BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

In the body of the article, I explain why I find Allen's use of the term 'Jacobin' applied to Popes as highly inappropriate... This is one of those Allen pieces that I thought one might reasonably read through without jumping every so often at something that cries out for a fisk, tout de suite, but it is not, and once more, I thank him for the chance of an argumentative workout!... His topic is not to my taste at all, but he has so many false premises and conclusions about Benedict XVI that I cannot possibly ignore...

Is it time for a Jacobin Pope?
Or for an American Pope?

February 24, 2012

As a thought exercise, ask yourself what period of time the following paragraph about the Vatican seems to reflect.

"For those who've seen the place in better days, the Vatican looks deeply troubled. In the absence of strong leadership, internal tensions seem to be bursting into view. Even at the height of his powers, the pope took scant interest in governance. As he ages and becomes more limited, a sense of drift is mounting -- a conviction that hard choices must await a new day, and probably a new pontiff."

Although it seems perfectly apt in February 2012 [To you perhaps, not to a more objective observer, and certainly not to a Benaddict! It sounds exactly like the badass grumblings of some petty media tyrant wielding malicious exaggeration to spice up his report, in the hope of imposing his personal opinion as fact in the mind of the reader! For Allen to cite the above as a snapshot of the Papacy is insupportably mean! And misleading, if not false. In the process, he also denigrates both John Paul II and Benedict XVI.], in fact, that paragraph was written in late 2004. That's the irony: Many cardinals who elected Benedict XVI thought they were buying an end to the crisis of governance in the twilight of John Paul's reign, only to find they'd simply traded it in for a newer model. [That is a rash assumption that seems to have no plausible foundation. Allen cannot claim that the cardinals who voted for Cardinal Ratzinger did so because they thought he was going to be the ideal administrator! They chose him for far more fundamental - spiritual - reasons, and they said so in more ways than one after the Conclave, namely: that he simply embodied best the qualities that are most appropriate for the Rock on which the Church must stand. Also, even in the primitive Church with its few adherents, Peter was not in charge of 'governing' - he had James in Jerusalem to do that, and aides like Stephen and whoever the apostles chose to replace Judas Iscariot as their pursekeeper.]

In the abstract, Joseph Ratzinger seemed the man to put things right. As the saying went, Ratzinger was in the curia but not of it -- he knew where the bodies were buried, but he was never the stereotypical Vatican potentate, forever building empires and hatching schemes. Plus, he's hardly the extrovert John Paul was, so it seemed reasonable he might invest more energy in internal business.[Depends what you mean by internal business! It's not as if he were ignoring that - how could he? If you mean administration, then say so, since Joseph Ratzinger has always openly said he is not an administrator!]

Facing what is, alas, merely the latest implosion in the last six years, the mushrooming "Vatileaks" scandal, one has to ask: What went wrong? (The latest chapter of that saga came Wednesday when Italian TV aired an anonymous interview with an alleged mole who claimed to be one of at least 20 insiders leaking documents.) {Yeah, but did he say anything that adds to the scant public fund of reliable facts, or even to clarify what has been alleged earlier? NO!, as Andrea Tornielli reported. But YES, it was another crappy chapter in a crappy saga that Allen knows better than to hype well beyond its petty parameters!

And it isn't exactly 'mushrooming', is it? So far it has amounted to - at most - a couple of Vigano letters, a couple of memoranda about IOR, that anonymous memorandum no one ought to even have paid attention to, and a couple more notes lately - all told, not even 10 documents so far (hardly 'mushrooming'), about whom the disguised 'mole figure' claims there are 20 of them responsible for passing them on. How many moles does it take to pass on 10 documents? And if these moles have fired their best shots, they have really been scraping the barrel, as Tornielli says. I wish Allen would be more disciplined about using the right words - his colloquialisms always end up being highly inappropriate.

