There were, however, matters he could not communicate to the younger man—if nothing else, the secrets of the two previous Conclaves; those were protected by a solemn oath. And then there were other things—the fruits only of experience, what one Polish poet called the “long thoughts of old age”—which Wyszynski camouflaged with his sense of humor. In time, he was confident, Wojtyla would come to share them. In time.
The crux of the forthcoming Conclave was something they had already discussed before the death of Paul VI. Wyszynski had been down in Rome the previous year for forty-one days, conducting very delicate state matters with Pope Paul. In August of 1977, Paul had been near death. He and Wyszynski had had several prolonged private conversations. The old and very weary Pontiff had confided in the Pole about his fears for the future of the Church because of his own failures, and the triumph of the anti-Church elements both in his own Vatican and throughout the structure of the Church. He also spoke of the fearful force installed—enthroned might be a more apt word—in the heart of the Vatican as of 1963, the year of Paul’s election as Pope.
All in all, Pope Paul’s summary regret was that when death came to him—and during that last eighteen months of his life he daily prayed for it—he would bequeath to his Church a baneful ambiguity concerning the sacrosanct and vital papal office and the Church, an ambiguity that he had not effectively dispelled in all his fifteen-year pontificate. On that journey down to Rome in August 1978, both Polish cardinals realized that ambiguity had by now ballooned into a constitutional crisis. Both the papal office and the integrity of the Church were threatened. The ambiguity was largely the creation of the anti-Church and was its chief weapon.
Wyszynski could track that ambiguity as far back as the thirties; Wojtyla had come across it much later, in the fifties and especially during the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). It consisted of two opposing and mutually exclusive beliefs rife among the official personnel of the Roman Catholic Church: cardinals, bishops, priests, nuns, professional theologians and philosophers, and—at that time—a very restricted number of the laity. Those opposing beliefs concerned the Roman Catholic institutional organization, including the papacy. Both Wyszynski and Wojtyla realized that the Cardinal Electors in the coming Conclave were split down the middle between these two opposing beliefs and that probably there was no way of reconciling them. As a theologian, Wojtyla would describe them as two irreconcilable ecclesiologies: i.e., fundamental and mutually exclusive concepts of what the Church was, what the papacy was.
In one ecclesiology, that churchly organization is aptly described as a “kingdom” or “monarchy,” with all the classical connotations of those terms: a hierarchical structural pattern; a single authoritative head—the Pope—delegating authority throughout the structure; appointive, not elective, power centers—the bishops; the preservation and handing on of tradition; veneration for symbols; the sublimation of all social as well as personal ideals to the views of the “Kingdom”; inequality and subordination of all members of the “Kingdom” within the untouchable hierarchical patterns—the laity subject to the clergy, the clergy to the bishops, the bishops to the Pope; the exclusion of women from the priesthood; the uniqueness and exclusivity of all members of the “Kingdom”—only within the “Kingdom” and by the “Kingdom’s” ministrations could divine salvation be achieved: “Outside the Church, there is no salvation.”
This was the traditional belief and doctrine about the Roman Catholic organization: the Pope, as Vicar of Christ, endowed with personal infallibility (guaranteed only within stringent conditions); with a universal primacy of unity—he was the one unifying element of all Christians; with a universal primacy of teaching authority—his was the last word in matters of faith and morals; and with a universal primacy of jurisdiction—all power in the Church to teach and to govern, whether locally or universally, derived its legitimacy only from him, directly or through the channels of the appointed hierarchy.
