All the Pope's Men (26 page)

CRITICISM

The aim in this chapter has been to present the theology of the papal office and of the Roman Curia as it is understood within the Vatican, as a key to understanding the cultural psychology of the institution. Readers should be aware, however, that several key elements of this view are contested within the field of Roman Catholic theology. Here we can provide only the briefest glimpse of that debate.

First, some theologians and Church historians would argue that the reading of the history of the papacy from the Vatican perspective often gives little evidence of historical consciousness. There sometimes seems to be little recognition that the papacy of the first millennium looked and functioned much differently than the papacy of the present. Current curial structures did not drop from Heaven, which means that if particular offices, institutions, or ways of doing business no longer serve the best interests of the Church, they may be reformed or eliminated.

Second, some theologians would argue that much Vatican thinking suffers from a defective theology of power. Ecclesial power emerges from baptism, these theologians insist, before it is reconfigured through Holy Orders. To be a member of the Christian community, to live in communio, is in itself to be “empowered" for daily Christian living and for service of the Church’s mission. This is the exercise of ecclesial power in its most fundamental sense. The power received through baptism enables the faithful to fulfill their calling as disciples of Jesus. They are empowered to share the good news of Jesus Christ, to pursue holiness, to love their neighbor, to care for the least, to work for justice, and to build up the body of Christ through the exercise of their particular gifts in service of the Church. A more comprehensive theology of ecclesial empowerment, from this point of view, would not deny the unique sacramental power conferred upon the clergy, but it would insist that the source of all ecclesial power is the Spirit of Christ who empowers the whole Church. The power of the ordained cannot be appealed to as a kind of ecclesiastical trump card over the power of all disciples of Jesus to participate in the life and mission of the Church.

Third, many Catholic theologians today support an ecclesiology of communion that sees the universal Church as a communion of local churches. From that frame of reference, authority is not something that first pertains to the universal Church and then is conceded to the local churches. Rather, authority is always exercised within the communion of churches. The papacy, on this model, is understood as an office in service to communion. Local churches order their lives as they see fit, with the Pope intervening, based on the principle of subsidiarity, only when the local church is incapable of resolving a problem or when its own health demands it. In this sense, to even phrase the contemporary debate as over decentralization of power gets it wrong, since that term evokes a sense of concession—that the papacy ought to concede authority to the periphery, meaning the bishops and/or local churches. But in this version of the communion model, this authority is not the Pope’s to concede. It belongs by right to the local church.

Finally, some theologians offer a criticism of the Roman Curia that has less to do with the content of its theology than the scope and depth of it. In some cases, they say, curial personnel do not have the appropriate theological training and expertise for the jobs they are called upon to do. In other cases personnel are perfectly qualified, but reflect a more narrow range of views than is reflected within the Catholic theological discussion. In both cases, what sometimes results is that documents are not subjected to the close scrutiny they should receive before they are issued, and thus critical discussion only takes place when the document is already out in the wider world. This puts theologians in the awkward position of being forced to criticize a Vatican document in the public forum, when many would have gladly offered reactions to the Holy See on a collaborative, nonconfrontational basis had they been called upon to do so before the fact. One ardent hope among theologians is that the Roman Curia will become more interested in tapping the theological expertise of the wider Catholic community.

REFORM

No topic in Catholic theological debate is more discussed these days than reform of the power structures within the Church. In part, this conversation is driven by forces in the Church who perceive an imbalance of power between Rome and the local churches. This overconcentration of power in the Pope, they would argue, is the product of complex historical evolution, beginning with the papacy’s loss of temporal power in 1870 and its desire to compensate by asserting its control over the ecclesiastical realm. This campaign culminated, they believe, in the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, whose omnipresence in the media because of his travels and his personal charisma swamped other levels of authority in the Church. In part, too, this debate results from the progress of the ecumenical movement, and the recognition that no topic divides the Catholic Church from the other branches of the Christian family like the papacy. Both Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II have recognized that the price to pay for greater Christian unity will be some reconceptualization of the papacy that better respects the legitimate autonomy of local churches. Privately, many Eastern Orthodox prelates say they have an enormous admiration for the papacy and recognize that being part of a worldwide communion would better enable them to withstand pressures from their secular governments and cultures. They are often alienated, however, by what they see as the invasive and micromanaging tendencies of the papal bureaucracy.

The massive literature around these questions contains literally thousands of different proposals for reform. Some have to do with content-area limits on curial authority, such as restricting the ability of the Vatican to veto or amend the translations of liturgical texts made into the various vernacular languages. Some are procedural, such as Archbishop Quinn’s idea that the Pope should establish a commission headed by three presidents (the president of an episcopal conference, a layperson, and a representative of the Curia) to come up with a plan for restructuring within three years. It would then be voted on by the presidents of episcopal conferences and presented to the Pope for approval.