As glib as Allen spins out his apparent analyses, they are usually flawed by arguing from the wrong premise. As in this case. One of Allen's pet theories about this Pontificate is that it has been 'distinguished' primarily by what he usually calls 'gaffes', which he has now now progressed in magnitude and order to 'implosion'. Let us not belabor his litany of gaffes, which he has spared us this time, thankfully. But consider the word 'implosion'. If this Pontificate had been subjected to a series of implosions, it would have been reduced to smithereens by now. An implosion is an exploding inwards - and as pesky or even embarrassing as the 'gaffes' and leaks have been so far, none of them have been major at all, in the sense of having had disastrous long-term consequences. The immemorial problems of Vatican bureaucracy and perceived internal intrigues are chronic ailments, after all, not life-threatening cancers.]

It's become commonplace to say that Benedict XVI sees himself as a teaching Pope, not a governor, and that's obviously true. [No, the commonplace is Allen's choice to frame his premise in such a reductive way! You'd think he has not read Light of the World, or any of the previous interview books, or that he had not written two versions of a Ratzinger 'biography'! Again, since when was Peter supposed to be Pontius Pilate at the same time, to mix metaphors?

Why doesn't some Vaticanista write an essay on the comparative records of all the Popes in modern times as administrators, so the public has a better picture? John Paul II, according to a commonplace Allen used, is routinely faulted for 'reigning' but not 'governing', Well, who among Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Benedict XV, Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXIII and Paul VI reigned as well as governed? Please enlighten us, and not just lazily tick off John Paul II and Benedict XVI as if they are the bad exceptions !]

Still, Benedict actually has engineered a sort of limited reform inside the Vatican, and for those with eyes to see, it marks a real break with the past. {The first statement of objective fact so far, as opposed to impression and personal opinion!]

Not so long ago, it was taken for granted that the following was just what Vatican heavyweights do, [Not so long ago? These are still the assumptions upon which the past stories regarding the leaks were written!] to some extent reflecting traditional Italian assumptions about men of state: [Not so much traditional Italian assumptions, but habitual media assumptions about most governments in general, and the Vatican, in particular!]
- Use positions of power to reward allies and block enemies, thereby building a network of patronage and influence.
- Move money around without much of a paper trail, steering contracts and resources to one's friends and supporters.
- Turn a blind eye to the personal failings of people perceived as loyal to the Church, the Pope or influential figures in the hierarchy.
- Have a clandestine involvement in worldly politics and finance, justified as a way of advancing the interests of the Church.
{And who exactly does Allen mean by 'Vatican heavyweights'? Does he include the Popes themselves????]

Slowly, Benedict XVI has tried to move people who embody a more transparent and less nakedly ambitious way of doing business into key positions. The question is, Has this gradual reform hit a brick wall? If it's dying the death of a thousand cuts, as some believe, what's the next step -- to go back, or to move forward to a more aggressive phase? [Two contradictions here. If few are even aware of the administrative and financial reforms that Benedict XVI has instituted - and few are aware, because the Vatican reporters have not written enough. So, who is there to judge that the reforms have 'hit a brick wall or are dying the death of a thousand cuts'? Other than Summorum Pontificum (which has become openly instrumentalized in the intra-Church ideological war), has anyone documented a reform promulgated by Benedict XVI that is being openly defied and violated? In the absence of such evidence, shouldn't we give more time for some of the laws to be implemented in full before deciding that they are being blocked or sabotaged by attrition?... In the interests of providing relevant background, Allen might have cited Magister's articles on the Benedictine reforms and the recent book published about these reforms, putting together lectures at the University of Pavia on Benedict as legislator.]

To invoke an analogy from revolutionary France, is it time for the Jacobins to wrest control from the moderates? [It's hard to justify Allen's decision to use the term 'Jacobin' in this context, when all he really means is a Pope who can take drastic administrative action to 'straighten out the Curia' once and for all. It is joltingly inappropriate when he makes the analogy to revolutionary France, from which the term originated. In its blandest sense today, 'Jacobin' still is pejorative for radical left-wing or revolutionary. But in post-1789 France, the Jacobins were those who carried out the bloody Reign of Terror "as a means of destroying those they perceived as enemies within", in the name of consolidating the Republic. Is that really what Allen would want a Pope to do? Again, the problem is that Allen has a penchant for using words loosely without thinking the consequences through! Of course, the self-righteous revolutionary terrorists did not last long, and were thrown out within two years, but modern France owes them its legacy of militant, often bitterly anti-clerical secularism.]

