ABOUT THE CHURCH AND THE VATICAN

Sandro Magister updates his analysis of the intra-Church squabble made evident by the Boffo case, but with too much emphasis, I think, on Avvenire, which is merely incidental to the issue, not the issue itself.


Boffo case underscores differences
between the Italian bishops' leadership
and the Vatican Secretariat of State

Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops, is under attack, and its editor has resigned.
It is even getting hit by friendly fire - from the Secretariat of State.




ROME, September 10, 2009 – In his September 3 letter of resignation as editor of Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops' conference, Dino Boffo denounced the existence of "ecclesiastical factions" at war with each other, stirred up by the controversy surrounding him.

In a letter to the bishops a few months ago, Benedict XVI was even more straightforward: "If you bite and devour one another, take heed that you are not consumed by one another."

The fact that there are divisions and conflicts among the Church's upper hierarchy, sometimes exploding disastrously, is beyond question.

The main disagreement at the moment is over how to deal with Italian politics: between the Vatican Secretariat of State and the Italian bishops' conference (CEI).

Avvenire is the CEI newspaper. And the attack conducted against the private life of its now ex-editor Boffo, by the newspaper Il Giornale, owned by the brother of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, has been viewed and experienced in different ways on the two sides of the Tiber.

For the Secretariat of State, the real and proper attack was and is something else - one conducted by an anti-Catholic force that is spearheaded by La Repubblica, the leading newspaper of the secularist left, and is ultimately aimed at the Pope and his Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

On the morning of August 28, Bertone was much more infuriated over an article by the lay theologian Vito Mancuso in La Repubblica than over the simultaneous eruption of the campaign by Il Giornale against Boffo for his criticisms of Berlusconi's reported private behavior.

Mancuso accused Bertone of sitting obediently at Herod's table, by meeting with Berlusconi as was scheduled that day, instead of denouncing his lustful lifestyle with the courage of a Saint John the Baptist.

A few hours later, in fact, on that Friday afternoon, L'Osservatore Romano came out with a prominent front-page commentary against the Mancuso article by its leading commentator, Lucetta Scaraffia.

That issue (for August 29) carried only a couple of lines in the inside pages to the anti-Boffo offensive by Il Giornale, quoting a statement from the CEI.

Even in the following days, in the thick of the firestorm against Boffo, Cardinal Bertone held firm to his interpretation of events.

For him, the real climax of the aggression against the Church was when Repubblica, on September 1, ran a headline saying that Benedict XVI had intervened personally in support of Boffo, and therefore also of his criticisms of Berlusconi.

In fact, the first and only official Vatican statement on the Boffo controversy was released a few hours later, precisely in order to deny the Pope's involvement in the row.

[This is wrong! The Vatican statement came before the false Repubblica headline. Fr. Lombardi issued a formal statement on Sept. 1 saying Cardinal Bertone had called Boffo to express his personal solidarity; Lombardi's statement made no mention of the Pope at all. But Repubblica then reported falsely that Bertone had also conveyed the Pope's solidarity.]

The statement confirmed that only Bertone had expressed solidarity with Boffo, while the Pope – according to a parallel statement from the CEI – had limited himself to telephoning the president of the episcopal conference, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, in order to ask him for "news and perspectives on the current situation," and to express "esteem, gratitude, and appreciation" for him and for the Italian bishops.

[Now I am really distressed! Lombardi's statement about Bertone's telephone call was made on the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 1. The Pope's call to Cardinal Bagnasco was made Tueday afternoon, Sept. 1. The CEI press release about that telephone call was therefore not in any way 'parallel' to Fr. Lombardi's statement. I am not nitpicking here - I am simply upset by erroneous reporting, no matter who does it, especially on very recent events, whose facts can be easily checked out.

Also, Lombardi made two other statements on the matter - the first, to deny Repubblica's false report that the Pope had expressed his solidarity with Boffo; and then after Boffo resigned, to scoff at a claim by Il Giornale editor Vittorio Feltri - author of the concocted story against Boffo - that an anonymous flyer he had claimed in his original expose to be a police 'informativo' against Boffo was, in fact, a product of the 'Vatican secret service', which, as Lombardi, pointed out, does not exist. Lombardi also said the Giornale accusation was yet another attempt 'to foment chaos'.]

In leafing through [the issues of] L'Osservatore Romano, the newspaper edited by Professor Giovanni Maria Vian and overseen by Cardinal Bertone, one sees almost no trace of Boffo's Passion Week.

The news of his resignation was given on September 3, in a little column of 22 lines on page 7, under the uninformative title "National office for social communications of the CEI", reporting nothing more than the statement from the bishops' conference.

But editor Vian was much more talkative in an interview with Corriere della Sera on August 31. His words clearly expressed the dissatisfaction of the Vatican secretariat of state with Avvenire for its "imprudence and exaggeration" in criticizing the government and in lambasting the private vices of the prime minister. Vian implied L'Osservatore Romano had not written a single word on this latter subject, by deliberate choice.