The opposing ecclesiology described the Church as the “people of God,” endowing the key word, “people,” with a world of meaning. The people as source of all power and legitimacy—therefore of all clerical power, be it of priest, bishop or pope. The people as source and authorizer of all faith standards; of all religous order; of all laws—including the definition of what is sinful and what prayers are to be said; and of all pastoral ministry and all liturgical celebration. The people as constituting the majoritarian vote by which all of religious and moral life should be regulated. The people as composed of equals with equal rights, no distinction being made between male and female, between ministers of religion and those they minister to. The people as strictly pluralistic in its attitude to differences, without homophobia or heterophobia, without restrictions on sexual expression. The people as seeking greater and greater homogenization with and assimilation to the generality of mankind, without any idea that one religious way of life is superior to all others or unique in itself, without any trace of the old “missionizing” and “converting” syndrome or of the old propagandizing efforts, without any attachment to one liturgical language, like Latin.
The ecclesiology of the “people of God” proposed, in other words, a thorough democratization of all religion, and shunned like the pest any trace of the former and traditional “specialness” of Roman Catholicism.
The anti-Church element within the institutional organization of the Catholic Church was, by 1978, a long-standing thing. The names of prominent anti-Church partisans were well known to all, as were their alliances with non-Catholic forces. They existed throughout all the limbs and channels of the Roman Catholic organization—particularly at many of the key choke points in the functioning system of Roman Catholic Church governance. They were bishops, theologians, cardinals, even members of the Vatican bureaucracy.
What had always been disturbing for Wyszynski was the peculiarity that the anti-Church partisans insisted on remaining within the Roman Catholic governing system. They worked to alter that system profoundly. They never called themselves anything but Roman Catholic, and never left the Church in open apostasy, schism or heresy. They insisted they were Roman Catholic and that the new ecclesiology—the “people of God” idea—was the truly Roman Catholic idea. They constantly undermined the persuasion that the Bishop of Rome—the Pope—had any special overriding authority over the other bishops of the Church. Rather, the Bishop of Rome must behave like any other bishop of the Church, be subject to the votes of the other bishops and the laity. Any notion of a special Petrine Office, of the Petrine Keys of authority, must be relinquished as outmoded and contradictory and irreconcilable with the democratization of religion and the bill of human rights.
For that ancient papacy was the one obstacle blocking “the people of God” in the Catholic Church from joining all “the people of God” throughout all the other religions, thus to achieve the full human unity of “the people of God.” Likewise, the old distinctions between priest and laity, between the “teaching Church” (the clergy, from Pope to priest) and the “learning Church” (the laity), had to go.
One triumph of the anti-Church was registered at the Second Vatican Council. The bishops present at the Council had deliberately chosen to describe the Roman Catholic Church as “the people of God.” In the official texts they approved as their joint statements, they referred to the Church eighteen times as the “Kingdom of God,” but eighty times they called the Church “the people of God.” The bishops may not have understood the implications of what they were doing, but Protestant observers did. “This image … means that an ecclesial function is assigned to the laity,” Peter Meinhold wrote. “Many of the old distinctions between clergy and layfolk … will now disappear.”
Franz Cardinal Koenig of Vienna put it even more explicitly: “The old distinctions between the teaching Church [the official personnel] and the listening Church [the laity], between the Church that commands and the Church that obeys, have ceased to exist…. It is the layman who directly represents the
Lord Christ vis-à-vis the world.”
The big crisis for the anti-Church came with the Conclave that assembled in June 1963 to elect a successor to Papa Roncalli. Wyszynski, who had been present at the Conclave, could not reveal the details of what went on. But sufficient was known about the two main factions among the Cardinal Electors to indicate how close the anti-Church came to disaster. At stake was the election of one of two front-running Cardinal candidates: Giovanni Battista Montini of Milan and Giuseppe Siri of Genoa. They were poles apart in ecclesiology.
Montini, not an accepted member of the anti-Church but belonging to them in liberal sentiment, progressive sociological outlook, anti-Romanist persuasion and neomodern humanism, was the most favored candidate of the anti-Church. With impeccable credentials in Church government and ecclesiastical statecraft; politically acceptable in Italy, France, Holland, England and America; of irreproachable personal piety and life-style, Montini was made to order for the anti-Church. He was a great enthusiast of the “people of God” ecclesiology. He could possibly be induced to not exercise the Petrine Office and thus let it lapse into desuetude—hopefully, to become thus otiose and obsolete. At all events, being a man who loved peace in his own house above all other things, he would probably fight shy of challenging the anti-Church or of taking sides as regards that ambiguity.