Benedict's limited reform is based on setting a moral tone and the idea that "personnel is policy," rather than any violent purge or direct overhaul of systems and structures. [He has been consistent and insistent about that - no structural reform can be effective unless the individuals in these structures first reform themselves. Yet as someone who never paid attention to Vatican internal affairs until seven years ago, I am still appalled that apparently, from most accounts, not a few bishops and priests who work at the Vatican have no second thoughts about shedding their persona as men of God to become naked ambition clothed in cassocks!]

It began with the ultra-powerful Secretariat of State, where the stereotype of the "prelate as Renaissance prince" tends still to have the most legs. It's well known that Benedict's pick to run the place, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, is an outsider known more for his personal devotion to the Pope than as an independent powerbroker. [But why would 'powerbroker' be the primary definition Allen chooses for a Secretary of State? CEO would be more like it.]

The new Sostituto [deputy secretary of state for internal affairs, meaning administering the Curia]] or chief of staff, Archbishop Giovanni Becciu, also never worked in the Secretariat, making him likewise a stranger to its palace intrigue. [He may never have worked in the Secretariat, but he had extensive experience over 20 years in 10 countries (including the UK, France and the US, but also some African countries and Cuba) as a diplomat whose activities are completely overseen and run by SecState! He could not have been that much of a 'stranger' to the intrigue!]

Becciu is cut from a different cloth in another sense, too. He's from the island of Sardinia, where people tend to think of themselves as quite different from mainland Italians --– quieter, more reflective, less given to schemes and theater. Supposedly, when Benedict XVI visited Sardinia in 2008, he quipped that "Sardinians aren't really Italians," which may be revealing in terms of what he thought he was doing by giving Becciu the job. [For what it's worth, I think Bertone picked Becciu for handling the preparations so well for Bertone's 2008 visit to Cuba that took on almost the scale of a papal visit but much longer (one assumes that they then worked together very well during the visit); not to mention Becciu's work in helping the Archbishop of Havana to broker the prisoner releases agreed to by the Cuban government].

Consider, too, the three longtime friends Benedict chose to lead what he regards as the most important other Vatican offices: American Cardinal William Levada, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Congregation for Bishops; and Spanish Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, Congregation for Divine Worship.

Levada and Ouellet had some previous Vatican experience, but none represents the old guard. Nobody really suspects them of financial shenanigans or building their own ecclesiastical empires, and they spend precious little time in the limelight.

Levada, for instance, has been on the job since 2005, and Cañizares since 2008, yet even some full-time Vatican writers would struggle to pick either man out of a lineup because they've maintained such a low profile. [But none of Benedict's Curial appointees seek any attention unless they have something to say about a task the Pope has assigned to them. And that's as it should be. Humble, hardworking and holy should define the ideal Curial official.]

If the lone benchmarks of reform were a reputation for personal decency and not jockeying to be the next Pope, you could probably declare the job finished and go home. [What job? Limiting the possible succession to Levada, Ouellet or Canizares???] Unfortunately, that recipe leaves two vital questions unanswered:

- What about guys inside the system who aren't on the same page and who may take Benedict's detachment as carte blanche to pursue their own agenda? {'Benedict's detachment' How superciliously presumptuous! 'Detachment' here sounds accusatory, as in absolute lack of interest. Does anyone really think that a methodical and conscientious man like Benedict XVI does not have a checklist by which he keeps tabs on what's happening in each of the Vatican dicasteries? And that he does not ask questions at all?

BTW,I would think that in the various Curial dicasteries, where the staffs are relatively small (a few dozen at most), it would have to be the dicastery head and his secretary-general - and by now these men are all Benedictine appointees - to identify the troublemakers, and if they can't get rid of them for a variety of reasons, at least work around them and keep them from spoking their wheels. It's a bit more difficult at SecState, where the number of personnel may run to multiple dozens or even hundreds, and the enclaves have been staked out for decades, with an entrenched bureaucracy protecting their respective turfs. If Cardinal Bertone hasn't been able to make these bureaucrats his friends in six years, one would think that he at least set out to 'know the enemy'.]