This desire for a relationship of "institutional serenity" with the government in power, whether it is right, left or center, is one of the constants of Vatican diplomacy with all countries of the world, dictated by political realism.

But the central administration of the Catholic Church is one thing, and the effervescent national Churches are another, with their bishops, their clergy, their faithful.

Under the presidency of Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the Italian bishops' conference took control of relations with the Italian political sphere, in full agreement with John Paul II and with his successor Benedict XVI, achieving unquestionable successes.

Avvenire, under Boffo, was the flagship publication of Ruini's leadership.

But when Ruini left the stage, Cardinal Bertone decided to grasp the helm of Church policy in Italy himself, and said so in black and white in a letter dated March 25, 2007, addressed to the new president of the CEI, Cardinal Bagnasco.

The bishops did not at all accept this loss of authority [not that Bertone's intentions were actually ever put into practice!], and since then there has been constant friction between the Vatican and the CEI, which has sometimes degenerated into open conflict.

[Does anyone recall such 'open conflict' other than the one atendant to the Boffo case? Cardinal Bagnasco very tactfully 'ignored' the Bertone letter by not answering it at all, in writing or in any public statement, and went ahead, calmly indicating the CEI's positions on public issues in his regular pastoral statements at the start and close of the bi-annual CEI Permanent Council meetings - along lines laid down by the Primate of Italy, Benedict XVI. Magister himself in his last analysis of the Boffo case described Bagnasco's attitude towards the Bertone letter as 'return to sender'!]

But in the meantime, the CEI has changed. It is no longer the well-oiled machine that it was in its heyday with Ruini.

Cardinal Bagnasco has been faithful in continuing Ruini's legacy, but he does not have the same authority. The new secretary of the CEI, Bishop Mariano Crociata, quickly showed that he is not up to the role. Currently the CEI has many heads and many voices, which are often discordant with one another.

[The CEI has always had 'many voices' because many Italian bishops are not exactly known for their reticence or prudence, and some are openly defiant of the Pope. But they are not represented in the CEI Permanent Council, and the record shows that the CEI itself has only always spoken through Cardinal Bagnasco.]

Yet another reason why, from the Vatican, Bertone would be ratcheting up his leadership ambitions, encouraged in this by the politicians, who see him as a more reliable counterpart compared to a CEI that seems uncertain and confused.

It has also been confused in reacting to the offensive against Avvenire and its editor. For months, since the controversy d begun in Italy over the private life of prime minister Berlusconi, the newspaper edited by Boffo had found itself navigating stormy waters.

Pressure from the readers, and even more, from part of the Italian episcopate, had forced Boffo to do what he never would have done with a Ruini in command: preach against the private immorality of the prime minister.

The preaching was moderate, respectful, carefully measured. But this meant it was bound to displease many, because of its excess or lack of vigor, depending on one's point of view.

In the Secretariat of Ctate, naturally, the "moralistic" imprudence of the bishops' newspaper could only be a presage of ruin [????], as the devastating retaliation by Il Giornale would later confirm.

Seen by the CEI as an attack on Ruini's approach, the offensive against Boffo brought to his defense, on the front lines, Cardinal Ruini himself, and his successor, Bagnasco, with the army of that "Church of the people" which Boffo has been extraordinarily effective in expressing and interpreting in fourteen years at the helm of Avvenire [and of the CEI's Sat 2000 TV and InBlu radio network]. of his direction.

But among the cardinals, the bishops, and the clergy, some kept their distance, while some immediately called for Boffo's resignation, despite the fact that the initial accusations against him were quickly revealed to be largely unfounded.

Boffo himself raised suspicions by waiting for several days before writing a detailed defense of himself, prior to making an exclusively personal decision to resign, against the wishes of the president of the CEI and apart from any request by the Pope, which he never made.

By the end of September the CEI board will appoint his successor, who will probably be Domenico Delle Foglie, a Ruini man through and through. In part because, paradoxically, neither the anti-Ruini camp nor Cardinal Bertone have an alternative candidate of their own.




It is possible that Vaticanistas are exaggerating the extent of the CEI-Secretariat of State conflict (and the putative conflict with Berlusconi, for that matter, since the latter appears to continue being eager for good relations with the Vatican).

I cannnot imagine that Cardinal Bertone would be so jealous about his prerogatives as Secretary of State as to treat the CEI as an enemy or rival, when the Bishop of Rome is also the Primate of Italy - the CEI are his bishops, and the CEI president and secretary-general are named by him! In fact, the CEI executes the Pope's pastoral intentions for the Church in Italy which he heads as a local Church.

Furthermore, the Church in Italy and the Italian bishops are in a different category from other national churches and bishops' conferences because of the unique provisions of the Concordat between the Vatican and the Italian state.