It is impossible to examine all these ideas here, or even to enumerate them. Instead we’ll consider two representative proposals that illustrate some of the tensions in contemporary theological discussion. The focus will be on the reaction that the two proposals often generate inside the Roman Curia, as a way of illustrating the theological attitudes often found there.

The first was presented in Fr. Thomas Reese’s 1994 book
Inside
the Vatican
, and echoed by Quinn and others. In a nutshell, the idea is that the number of bishops working in the Vatican should be radically reduced, if not eliminated altogether. For one thing, in a time of priest shortages and great pastoral need, it is an abuse of the sacrament of holy orders to have so many bishops performing essentially administrative tasks. Also, much confusion as to the authority of Vatican documents, including even routine correspondence, is created by the fact that they are signed by cardinals, archbishops, and bishops. It would clarify matters tremendously, and make the relationship between the Pope and the College of Bishops much more clear and direct, if curial functions were performed by lower clergy or by laity. A related form of this proposal argues that it would be wonderful symbolism for the Church if more laypeople, including women, were moved into top curial positions vacated by bishops.

Such a proposal assumes a basically instrumental view of the Curia, that it is a bureaucratic system the Pope is free to reshape at will and that its offices can be occupied by anyone, just as any qualified person can be a school administrator or accountant for the Church. Set against this view would be a more sacramental understanding of the Roman Curia, described above in the discussion of the College of Cardinals. While recognizing that the Curia is not part of the constitution of the Church as revealed by Christ, this model nevertheless holds that its intimate association with the ministry of the Pope implies an organic connection with the sacrament of holy orders. On that view, the power of governance exercised in the Roman Curia is bound up with the hierarchical power vested in Catholic priests by ordination and that reaches its fullness in ordination to the episcopacy. By that logic, it would seem appropriate and even essential that top offices in the Vatican be held by bishops.

One expression of the sacramental view came from Cardinal Jan Schotte, the Belgian who runs the Synod of Bishops, in response to a question I put to him in June 2003, in connection with the issuance of John Paul’s apostolic letter
Ecclesia in Europa
. A working group at the 1999 European Synod had proposed that a woman be named to head an agency of the Curia, but the idea did not survive in the propositions presented to the Pope at the close of the synod, and neither was it in the letter. Does that mean, I asked, that the idea is off the table? “Right now the dicasteries have jurisdiction, and so they participate in episcopal authority," Schotte said. “We’re a hierarchical organization and power comes from ordination. So for now, there cannot be a woman. If the job is redefined, you could have a woman, but then it would not be the same dicastery as we think of now when people say there should be a woman." As Schotte suggests, the sacramental view of the Curia limits the possibilities for lay participation at the leadership levels, especially by women.

A second proposed reform worth a brief examination is that the Curia should be balanced by, or even subservient to, an enhanced Synod of Bishops. From the creation of the synod in 1965, popes have been aware of a potential rivalry between this body and the Curia. It is for this reason, in fact, that Paul VI included in his constitution
Apostolica sollicitudo
of September 15, 1965, which erected the synod, a provision specifying that the cardinal-prefects of the various dicasteries are to be participants in all the meetings of the synod. Similarly, John Paul II in a 1990 discourse to the College of Cardinals said: “An interpretation of the Curia that would present it as an antithetical subject with respect to the Synod is without foundation; neither would it be legitimate to hypothesize a competitive attitude between these two ecclesial entities." Yet the potential for rivalry exists. Indeed, every time a synod is held, complaints about the Curia are frequent. The refrain became so insistent at the Synod of Bishops in 2001, in fact, that on October 11 Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano actually pleaded for mercy. “To the brothers who work in the dioceses, allow me to ask that you not demand impossible things from us who work in the Curia," Sodano said. “We all have our limits. The Apostle told us counter-positions are not useful: Alter alterius onera portate!"

Advocates believe a synod, especially one composed primarily of the elected presidents of national bishops conferences, and perhaps the elected heads of religious orders, would provide a more representative body to collaborate with the Pope, offering a better expression of the lived experience of Catholics around the world. In that sense, its most optimistic champions often see the synod as a kind of ongoing ecumenical council that would extend the role of the bishops witnessed at Vatican II into the daily experience of the Church. No less a figure than Pope Benedict XVI gave voice to this view in 1965, as a cardinal: “If we may say that the synod is a permanent council in miniature—its composition as well as its name justifies this—then its institution under these circumstances guarantees that the council will continue after its official end; it will from now on be part of the everyday life of the Church."