- Prayer and purification are great, but at some point, doesn't somebody also have to make the trains run on time? [They are not mutually exclusive at all. Just think of the virtual army of Franciscan saints who became saints by just doing the menial daily time-consuming routines assigned to them as porter, cook, gardener, alms-gatherer, dispenser of charity, etc - but did not neglect prayer and purification! One must expect the same equilibrium in any Vatican official. Benedict certainly has it, but he cannot be expected to function as Secretary of State in addition to being Pope - Surely anyone with common sense can see that.]

It's hard to avoid the conclusion that Benedict's attempt at reform has paid a steep price for not confronting those two points head-on. [Of course, it's EASY to avoid such a conclusion, if one does not start with false premises! What 'steep price' so far? The 'nine-day wonder' scandals that MSM have generated? I think it works in favor of the Vatican that the MSM has collective attention-deficit disorder, because they're always ready to move on to the next promising brushfire in other sectors the moment the forest fires they kindle around the Vatican exhaust themselves, usually within 2-3 weeks!

Facing that reality, three broad reactions seem possible. Each leads to a different conclusion about who might be the right choice when the time comes to elect a successor to Benedict XVI. [So all of the above was just a set-up to get on to the question of succession that is a barely masked obsession with Allen and his fellow Vaticanistas!... Also, the 'categories' created by Allen below all proceed from the wrong premise that a Pope must also perform the functions that his Secretary of State should do!]

First, one could decide the reform was a nonstarter from the outset. In the words of Michelangelo, there's only one statue in this stone -- the Vatican is always going to have its careerists and its schemers, it's always going to have a subtext of petty turf wars and personal squabbles, so the trick is to put someone in charge who knows that world and is capable of keeping it under control. In other words, don't waste energy trying to change the place; settle for making it work. [Nut isn't that just what realist Benedict XVI, 24-year veteran of the Curia, has been doing? It has worked for the most part, despite the inevitable glitches which have been grossly inflated by the media into Chicken-Little catastrophes. The sky has not fallen, Vigano did not become a cardinal (thank God!), Bertone may finally be learning his lessons, God's in his heaven! And Benedict has even managed some historic institutional reforms!]

If that's the logic, then a strong candidate for the next Pope might be Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, currently Prefect of the Congregation for Oriental Churches. A veteran of the curia, Sandri served as substitute under John Paul II, where he had a reputation as a strong administrator. [Yes? Then why is John Paul accused of having neglected the Curia? And what about Cardinal Sondao who was Secretary of State for the last 11 years of the Pontificate? Does he bear no responsibility at all?]

As a bonus, he's an Argentine, so he could be presented to the world as a Latin American Pope. [Actually, Sandri is of Italian descent though he was born and raised in Argentina! Forza, Italia! And why do I get the feeling Sandri may have jumped out of his seat to learn Allen has just anointed him a papabile! Hey John, have you forgotten your favorite intellectual Cardinal Ravasi so soon?]

Second, in the spirit of thinking in centuries, one could argue that Benedict's reform simply hasn't had time to work itself out [DUH! That isn't just a reasonable conjecture but also practical thinking], and the key is staying the course. That seemed to be the spirit of a Feb. 13 statement from Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesperson, on the Vatileaks mess.

When somebody starts launching attacks, Lombardi said, it's usually a sign that "something important is in play." The suggestion appeared to be that products of the older Vatican culture know the earth is shifting beneath their feet, and the leaks represent their way of lashing out.

Ouellet would be a compelling choice for that school of thought. He's very much like Benedict -- quiet, spiritual, given to the life of the mind. He's someone who would likely emphasize teaching and moral leadership over institutional dynamics. Without getting into this succession speculation, Oeullet was on the papabile list back in 2005, so no surprise that Allen names him. ]

Third, one might conclude that Benedict's reform has its heart in the right place, but needs to be backed up by a stronger hand on the rudder. You need someone at the top who can not only set a tone, but who has the mettle to make it stick. [Which is an indirect way for Allen to say that Benedict 'does not have the mettle to make it stick'! He didn't have the mettle to reform the way the Church deals with priest offenders and child abuse - which he has only been pushing hard and consistently since 2001???? He didn't have the mettle to punish Maciel and take his misguided Legionaries in hand? He didn't have the mettle to restore the traditional Mass, which John Paul II apparently never thought of doing in 26 years? He didn't have the mettle to remove Cardinal Sepe from Propaganda Fide? He didn't have the mettle to reconstitute the ecclesiastical and lay management of IOR from those who had been in charge for three decades? All that - and Benedict's spiritual, pastoral and moral leadership, not to mention all his papal texts and the JON books! From a man who is almost 85, that's not enough! And yet, it's only been less than seven years since he became Pope. The new laws on financial reform only took effect in June 2011. Judge again whether they stick when the first AIF 'transparent' financial report comes out.]

