faith. The Oath of Fidelity is as follows:

I, —, on assuming the office __ promise that I
shall always preserve communion with the Catholic Church
whether in the words I speak or in the way I act.

With great care and fidelity I shall carry out the responsibilities by which I am bound in relation both to the universal church
and to the particular church in which I am called to exercise my
service according to the requirements of the law.

In carrying out my charge, which is committed to me in the
name of the church, I shall preserve the deposit of faith in its entirety, hand it on faithfully and make it shine forth. As a result,
whatsoever teachings are contrary I shall shun.

I shall follow and foster the common discipline of the whole
church and shall look after the observance of all ecclesiastical laws,
especially those which are contained in the
Code of Canon Law.

With Christian obedience I shall associate myself with what
is expressed by the holy shepherds as authentic doctors and teachers
of the faith or established by them as the church’s rulers. And I shall
faithfully assist diocesan bishops so that apostolic activity, to be exercised by the mandate and in the name of the church, is carried out
in the communion of the same church.

May God help me in this way and the holy Gospels of God
which I touch with my hands.

For the men and women of the Vatican, the primary object of loyalty is first of all the Pope. For most, it is a very personal sensation. Vatican officials feel a tie to the office of the papacy and to the particular Pope they serve. In the culture of the Holy See, it is usually considered fair game to gripe about one’s superiors and about the Church in general, but belittling remarks about the Pope, even in private, are out of bounds. I was once in the office of a Vatican undersecretary when an American prelate known to be somewhat liberal arrived for an appointment. “He doesn’t like the Pope," the undersecretary said to me quietly with respect to the American, and it was understood that this was a very negative thing.

While Vatican officials and senior Church leaders may have private disagreements with the Pope’s policies, they will rarely air them in public. The Catholic world was startled, for example, when then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger publicly expressed reservations about the 1986 Assisi interreligious prayer gathering, saying that, “This cannot be the model." (In fairness, Ratzinger may well have been referring to the execution and atmospherics of the Assisi gathering, not the Pope’s idea in itself.) The shock was not so much that a thoughtful intellectual such as Ratzinger might have doubts about Assisi, since no group of people who think deeply and care passionately about something can be expected to be in perfect agreement all the time. The shock was rather that Ratzinger gave public voice to his doubts. Typically, Vatican officials praise the Pope’s statements and initiatives in public, referring to every speech as “important," every trip as “timely" and “historic," every liturgy as “moving." Among themselves, such uncritical language is sometimes an object of humor, but it is considered one of the obligations of office.

This is a special struggle for Vatican officials from more rambunctious parts of the Catholic world, such as Northern Europe or North America, when they go home and friends draw them out on “what’s really going on." On the one hand, officials want to be able to talk openly about the latest scuttlebutt, and in some cases are anxious to demonstrate that they still understand why Catholics in the trenches sometimes become frustrated with the hierarchy. On the other hand, the tug of loyalty is deep, and officials don’t want to seem ungrateful or flippant about the trust the Pope has placed in them. They sometimes find themselves walking through a minefield, not wanting to seem like anything less than a “team player."

This emphasis on public solidarity is one of the most oft-criticized aspects of Vatican culture. American theologian Fr. Richard McBrien of the University of Notre Dame put it this way in a May 11, 2003, interview with the
Boston Globe
about the appointment of bishops: “The Vatican looks for complete, utter, uncritical loyalty to the Holy See, especially as it pertains to hot-button issues like the ordination of women, celibacy for priests, and the whole spectrum of sexual and reproductive issues. They are not going to appoint anyone who has ever expressed a doubt, much less a criticism, about these issues." On the other hand, defenders of the Holy See question whether a United States president or a corporate CEO would appoint subordinates who are disloyal to key policies of the government or the company. Would George Bush appoint a secretary of defense who disagreed with his policies on Iraq? Would the head of Ford Motors appoint a regional manager who went on record saying he thought GM sold a better product? Moreover, they insist, this is not simply a matter of loyalty. The Church’s positions on the issues McBrien lists are
true
, they argue, and officials should be expected to defend them.

Some would also question the extent to which the Holy See “suffocates" debate in the name of loyalty. Professor Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard University, a frequent papal delegate to United Nations conferences and other events, put this point in perspective in a June 1, 2002, interview with the
Sydney Morning Herald:
“Compared with my experiences in a big law firm and in a big university, there is more open and robust discussion of everything within the Catholic Church than there is within a university, where there are many taboos." Glendon argued that law schools, like other academic departments, tend to have an internal culture that fairly rigidly screens out other points of view. “Let me just take my own law school," she said. “We don’t have many Republicans. And we don’t have many openly avowed Christians."

Loyalty in the Curia applies to a lesser degree to one’s circle of friends and colleagues, including those with whom one studied, those with whom one entered curial service, and those with whom one has a special bond. Such a bond may be due to the fact that both parties come from the same region of Italy, for example, or because they both were promoted by the same cardinal-patron. Inside the Vatican, these various networks of informal support and protection are called a
parish
. When a Vatican official is promoted Italians will often ask, “Di quale parrocchia è?," What parish is he from? The presumption is that the appointment can be explained, at least in part, by whose patronage the individual is under. There is something to this. For example, in 2003 Monsignor Josef Clemens was named the new undersecretary of the Congregation for Religious. One would look in vain in Clemens’s curriculum vitae for any special qualifications he held for the post, but the fact that he was then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s longtime private secretary goes much further toward explaining the appointment. Within a matter of months, Clemens moved on to yet a higher post in the Pontifical Council for the Laity. Similarly, when Justin Rigali was named archbishop of Philadelphia after nine years in St. Louis, many Vatican observers attributed the move to the fact that Rigali’s longtime friend, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, had taken over at the Congregation for Bishops. Rigali and Re both entered curial service under Cardinal Giovanni Benelli, the right-hand man of Pope Paul VI. Rigali had been the only former secretary of the Congregation for Bishops not yet made a cardinal.

The impact of curial loyalty, however, should not be pressed too far. For one thing, many men and women in the Vatican are not conscious of having a special patron or protector, and frankly don’t want one if it means being evaluated on the basis of personal connections rather than the quality of their work. This is especially true for the non-Italians. Moreover, it would be a mistake to believe that Vatican appointments are driven for the most part by clannish personal loyalties. In fact, most of the personnel in the Holy See got their jobs because of perceptions about their potential contributions, often without having ever sought the position. Loyalty, in the end, will not save someone who is morally compromised or professionally disastrous, although the emphasis on maintaining a
bella figura
may mean that nonpublic means are sought to ease such officials out of the way.

Nor is it the case that publicly challenging the Pope or key Vatican officials is necessarily the kiss of death to one’s career, despite the premium on loyalty. When Walter Kasper was still bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart in Germany, for example, he signed a letter urging a reconsideration of the ban on divorced and civilly remarried Catholics receiving the sacraments. The letter’s argument was rejected by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and many thought it was the end of Kasper’s forward momentum. Today, however, he is a member of the College of Cardinals and head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Karl Lehmann, another German bishop, was also a signatory to that 1993 letter. Moreover, as president of the German bishops’ conference, Lehmann led a two-year effort, ultimately unsuccessful, to fend off attempts from Ratzinger and the Pope to force the German Church to withdraw from a state-sponsored abortion counseling service. Many people felt Lehmann would never win the “red hat" because of his insubordination. Today, however, he is Cardinal Karl Lehmann. Hence it is possible to fight city hall in the Catholic Church and live to tell the tale.