NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT

On his blog today, Sandro Magister anticipates an article he has written for the weekly newsmagazine L'espresso in the issue which comes out this week. He is, of course, the magazine's Vatican correspondent, and his articles for it constitute the bulk of his www.chiesa service which has grown to a quadrilingual site.



Holy Roman disorder:
A snapshot of the Vatican Curia
Translated from



What Curia will Benedict XVI have to deal with when he returns from his trip to Cameroon and Angola?
It is discussed in the article below which will appear in this week's issue of

under the title "Holy intolerance".

*******

At the Sunday noontime Angelus on March 15, two days before he left on his first trip to Africa as Pope, Joseph Ratzinger made clear he was not going there to offer any economic, political or social solutions.

That his mission is something else: "I have nothing to propose and to offer except Christ and his cross, mystery of supreme love, which makes possible even forgiveness and love for one's enemies."

Benedict XVI was equally radical in the letter that he had written several days earlier to the bishops of the world: "To bring men towards God: this is the supreme and fundamental priority of the Church and of the Successor of Peter."

Take it or leave it. Benedict XVI does not negotiate his decisions. He goes straight along the path indicated to him by God, even at the price of 'isolation'.

But the 'isolation' of Papa Ratzinger is more in-house than from the outside world where the simple folk are with him.

Sunday noons at St. Peter's Square have never been so crowded, not even in the years of John Paul II.

The popular reception he has encountered on his trips abroad has been far better than anyone expected, even in 'difficult' places like the United States, Australia and France.

Whatever he personally writes or says earns the respect and admiration of whoever reads or listens. The first volume of his JESUS OF NAZARETH has been a worldwide success.

But if one asks whether the prelates of the Curia have read it, almost everyone says No. [Really? That's mean! Even if they did not, should they be so ready to declare it openly?]

It is in the Vatican offices, in the machinery that is in charge of the world'sbishops and clergy, that Benedict XVI encounters the most hostility.

Thus when it came to trying to assuage the open wounds left by the negationist statements of the Lefebvrian bishop Richard Williamson, Benedict XVI was understood and supported more by some 'Jewish friends' than by so many men of the Church - as he wrote in the letter to the bishops with which he hopes to close the case.

But before the controversy over Williamson, what really triggered the eruption of hostilities against the Pope was his decision itself to revoke the excommunication of the four FSSPX bishops consecrated by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1988 - Williamson ebing one of them.

For many bishops, priests and Catholic intellectuals, the Lefebvrians are pariahs. "They are a group to whom no tolerance may be shown, which which one can easily attack and hate," Benedict XVI wrote in his letter.

The paradox is that this revulsion against the Lefebvrians is most marked among those prelates who are most vocal about dialog and ecumenison. Who immediately saw in Benedict XVI's clemency to the Lefebvrians an opportunity to accuse Benedict XVI of being like the Lefebvrians, whom they consider reactionary, anti-modern, anti-Conciliar, and even anti-Semitic.

But this is precisely the logic of intolerance shown to untouchables, adn the Pope refers to it in his letter thus: "And should someone dare to approach them - in this case the Pope - he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint."

In order that the sense of his gesture of recalling the excommunications could be clearly understood, Benedict XVI had to take pen to paper and write out a letter which is unprecedented in the modern papacy for its directness.

In fact, in the weeks preceding the letter [following the excom recall], the Curia did not help him a whit - all they did was to cause him more harm.

The decree recalling the excommunication was drafted by two cardinals, the Colombian Dario Castrillon Hoyos and the Italian Giovanni Battista Re, who between them, are divided on everything: the first has been working for this rapprochement with the Lefebvrians since 1988, and the other did not even want to hear about it, only signing the decree because it was his duty as Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

And thus, the decree as released was unclear, not easily understandable, and without a single word that explained the reasons for the Pope's decision - worse, aparently ignoring the fact that Bishop Williamson's negationist statements were already circulating everywhere.

[In fairness to the two cardinals, Magister glosses over the timeline on when Williamson's Swedish TV statements were known in general - but the timeline is most relevant to the two dates known about the decree: it was dates January 21, but a copy of it was personally handed to Mons Fellay in Rome by Cardinal Castrillon on January 17, having summoned him expressly for that reason.

The first media mention of the Swedish TV interview appears to have been a Der Spiegel article for its January 19 issue, which did not get any media traction at all except in Sweden, where the Diocese of Stockholm dissociated itself from Williamson in a January 20 statement, and in Germany, because of the Spiegel article. Swedish TV itself publicized their program using statements mde to them by Williamson in November 2008, in an online press release on the morning of January 21, for an evening broadcast on the same day.

In this respect, mention should have been made of the Vatican reconstruction of this series of events, in a 'dossier' put together after the fact and reported by Andrea Tornielli and Paolo Rodari, the two journalists who also anticipated the January 24 publication of the decree, in articles that may have primed the prompt and seemingly orchestrated reaction to the decree.

One good thing about the Internet is that you can't fudge or fake dates - so the whole media trail is easily traceable.]

The news that came out of it was as follows: Benedict XVI welcomed back the Lefebvrians into the Church, and the anti-Semitic Williamson was a good example of who they are.

