Posted on 10/13/2004 12:03:18 PM PDT by sinkspur
The Roman curia gets an even break Reviewed by ANDREW GREELEY
John Allen has broken the rules of Vatican journalism. In his brilliant new book All the Pope’s Men, he gives the Curia Romana an even break. His goal is to facilitate communication between the Vatican and the English-speaking world by “identifying the core values and experiences that underlie specific Vatican policy choices.” To do this he must strive for fairness, objectivity and respect for the sincerity and good will of “the pope’s men” and the culture of which they are a part. It cannot be easy to suspend judgment and listen, especially, I should think, when those one is interviewing are often quite incapable of doing the same thing.
If Allen’s style of inquiry represents the highest ethic of journalism, it is also a bit old-fashioned. The elite media in this country no longer practice it, especially when the subject is the Catholic church. Reporting about the church in the “good, gray New York Times,” for example, sometimes reminds me of nothing so much as the absence of a boundary between news reports and personal opinion in Col. McCormick’s Chicago Tribune when the subject was Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Old-fashioned or not, this dispassionate book is the best written about the Vatican in a long time and belongs on the desk of every editor and religion writer in the English-speaking world. You don’t have to like these people (and I don’t), but honesty and integrity demand that you know where they’re coming from.
After describing in some detail the organization of the curia, Allen demolishes five “myths” about the curia. It is not monolithic. It does not speak with one voice. Some curialists would like to see the birth control decision reviewed. Some also believe in greater decentralization of power. Cardinals Joseph Ratzinger and Walter Kasper disagree on the theology of the church. Archbishop Piero Marini, the pope’s master of liturgical ceremonies, disagrees with -- and ignores -- Cardinal Jorge Medina Estévez, who until recently was trying to re-reform the liturgy. No one is really “in charge” of the Vatican. The various offices are independent of one another by both law and custom. The pope’s style of governance is to go around the curia rather than through it, though he signs off on the major documents that are brought to him.
The Vatican is little better at keeping secrets, no matter how much it might try, than any contemporary institution. It is not wealthy -- its endowment is smaller than that of the University of Notre Dame. While there is careerism in the curia, many of its members are free of excessive ambition. From my own experience -- far more limited than John Allen’s -- I agree with his demolition of the myths. The curia is overworked, undereducated, Italianate in its efficiency and untroubled by self-doubt. It would be quite incapable of organizing the kinds of conspiracies that novelists like Dan Brown would like us to believe. (The last two sentences are my gloss, not Allen’s opinion, which is impossible to tease out of the book.)
He then turns to the psychology, sociology and theology of the curia. His descriptions ring true. There are solid theoretical paradigms that shape the culture of the curia. Its members, in good faith, believe that these paradigms are essential for the church. However, all bureaucracies have their cultures and these cultures are always narrow -- think of the CIA! All bureaucracies require constant reform. Ecclesia semper reformanda is not only sound theology but sound organizational management.
Finally, Allen considers two problems that epitomize the strains between American Catholics and the Vatican: sexual abuse and the Iraq war. “The ground,” he writes apropos the former, “is being prepared for a cycle of recrimination and misunderstanding that could last a generation, producing a sort of undeclared rupture such as the Catholic world has already seen in Holland, Germany and Austria.”
Granted, as Allen argues, the Vatican’s main concern was protecting the rights of a priest to due process, the media impression is that the Vatican doesn’t understand the problem and is uninterested in the suffering of victims and their families. In fact, the meeting between four American bishops (including Cardinal Francis George) with curial counterparts worked out a flexible compromise. Alas the media, following the models they have developed about the Catholic church, presented the solution as a surrender by the Americans.
The widely distributed comments by some curial cardinals -- which Allen quotes at length -- reinforced the American sense that the Vatican didn’t get it. There will be more trouble ahead when the church orders bishops to reassign priests who have appealed their cases and when the temporary American norms expire.
I’m not so sure that Vatican opposition to the Iraq war causes much of a problem for American Catholics. Most of them hardly know that the pope has condemned the war -- which suggests that the “undeclared rupture” has already occurred.
A couple of personal comments, not about this impressive book as much as occasioned by the book.
The repeated comments by curialists about American “individualism” are simply false. In extensive research I’ve done with two ongoing international studies, I have found that on measures of generosity with money and time and altruism in motivations (for volunteering and job choice), Americans score much higher than Europeans. They are also more likely to join civic organizations. Does anyone seriously think that the English, the French, the Dutch or the Germans are any less selfishly individualistic than Americans? Does any other Catholic population in the world have anything like the intense communalism of the American neighborhood parish?