For the traditionalist-minded among the cardinals, the undoubted champion and choice was Giuseppe Siri, Cardinal Archbishop of Genoa, a man whose traditional credits were as sure and as well known as those of the dead Pope Pius XII or of Pope Pius XI, earlier on in the century. Siri was also a no-nonsense Churchman. You might have to “tolerate” rheumatism or the ravages of cancer, but not corruption of doctrine or abandonment of moral principle. “Tolerance,” he once said, “is not a virtue. It’s a mere expedient, when you cannot do otherwise.” Siri, as pope, would not tolerate the anti-Church tendency. He would exercise the Petrine Office to the full—and immediately and unmistakably. Siri was a man after Wyszynski’s own heart. With Siri as pope, Wyszynski could have worked as with a companion spirit.
Whatever Wyszynski communicated to Wojtyla about the Conclave of June 1963, it is certain he did not violate his oath of secrecy during that journey southward to Rome or at any other time. But he could have had no compunction about telling his younger colleague that the crisis in that Conclave was the violent reaction by the anti-Church partisans against the Siri candidacy; they could read the handwriting on the wall. Siri would have meant the end of the anti-Church, the end of all ambiguity about what the Church was, and an end to all the hopes entertained by the extra-Church enemies of the papacy that the papacy would be effectively eliminated.
It is equally certain that within the 1963 Conclave voting, Siri had garnered the required number of votes to make him Pope-elect. But the law of Conclave is of iron; for any Conclave election to end with a validly elected pope, the Pope-elect must freely accept his election. “Acceptasne fieri in Romanum Pontificem?” (Do you accept to be made Pope?), the question ritually put to every Pope-elect, evokes a short but profound abyss of silence on earth and in Heaven, for now the will of one single individual has the deciding of much future history.
It is certain that Pope-elect Cardinal Siri responded: “Non accepto” (I do not accept). It is also certain that, as often happens, he added a few words indicating at least in general terms why he did not accept. It is also certain that, in those words, he suggested his refusal was given because of his persuasion that only thus could foreseen possibilities of grave harm be avoided—but whether harm to the Church, to his family, to him personally, is not clear. He did indicate that his decision was made freely and not out of any duress—otherwise any subsequent election in that Conclave would have been invalid. All this was current coin of Conclave information; and Wojtyla would have known it.
What he would not have known in the same way was what Wyszynski could not permissibly tell him: what forced the hand of Siri to refuse the papacy. This never became part of general information. Wojtyla would have heard the firmly asserted rumors—Wyszynski would not confirm or deny them if Wojtyla asked him. And Wojtyla would not ask him. He would not, out of respect for Wyszynski’s oath of secrecy, have asked Wyszynski if the rumors of the “little brutality” were accurate. Without any means of establishing it by notarized statements and duly sworn-in eyewitnesses, the rest of the world is still left with the information that the Siri nomination and election were set aside by what has been called the “little brutality.”
Once the Conclave area of the Vatican has been sealed off—double-locked doors, posted sentries, electronic surveillance—there are supposedly no communications with the outer world except in the gravest necessity and by authorized persons. Such grave necessity could be the physical needs of the electors (cardinals have died in Conclave or been taken out of Conclave to die) or grave reasons of state—such as the very existence of the Vatican City State or of its members or dependents. For “necessity knows no law.”
What is firmly stated is that at least one Cardinal Elector did have a conversation—however short—with someone not participating in the Conclave; that the someone was an emissary of an internationally based organization; that no explicit rule of Conclave privacy was violated by the event; and that the conversation did concern the Siri candidacy. Such an incident during the Conclave could, with a certain permissible stretching of the terms of Conclave law, be justified as concerning a “grave matter of state security.”