Nothing could be more wrong. But the disaster was done - both in how the Vatican managed the announcement of the excommunication recall, and in the way it was miscommunicated.

And the Curia which should have acted as one in support of the Pope actually acted against him.

The last Pope who affected the Vatican apparatus was Paul VI, who maximized the role of the Secretariat of State. But after him, Papa Wojtyla left the Curia by itself - he was totally uninterested.

And the Curia became feudalized. Ratzinger, as a cardinal, witnessed this transformation and drew the following lesson from it: One of the things I learned in Rome is one must know how to put things off," he said in a 1985 book interview. "To be able to put things off can be positive - it can allow a situation to settle down, to mature, and therefore to clarify itself."

As a Pope, it seems that he has followed that precept with the Curia so far. Few nominations spread over time, and few of them lucky ones.

With a secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, whom the great feudal lords before him, from Achille Silvestrini to Angelo Sodano - under whose wing many careers in the Curia were built - cannot pardon for not being one of them.

Bertone not only does not govern the Curia at all - he cannot even control the Secretariat of State, which is teeming with functionaries who are rowing against him, starting with his number 2 man, the deputy or Sostituto, Mons. Fernando FilonI.

[But there must have been a compelling reason for Benedict XVI to recall Filoni from the Philippines - his Nuncio assignment following Iraq which he left when the war started - to be #2 to Bertone. Surely, the Pope was aware Filoni was a typical Vatican career diplomat, formed in the school of Sodano. But was he unaware a Bartone-Filoni tandem would never work? Did Bertone assure him perhaps he would have no problems working with Filoni?]

In the Vatican, the circle of those faithful to Benedict XVI is rather thin. Besides Bertone and the Pope's private secretary Georg Gaenswein, one can only name the new Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, Antonio Canizares Llovera, the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Sainthood Angelo Amato, the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture Gianfranco Ravasi, and the editor of L'Osservatore Romano, Giovanni Maria Vian. And very few others.

[How is it possible that Cardinal William Levada is not in the list? Or Cardinal Antonelli of the Pontifical Council for the Family. Or Cardinal Ivan Dias of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples - who was the Pope's second most important nomination in the early months, after Levada.

Or three Congregations secretaries - Luis Ladaria of CDF, Malcolm Ranjith of CDW, and of course, Josef Clemens, of the Congregation for the Laity?

Not to mention Cardinal Castrillon himself, who, considering everything, has behaved quite decently in the aftermath of the excom recall, and before that, appeared to have Benedict XVI's full trust to carry on the dialog he had begun with Mons. Fellay in August of 2005.

I think even Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran at CIRD has shown himself to be very much in line with the Pope since he was named. Then there's the latest appointee, Mons, Rino Fisichella at the Pontifical Academy for Life (though perhaps that does not qualigy as a Curial department). Cardinal Hummes, though a Benedict appointee, is a question mark because of his known liberal views.

Lastly, what about the Vatican spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi, a Benedict appointee? How can thE Vatican spokesman not be loyal to the Pope?

All the rest in the Curia are John Paul II appointees and therefore kept on by Benedict XVI until it is time for them to retire - most of them soon.]

But even these few faithful are far from working as a team. Nor is there teamwork with important prelates who work outside the Vatican.

The Italian bishops conference has unquestioned Ratzingerians like Cardinals Angelo Bagnasco, Agostino Vallini, Angelo Scola, Carlo Caffarra, Camillo Ruini and Archbishops Giuseppe Bertone of Florence and his replacement as CEI secretarY, Archbishop Mariano Crociata.

But there is friction between Bertone and the CEI, because the former expressed his intention of 'leading' the CEI, which is not at all willing to allow this.

An egregious example of the split between Bertone and the CEI was over the Eluana Englaro case, made very evident by their respective newspapers: the CEI's Avvenire was as impassioned and committed in her defense as L'Osservatore Romano, under Bertone's control, was taciturn and detached.

In his letter to the bishops, Benedict XVI cited St. Paul: "If you bite and devour one antoher, take heed that you are not consumed by one another." He admonised the Curia to work in concordance with the representatives of the world episcopate.

But not long after the Williamson case, the Curia once again dealt him a low blow.

Cardinal Re, who makes the final recommendation on episcopal appointments, induced the Pope to name Gerhard Wagner as Auxiliary Bishop of Linz in Upper Austria, without taking account of the fact that because of his solid conservative credentials, Wagner's nomination woult arouse strong opposition from the generally liberal Austrian clergy and bishops.

A hostility which promptly exploded as soon as the nomination was announced, with a crescendo that forced Wagner to ask the Pope to withdraw his nomination, and two weeks later, for the Pope to agree.

Final blow: one of the chiefs of the anti-Pope revolt in Austria, Josef Friedl, a leading priest in the Diocese of Linz, announced that he has been cohabiting with a woman and that he does not consider himself obliged to celibacy - all this with the approbation of his parishioners and many other Austrian priests who, it turns out, share his anti-celibacy views (if not his practices).

Given all this, one of Benedict XVI's last actions before leaving for Africa was to declare for all priests around the world a year of reflection, under the patronage of the Holy Curate of Ars [on the 150th anniversary of his death]. The theme: "Faithfulness to Christ, faithfulness of the priest".