This will seem irrational, or corrupt, behavior only by post–Industrial Revolution standards of efficiency, where it is assumed that the most important criterion of leadership is specialized expertise. But in precapitalist cultures, there was less bureaucratic emphasis on experts; it was assumed that a general education would suffice to make big-picture decisions and that the details could be delegated to others. What was more important was placing someone in a leadership post who would be in lockstep with the overall philosophy of the ruling regime, who would not betray his patron for a better offer, and who would be a team player when the time came to make sacrifices. The efficiency sought was not that of maximizing profit and minimizing cost, but of ensuring that all the component parts of the operation were serving the same ultimate end.
The Holy See in many ways still lives in this precapitalist world. This is more than mere stick-in-the-mud unwillingness to modernize. Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has explained that every institution operates out of a particular “narrative tradition," and in the Aristotelian-Thomistic framework of the Catholic Church, there is an instinctive distrust of claims to specialized expertise from people who don’t share the moral and metaphysical worldview of Catholicism. They may indeed know how to build a better mousetrap, but in the process they could be asphyxiating the soul. For this reason, the Church has preferred to put people in leadership roles who may or may not have a technical command of the issues involved, but who can be relied upon to grasp the larger theological and spiritual aims the work is intended to serve.
When one tries to understand how senior Vatican officials get their jobs, therefore, it simply can’t be done through the prism of twentieth-century Anglo-Saxon corporate psychology. This is a classic instance in which the European and Italian roots of the Holy See shape its culture. That insight suggests the subject of this chapter: How does the surrounding environment influence the thinking, the experience, and the frame of reference of the men and women who serve in the Vatican?
What does it mean, for example, that the Catholic Church is governed by the Roman Curia, and not by a group of people working in New York or New Delhi? Those 2,659 curial employees, according to the 2003 count, find themselves living in multiple cultural worlds, and each exerts its own special kind of gravitational pull. There is first of all the world of the Vatican itself—its rather unique approach to labor and to compensation. Then there’s the context of Rome. The Roman newspapers, the Roman streets, Roman virtues and vices all influence the Vatican officials who spend their working hours inside their 108-acre enclave, but pass most of their afternoons, evenings, and weekends in the Eternal City. Next there’s the Italian layer, the unique features of Italian politics, entertainment, sports, and fashion that exercise a special influence. Finally, there’s the fact of being in Europe, which ushers in all the cultural and psychological differences between Europeans and Americans that became the object of reams of amateur anthropology during the war in Iraq. All these layers of sociological reality affect and shape the worldview of those who work in the Roman Curia.
In the end, as much as the Holy See is an international institution serving a universal Church, its personnel cannot help but be shaped by the particular cultural contexts they inhabit. For people who work in this environment, all this is second nature, but it’s a revealing exercise to peal back the layers and consider what each contributes to the whole. Being human means being shaped by place, time, and experience. To understand the Vatican, therefore, we need to understand the various elements that contribute to shaping its world.
THREE VATICAN OFFICIALS
The relationship between officials of the Roman Curia and their environment is even more complex than sketched above, because the layers of environment are not the only variables. Each person in the Holy See is also unique, bringing a distinctive background and point of view to his or her encounter with the Vatican, Rome, Italy, and Europe. Recall what was said in chapter 2 about the myth that there is such a creature as “the Vatican." It is just as much a piece of mythology that there is a typical Vatican official. Few bureaucracies gather under one roof a group of people whose interests and work assignments are so strikingly different. Before we can consider what Vatican officials have in common, we first need to record how diversified their personal situations actually are. To make this point, we’ll consider the following three officials in three different offices: the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Refugees. These three positions are fairly representative of the various kinds of jobs officials in the different dicasteries hold. There are real individuals who hold the jobs described below, but the details of their work offered here are not based on their personal experiences; they are the product of my own imagination.
The Council for Promoting Christian Unity is divided into desks covering the different branches of Christianity with which the Catholic Church has an official dialogue. The dicastery also has responsibility for the dialogue with Judaism, so there is also a full-time official assigned to this relationship. There is someone responsible for the Lutherans, for example, someone for the Baptists, and so on. Let’s take as an example the official responsible for relations with the Anglicans, who also covers the Methodists, since historically Methodism is a reform out of the Anglican tradition. Each day he reads the press from traditionally Anglican regions, above all England, scanning for news or commentary about the Anglican Communion. He also reads carefully the sermons, pronouncements, and interviews given by the Archbishop of Canterbury. If there is a major story breaking in the Anglican world, such as the crisis in 2003 concerning homosexual bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions, he will spend long hours tracking it—reading position papers, talking to friends and contacts, keeping his superiors informed. He studies the resolutions adopted by Anglican synods around the world, as well as all the documents produced by official Catholic/Anglican dialogues. He might be involved in helping prepare the next round of talks for the official Anglican/Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC). Whenever officials from the Anglican world come to Rome, he is a primary point of contact, helping to arrange meetings with other Vatican officials, and taking his Anglican counterparts to lunch or dinner in order to swap information and talk about the future of the relationship. Whenever the cardinal who heads his dicastery is invited to speak to a group of Anglicans or Methodists, this official helps prepare his remarks and briefs the cardinal on what he should expect.