Many Vatican officials argue, however, that synods simply are not capable of collaborating in the governance of the universal Church in the sense in which reformers intend. Either it would mean lifting bishops out of their dioceses for long periods of time in order to truly think through the issues—which would destroy the very pastoral closeness they are supposed to bring—or it would mean short synods with superficial and confused results. Some of these critics would add that the experience of many of the twenty synods held to date has made the point. Given that many Catholic conservatives are already suspicious of national bishops’ conferences for being too dominated by staff (the syndrome of experts instead of common sense) and by questionable doctrinal positions, the idea of giving these conferences a greater say in the universal Church is for some an unappetizing option. Many curial personnel also suspect that behind the proposal to beef up the synod is a desire to water down the papacy, and for all the reasons noted above, they are deeply suspicious of such an agenda.

A SPIRITUALITY FOR THE CURIA

The argument of this chapter has been that the attitudes of the men and women of the Roman Curia toward themselves and their work cannot be understood apart from their faith convictions. We’ll end with a look at a spirituality of the Roman Curia, developed by one of the men who knows this world best: Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mejia, the former prefect of the Vatican library, and a man who has done almost everything there is to do in Vatican service.

Mejia, eighty as of this writing, attended Vatican II as a
peritus
, or theological expert, from 1962–65, and was then the director of the Commission on Ecumenism of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires in 1966. In 1967, he was named secretary of the Department of Ecumenism of CELAM, the prestigious assembly of Latin American bishops’ conference, and then became president of the Executive Committee of the World Catholic Federation for the Biblical Apostolate from 1969–72. He entered Vatican service with his appointment as secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews in 1977. He was then appointed vice-president of the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace on March 8, 1986. He was consecrated in Rome on April 12, 1986, by Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, president of the same council. Among other things, the appointment was seen as John Paul’s seal of approval on Mejia’s role as architect of the Pope’s visit to the Rome synagogue that same month. It marked the first time since the era of primitive Christianity that a pope had gone to a Jewish place of worship and was a special point of pride for Mejia, whose background is in Scripture. Mejia was made archbishop and secretary of the Congregation for Bishops on March 5, 1994, a job that has always foreshadowed an eventual cardinal’s red hat. He was named archivist and librarian of the Holy Roman Church on March 7, 1998, and entered the College of Cardinals in February 2001.

In an interview for this book in the spring of 2003, Mejia said he had once come up with a list of virtues that he felt working in the Roman Curia fosters. This is not to say that everyone who works there develops them, he hastened to add, merely that the environment is conducive to eliciting these particular traits. He listed four:

Patience:
“Anyone who serves the Holy Father in the Roman Curia learns to wait," Mejia said. Attempts to rush the institution almost always backfire, he said. Moreover, there is a certain wisdom in learning to rely on God’s time rather than one’s own.

Anonymity:
“It is amazing what you can accomplish in the Vatican if you have absolutely no interest in claiming the credit," Mejia said. He suggested that the happiest people he has met over the years in the Vatican are those least interested in the consequences of their service for their own careers.

Humility:
“You start to think about the vastness of the responsibility the Holy Father carries, and it becomes overwhelming," Mejia said. There is of course a danger that this awareness could make someone drunk with power rather than humble, and Mejia quickly acknowledged that he’d seen examples of it. “At the same time, the vast majority of sane people around here come to understand very quickly how little they are measured against the size of the challenges."

Pleasure in the success of others:
“This is the most difficult of all," Mejia said. “It will happen in the course of one’s career here that you will see other people receive appointments or favors that you might have regarded yourself as having earned. What do you do? Do you become bitter, or do you learn to take pleasure that something good has happened to another?" Curial service, he suggested, is a crucible in which this virtue can be forged.

In the end, my experience of knowing several dozen men and women at all levels and in all kinds of jobs inside the Holy See suggests that more people make a good faith effort to live by Mejia’s virtues than not. Still, it would be naïve romanticism to pretend that this is universally the case. I’ll tell one anecdote to make the point. In the fall of 2002, I took a longtime curial veteran out to lunch, a
monsignore
who had entered the Vatican during the pontificate of John XXIII. He had been exiled from the Holy See on the watch of Archbishop Giovanni Benelli, the tough-as-nails
sostituto
of Pope Paul VI. The
monsignore
described in graphic terms how much he had come to hate Benelli, how he bore resentment against him for many years, since he blamed Benelli for the fact he never became a bishop. He hung around Rome in various capacities, something of a lost soul. After many years, he heard about Benelli’s death in 1982. By that time his old nemesis had been made the cardinal-archbishop of Florence, and the
monsignore
told me he rang up a friend who had been similarly tossed out by Benelli and proposed that the two of them go to Florence for the funeral.

“Do you know why?" the monsignore asked me. I expected that it had something to do with making peace, putting the ghosts of old resentments to rest.

“To make sure the bastard was really dead," he said, without a trace of irony.

He said he and his friend drank a champagne toast to Benelli’s demise. All this by way of making the point that while the Roman Curia might invite its personnel to certain virtues, not everyone accepts the invitation.