What is certain is that the Siri candidacy was laid aside and most probably in connection with that conversation—this, in sum, is the “little brutality” firmly rumored in Roman circles at the time of the June 1963 Conclave and ever since. The only other viable candidacy available and acceptable to both sides was Montini’s. After a three-day Conclave, he emerged as Paul VI.
The anti-Church forces had narrowly avoided having a pope who would end their hopes of success; they now had one whom they could manage. Those with a diametrically opposite ecclesiology still had grounds for hope. Montini, progressive in social and political matters, was known to be orthodox in theology and of deep personal piety.
So, the Cardinal Electors emerged with the crisis in full blast among them, and that fateful ambiguity hanging over a vital Church issue. In the event, Papa Montini would give the anti-Church its head. He would never resolve the ambiguity that now would reign: What is the Roman Catholic Church? An essentially hierarchic organization based on authoritarian rule? Or a loosely knit assemblage of churches in which all sacred functions and all temporal stewardship were democratized according to the choice of the “people”? That ambiguity cloaked the organization for all of Paul VI’s pontificate.
As the two cardinals discussed and reflected upon that crisis of ambiguity, they saw clearly that there was no hope of resolving it within the coming Conclave. The two main factions proposing irreconcilable ecclesiologies were stronger, more deeply entrenched and more irreconcilable than ever. Another compromise candidate would be chosen—and quickly. The redoubtable Siri would be at this Conclave. He would garner many votes, if he were to announce his willingness to be considered. But, they both knew, he would not.
For them, living and struggling on the cutting edge of geopolitical power, this conclusion was gloomy. A compromise pope would not be free to exercise any geopolitical leadership. Nor could he be really effective georeligiously. The ambiguity would plague all his days as pope. Wyszynski must, at least once during that journey, have glanced at his junior colleague and wondered if his name would come up. Wojtyla was unwilling to enter the competition; that much was clear. Nor would Wyszynski advise him to do so if he was asked. Apart from being badly needed in Poland, Wojtyla would be saddled with that ambiguity and be a target for the anti-Church. No, this was not Wojtyla’s day.
In the Conclave, matters proceeded as expected. In one day, August 26, after three rounds of voting—one to eliminate possible runners-up, one to test the strength of the main candid
ate, and one to confirm his election by unanimous vote—that main candidate accepted his election.
The candidate was Albino Luciani, the sixty-six-year-old Patriarch of Venice, born the son of a socialist migrant worker on the Street of the Half Moon in the village of Forno di Canale; a priest at twenty-three, a bishop at forty-six, a cardinal at sixty; an outspoken opponent of Communism (although always on good terms with local Communist bosses); a humanist of some distinction, a conservative theologian, conversant with but not overly enthusiastic about ecumenists and their dreams; and with forty years of solid, undistinguished service as a prelate behind him. He chose his own papal name, John Paul, in honor of John XXIII, who made him bishop, and Paul VI, who made him cardinal, and he promised to continue their policies, while keeping intact the “great discipline of the Church in the life of priests and laity.” The “Smiling Pope,” as he was called, offended nobody but was nobody’s man, apparently. The perfect compromise. The anti-Church settled down to wait. Their opponents prayed in hope.
Many of the Cardinal Electors, after the Conclave was over, described John Paul I as “God’s candidate”; and at least on the lips of certain electors, the phrase would seem to have had a significance for them beyond the obvious and apparently pious meaning. His election foreclosed the chances of neither contending party. It merely delayed the day of confrontation.
We probably will never know in great detail what passed between John Paul I and the two Polish cardinals during their separate interviews with the new Pope. When a man sits alone on that peak of papal responsibility, he has what Italians call a “second sight”—meaning an extra dimension of perception—for the dangers of high position. Wyszynski had been to that high place in his own day and his own way. He understood the heroism required of a man to remain calm and serene—even if he is the “Smiling Pope”—while the ground beneath his feet starts to tremble.
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