That seems a prescription for a Pope with strong credentials as a man of faith, but also experience at wrapping his hands around complex bureaucracies, with sufficient energy and fearlessness to take on the Vatican's entrenched culture. [No, that's not for a Pope to do directly. That's supposed to be for his Secretary of State and the latter's substantial administrative powers to do. Unfortunately, that has been the major weak link ('mettle fatigue'!) in this Pope's chain of command. Because of this, Cardinal Bertone needs all our prayers!]

Figure out which guy among the current crop of cardinals best fits that profile, and you'll have the "Jacobin" candidate.

* * *

On this side of the water, the take-away from the consistory of February 2012 has been that for the first time in living memory, the hot new commodity in the College of Cardinals is actually an American, Timothy Dolan of New York.

Of course, a cardinal's star can fall as easily as it rises. In the consistory of 2001, for instance, the landslide winner of the beauty pageant was Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, a handsome, articulate fresh face for the church's burgeoning Latin American contingent. Yet he didn't have any traction as a papal candidate in 2005, and by now the smart money says his ship has sailed. [If the Holy Spirit listened to the 'smart money', Cardinal Ratzinger may never have become Pope! Allen himself did not include him in his list of papabile two days before the Conclave. In any case, It's sheer bad taste and arrogant presumption to rule out anyone so categorically! Maradiaga has not morphed into someone unqualified in the meantime.]

Still, given the way Dolan took Rome by storm, the "American Pope" question is in the air. Normally, the hypothesis gets knocked down almost as soon as it's raised on the basis of the longstanding taboo against a "superpower Pope."

Yet it's possible to flip the bias against an American around in two ways.

First, Vatican diplomats often grouse that the American government doesn't pay enough attention to their concerns. [They may grouse, but they also know that the US government decides on the basis of its national interests, not on the basis of Vatican concerns. This is a strawman argument.] That was the drumbeat in the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and it's still said today across a range of matters, including the Middle East, development in Africa and the life issues.

Consider this: Can you think of a better way to get the attention of the White House -- no matter who the occupant might be -- than to elect an American Pope? [It still does not affect the national-interests argument - and they certainly cannot ignore any Pope, whatever his nationality. Anyway, a Pope of any nationality is a universal Pope and is not supposed to be influenced by his nationality.]

There is the risk, of course, that U.S.-Vatican relations could be hijacked by domestic politics under an American pope [HUH?], but it wouldn't have to play out that way. In any event, it certainly would ensure that Washington keeps Rome on the radar.

Second, one could argue that in ecclesiastical terms, it's the Italians who are the traditional superpower [I don't think even the Italian cardinals or Italian Catholics themselves think that way any more. Not after Poland and Germany have given the Church such outstanding Popes! Besides the term 'superpower Pope' that Allen uses refers not to the Pope but to the country he represents. Does anyone consider Italy a superpower in any sense at all?] not the Americans or anybody else. The real choice for a "superpower Pope" would therefore be putting the papacy back in Italian hands, while an American (or, for that matter, any non-European) would actually represent evolution toward a more "multi-polar" church.

Given the way papal politics works, cardinals won't be caught dead talking about specific candidates. In the months to come, however, it will be fascinating to track what they have to say in general terms about where the next Pope might come from -- and if the idea of an American seems to be growing in plausibility.

Yeah, well, Dolan gives Allen and company a pretext to indulge in Conclave speculation without using the health status of Benedict XVI as a news peg!

Just to exorcise all the bad taste in speculative articles like the above...

AD MULTOS ANNOS, BENEDICTE!


AD MULTOS ANNOS, BENEDICTE!


AD MULTOS ANNOS, BENEDICTE!