Given the nature of his work, it’s likely that this official may be more plugged into the politics of Canterbury than those of Rome. On at least some issues he may be able to speak more knowledgeably about the positions of the last Lambeth Conference, the once-a-decade gathering of all the Anglican bishops of the world, than he could of the acts of some Roman Catholic ecumenical councils. He may have almost as many friends in the ranks of Anglican clergy as he does on the Catholic side. The same thing goes for his relations with Methodism and Methodist clergy. Despite the fact that this person is a Vatican official, he does not pass most days thinking about the internal dynamics of the Vatican. Due to the nature of his job, he is far more directed at the world outside the walls of the Holy See.
The official at the Congregation for Worship has a more intra-Catholic frame of reference, but not necessarily more intra-Vatican. This dicastery is divided into two sections, one dealing with liturgical principles, the other with sacramental discipline, especially valid marriages and the sacrament of Holy Orders. The liturgical side is further divided by language, so if our official is a German, he’s working on questions of liturgical practice and texts that arise in the German language. He spends a great deal of time reading proposed liturgical translations from Latin into German—the order for funerals, the rite of baptism, the lectionary (a collection of readings for the Mass), and all the other liturgical books necessary to carry out the approved rites of the Cathol
ic Church. In the process as currently envisioned in Rome, the German bishops have the responsibility for arranging for translations of these texts, which since the Second Vatican Council has largely been entrusted to the Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Liturgischen Kommissionen im deutschen Sprachgebiet (IAG), housed at the Deutsches Liturgisches Institut in Trier. Member countries include Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Liechtenstein, along with a handful of other German-speaking dioceses. After IAG completes its work, the German bishops must review and approve it, and then it must go to the Vatican for final promulgation.
One primary task of this Vatican official is to coordinate this Vatican review, bringing in consultors and experts as needed to ensure that the text is consistent with the principles of the May 2001 Vatican document, Liturgiam Authenticam, which calls for the most faithful translation possible to the original Latin. Given the nature of his work, our official likely has some background in Scripture and ancient languages. By its nature, this kind of analysis is slow and painstaking, and the devil is always in the details. The official would thus spend much of his time in conversation with experts in linguistics, languages, and liturgical history. When liturgical officials from German-speaking regions come to Rome, he would be their primary contact. He would be in contact with colleagues in the German, Austrian, and Swiss bishops’ conferences, and professors of liturgy on Catholic theological faculties in those countries. When German-speaking bishops arrive in Rome, he quite often would go out to lunch or dinner with them or at least meet with them in the office to chat about the current state of affairs. This official will brief the rest of the staff in the dicastery, and especially his superiors, about what’s happening in the German-speaking liturgical world.
Finally, consider an official in the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Refugees. This dicastery is organized based on the particular set of issues handled: migrants, the apostolate of the sea, airports, refugees, and so on. Our official has the desk for refugees, and his responsibility is to track the global situation, to monitor the Catholic response to refugee issues, and to be ready to intervene in moments of crisis. He spends a great deal of time each day reading reports from various United Nations agencies and humanitarian groups on the refugee situation in Africa, or in Asia, or Latin America, or wherever war or natural disaster has produced a significant flow of people. In 2002, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees reported that there were 19.8 million people “of concern" to the agency, roughly one out of every three hundred people on earth. He also monitors reports from Catholic aid agencies, especially Caritas and Catholic Relief Services, about their contact with refugees and the services these agencies offer. When officials of various humanitarian groups looking for support from the Catholic Church come through Rome, he is a primary contact, often trying to arrange hearings for them with Vatican officials higher up the chain of command. He sometimes attends international meetings on refugee issues to represent the position of the Holy See, which is generally an uncontroversial stance in favor of human dignity, but can involve controversial debates over whether birth control devices ought to be distributed along with food and medicine in refugee camps. On these trips, the official will sometimes visit refugee camps in particularly afflicted parts of the world, which cannot help but form a visceral emotional attachment to these suffering people. When bishops from various parts of the world come to Rome, he will brief them on the refugee situation, help them develop response strategies, and ask them about what the Catholic Church in their diocese or country is already doing. This official’s horizons are focused well beyond Vatican walls, to one of the great humanitarian concerns of the day.