Finally, John Allen, younger than I am by a lot of years, does not remember the hope that the Vatican Council stirred up in my generation and hence can be objective about the men who have tried so hard to destroy that hope -- men like Medina and Ratzinger. Their good intentions I do not question, only their prudence and humility. Their ignorance and arrogance have done great harm to the church. From those who know everything, libera nos, Domine!
Unfortunately for Mr. Allen, a rave review by Andrew Greeley is the kiss of death for the book. It will now be viewed as a liberal's handbook to the Vatican. I have no idea if this criticism is fair or not, but I for one can't stand Greeley's smug Democratic ways and his mysterious inside knowledge crap about the murderous gays in the hierarchy. I have stopped taking the man seriously years ago.
You don’t have to like these people (and I don’t). .. The curia is ... undereducated... and untroubled by self-doubt...men like Medina and Ratzinger... Their ignorance and arrogance have done great harm to the church.
* Thanks for the comic relief this morning. This guy writes dirty books and he doesn't like those who work in the Curia and he criticizes those who devote their entire lives to serving God in this world.
I am sure those Curial officials will be really wounded once they discover that randy andy doesn't like them LOL
Gee, I don't think the Pope knows he 'condemned' the war either. Maybe Mr. Greeley needs to inform him of what he really meant to say.
How would you characterize JPII's opposition to the war?
It certainly sounded like condemnation to me, as did the numerous denunciations coming from his sycophants.
I think he did what he could to persuade us to attempt more diplomatic measures before resorting to violence. I think he continually reminded everyone of what the Church's teachings are. I think he also knows that the Church teaches that the ultimate responsibility for deciding for or against war lies with 'those who have responsibility for the common good'. His function is to attempt to persuade. He did that.
If he had 'condemned' that would have been a big deal for me.
Here's a couple of news stories from that time. You can see the BBC headline writer says the Pope 'condemns' but that is not what he is quoted as saying.
Pope John Paul, in his first public comment on the outbreak of hostilities in Iraq, said on Saturday that the war threatens the whole of humanity, and that weapons could never solve mankind's problems.
"When war, like the one now in Iraq, threatens the fate of humanity, it is even more urgent for us to proclaim, with a firm and decisive voice, that only peace is the way of building a more just and caring society," he said.
The Pope, in a speech to employees of Catholic television station Telepace, added: "Violence and weapons can never resolve the problems of man."
The Pope led the Vatican in a diplomatic campaign to avert war, putting the Holy See on a collision course with Washington and its backers in the Iraq campaign.
SOURCE
Reuters/Catholic World News
BBC Monday, 13 January, 2003, 15:29 GMT
Pope condemns war in Iraq
The pope was speaking to diplomats from 175 countries
Pope John Paul II has expressed renewed opposition to the possibility of war in Iraq, saying the use of military force had to be the "very last option".
In a New Year address to Vatican diplomats, the Pope said war was "always a defeat for humanity", and called instead for more diplomacy and dialogue.
"War is never just another means that one can choose to employ for settling differences between nations," he said.
"War cannot be decided upon, even when it is a matter of ensuring the common good, except as the very last option and in accordance with very strict conditions," Pope John Paul said.
Those behind a war in Iraq would have to consider "the consequences for the civilian population both during and after the military operations," he said.
During the Gulf War, relations between the Vatican and the US were strained because the Pope refused to state unequivocally that the conflict was a "just" one.
The Church teaches that for a war to be "just", the use of military force should meet rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy.
It also says that all other means must first be exhausted, and that the type of force used must be proportionate to the wrong it tries to rectify.
I had forgotten the JPII opposed the Gulf War as well.
Along with the French and Germans, the Pope propped Hussein up and gave him moral cover to resist the coalition.
The Pope was and is just flat wrong about the Gulf War, and the Iraq War, and about the death penalty, as well.
Hey, knock it off. I thought you were supposed to hold up the 'flaming liberal' end of the spectrum.
I love the guy but he may indeed be wrong about all those things.
However, that line is the BBC reporter's slant (and I do mean slant) on what happened. If we were to look closely, we might see that what the Pope really said at the time didn't quite match all the 'drama' the reporter would like to fabricate into a supposed 'confrontation'.
The Pope is well aware of who is responsible for final decisions on war and the death penalty and it's not him. All I ever see him doing is trying to get people to go an extra mile before they make an irrevocable decision.
It's the headline writers and reporters that try to make it more than it is.
Gee I dont know which is more funny here: Andrew Greely.......please excuse me while I snicker.........or the Roman Curia.
Greely is a joke. The Curia has much to answer to God for, in the disobedience of all too many of its members to the Holy Father, and in furtherence of the modernist agenda of the autodestruction of the church.
Think well of them?....... not in this lifetime.
Don't forget the UN!
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