All three of the above are Vatican officials. All three have offices in Rome, two just off St. Peter’s Square and the third in the nearby neighborhood of Trastevere, in the Piazza San Calisto. All three go to work wearing a clerical shirt and Roman collar and carrying a briefcase. To see them in a lineup, one could easily assume they’re almost interchangeable. Yet they have radically different backgrounds, interests, and areas of professional competence. They could go years in curial service without ever meeting one another. If they do happen to rub shoulders, they would probably have no idea the other worked in the Vatican. As a journalist, I am more likely to know people in different dicasteries than most curial personnel, even after many years of service. Such is the nature of the Vatican, where each dicastery tends to be highly compartmentalized and where many officials spend most of their time dealing with people on the outside. Someone who works in the Council for Justice and Peace rarely has occasion to meet people who work in the Congregation for Bishops, who in turn spend little time with staffers of the Apostolic Signatura. These officials all work in the Roman Curia, but their experience of what that means differs radically. This point must be borne in mind as we examine the layers of culture that encircle the Holy See. Each Vatican official interacts with these layers, and is affected by them, but the nature of the impact will vary. We’ll be using formulae such as “Vatican officials" and “the men and women of the Roman Curia," but this is a shorthand device that glosses over enormous diversity.
Layer One: The Vatican
One thing all Vatican employees share is the bureaucratic system that shapes their work environment. Every curial employee, no matter what they do, is assigned a number on the Vatican’s scale of employee status, everyone is subject to the Vatican’s salary and pension system, everyone faces challenges with housing and personal finance. Since how an organization handles such matters says a great deal about its values, the experience of navigating this system cannot help but shape the attitudes of curial personnel to their work and the institution they serve.
According to the Regolamento generale, or employee handbook of the Holy See, issued June 7, 1992, every dicastery is led by a cardinal prefect or president, or by an archbishop president, nominated directly by the Pope. This top official is assisted by a prelate superior, also nominated by the Pope. This is normally the secretary of the dicastery, but several other officials are also considered to be at the prelate superior level: the sostituto and the secretary for Relations with States, both in the Secretariat of State; the regent of the Apostolic Penitentiary; the secretary of the Apostolic Signatura; the dean of the Roman Rota; the prefect of the papal household; and the papal Master of Ceremonies. Prelate superiors are also appointed directly by the Pope, and although it’s understood that they are to work in close cooperation with the prefect, the Regolamento recognizes a kind of independent responsibility. Depending on the relationship between these two figures, in some dicasteries the secretary may be the real authority, or even at times a rival authority. A prefect does not always get the man he wants as his secretary. Then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, for example, succeeded in picking his own replacement as secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith when Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone was transferred in December 2002 to Genoa. The person who took over, Salesian theologian Angelo Amato, was a longtime consultor for the congregation who shares Benedict XVI’s theological concerns. Cardinal Walter Kasper in the Council for Promoting Christian Unity, on the other hand, did not have such a role in picking his new secretary when the man who had held the job, Marc Ouellet, became archbishop of Quebec. In January 2003 Kasper was assigned Bishop Brian Farrell, a longtime official of the Secretariat of State. Many felt this was a stratagem on the part of the Secretariat of State to plant a spy in Kasper’s office, but if so, things do not seem to have worked out that way. Kasper and Farrell seem to have developed a good working relationship.
The number-three officials in most dicasteries are the undersecretaries, who likewise are also “superiors." Also considered to be at undersecretary level are: the promoter of justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; the prelate-theologian and the relators in the Congregation for the Causes of Saints; the promoter of justice and the defender of the bond in the Apostolic Signatura; the promoter of justice and the defender of th
e bond of the Roman Rota; the general accountant of the Prefecture of the Economic Affairs of the Holy See; the regent of the papal household; and the director of the Press Office of the Holy See. Below the level of superiors come the mid-level officials in each dicastery. The most significant would be the capi uffici, who direct the work of a section or department within a dicastery. Only the larger dicasteries with multiple sections have a capo ufficio. Then come the aiutanti di studio and the addetti di segreteria, the desk officers who do most of the day-to-day work of handling correspondence, processing case files, preparing meetings. Each office will also have a support staff of receptionists, people to do the typing and filing, and so on.
Under the Holy See’s salary system, every employee is assigned a number from one to ten, representing the lowest to the highest grade on the pay scale. Which number a particular employee holds, and why, can be among the great mysteries of Vatican life. Roughly speaking, the numbers correspond to competence, but in Vatican-speak this does not mean one’s ability. It refers instead to the nature of the job one holds—the more complex and the more authority it entails, the higher up the scale. In terms of paychecks, the Vatican is definitely not a meritocracy. The numbers to some extent reflect seniority, so it’s possible for an official to be at level nine, yet doing the same job he began with twenty years ago at level six. Certain jobs cap out at a given number because of the nature of the position. An addetto tecnico, for example, is classified at a lower level, usually referring to people who type and file, and the maximum pay grade is typically six. A monsignore in one dicastery is regarded as among the world’s leading experts in his field, he lectures widely and is quoted as the voice of the Holy See, and yet for quirky reasons is classified as an addetto tecnico and is stuck at level five. Several times over the years he has tried to get cardinals to intervene on his behalf, but to no avail.
All the Pope's Men Page 17
