Now For A Real Journalist

We have been reading a lot, lately, by John L. Allen, Jr. of the National Catholic Reporter.  He is easily the most respected journalist covering the Vatican.  In an interview with Nicholas Hahn at Real Clear Religion, Allen talks about what to expect from the Bergoglio papacy, and -- more interesting still -- about his work as a journalist.  Here are some highlights.

ON REFORM, BOTH CURIAL AND LITURGICAL::

I think this was clearly, and self-consciously, the most anti-establishment conclave of the last 150 years. I think you'd probably have to go back to the election of Leo XIII in 1878 to find a conclave where the Cardinals understood themselves so clearly to be voting for a change. In this case it wasn't a rejection of the substance of Benedict XVI's papacy, but it was a rejection of the methods of management and governance. ... 

RCR: There has been some concern from conservatives that this Pope won't be friendly to their issues. Are those concerns valid? 

JA: I wouldn't worry about him rejecting them. I would worry that it's not what he's going to be thinking about when he gets out of bed in the morning. I mean, I don't see him abrogating Summorum Pontificum. However, I don't think you're going to get what you got under Benedict XVI who self-consciously tried to set an example of a more reverent and sober liturgical style. To the extent that the reform of the reform in the liturgical life of the Church goes on, it's probably going to be led less from Rome. I don't think the Pope is going to get in the way of it, but I don't think he's going to be the agent of it in the same way Benedict XVI was.

ON REPORTING:

RCR: Newsweek's Ken Woodward once wrote that outside of North Korea, "no bureaucracy is harder for a journalist to crack than the Vatican's." Do you agree with him? 

JA: I'm not 100 percent sure that's true. The problem with the Vatican isn't so much secrecy, because this isn't like the Pentagon where they have troop movements they're trying to conceal. There aren't really state secrets in that sense. There aren't spy satellites orbiting. 

RCR: No drones either? 

JA: [Laughter] No. The problem with the Vatican is that it's unique. It is unlike any other institution so you have to learn how to crack the codes. Now, it's not rocket science, but you have to spend enough time doing it that you learn to speak the languages.

(That "cracking the code" and "learning the languages" is true for any sort of journalism -- and also, incidentally, for rpaish ministry).  

Hahn observes that Allen does not necessarily support the positions taken by the NCR's editors, who sometimes dissent from church teaching.  Allen responds:

JA: I'm a reporter and an analyst, so I'm trying to give people tools to think about issues in the Church. I'm not trying to tell them what to think about these issues. 

RCR: Your kind of objectivity has been described as "maddening." Does it ever drive you mad? 

JA: I take it as a compliment, if it's true. I have never in my life set out in an effort to write an objective story. I'm just trying to get the story right. That's it. Getting the story right means you have to respect the complexity of reality. There's always more than one view of what's going on in the Church or anything else.
You try to assemble the facts as best you can, then you try talk to a bunch of different people representing different points of view about those facts, and then you try to lay it all out there in a way that's engaging to people who don't have a Ph.D in ecclesiology. More than that, I'm very nervous of any journalist who has a loftier notion of what our calling is. Any journalist who goes into a story with an idea of who the good guys and bad guys are makes me nervous. 

The aim should always be getting the story right and objectivity is a byproduct.

There's more where that came from, and it's fascinating.

Picking the Pope

Well-informed writing about religious matters is rare enough that, when you stumble across an example, the angels start to sing.  Or Maybe Mother A. is rocking out while she does her Pilates; whatever.

In any case, the Wall Street Journal has an excellent article called Fifteen Days in Rome:  How the Pope Was Picked, by Stacy Meichtry and Allessandra Galloni, that is worth reading.  Its general subject has, of course, received immense attention; the article does a nifty job of pulling together the facts and turning them into an atmospheric narrative.

Meichtry and Galloni sketch out some of the factions, or perhaps we should call them "schools of thought," among the cardinals, and make a surprisingly strong case for the power of the English-speakers.  But most impressive is that they tell the story without falling back on the easy and inaccurate language of "liberals" and "conservatives," words that -- as we never tire of saying -- mean almost nothing in this context.

The description of Bergoglio's speech to the General Congregation, and especially the reflection by Peru's Cipriani Cardinal Thorne, is very revealing. Bergoglio appears to have turned the conversation in an important direction -- toward what in Italian s called the periferia, meaning the edge either of a city or of a society, or what we might call the margins and the marginalized.  But he did this in a way that gave no ground to the liberation theology of the 70s.  The importance of this cannot be understated.  It is easy to imagine Roman Catholicism as though it were divided between reactionary fat cats and rag tag revolutionaries, and that the former have in recent years all but suppressed the latter.  This is wildly inaccurate, and the effect of Bergoglio's speech is proof of that.  The people at the very center of the church's power structure heard an authentic call to concern for the margins, and responded at once.  Because, whatever their personal flaws and failures, they know that they are the living symbols of a powerful tradition.  Or, simply, the sheep recognize the voice of their shepherd.

Apparently, this an excerpt from a book.  We will probably buy it, once we have money.  You might not want to wait.

Pay Your Bills!

John Thavis suggests that Francis may do things a little differently:

After his blessing last night to the crowd in St. Peter’s Square and to the world, Vatican aides told the pope a limousine was waiting to take him to his temporary quarters in the Vatican’s residence building. The new pope said he’d rather take the bus back with the cardinals – and he did.

This morning, the pope’s first act was to leave the Vatican for an impromptu visit to the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in central Rome. No doubt someone told him: “But Holy Father, we need time to plan these visits very carefully.” He wisely didn’t listen. Yes, his presence snarled traffic and caused a major stir, but the Romans loved it. ...

[On the way back,] he stopped personally at a clerical guest house where he had been staying in recent days, a few steps from Piazza Navona, to pick up his suitcases and “pay his bill,” as he told cardinals the night before. 

Cute.  We're pretty sure they would have comped him.

In Trouble

If Eleanor Roosevelt offers to help the new pope, we hope he'll accept.

Because members of the Society of Jesus have vowed never to seek high office in the church, it is customary for them to turn down honors such as the episcopate.  By custom, at least, they need to be asked a second time, or even a third.  We have no idea whether the new pope needed a second ballot to confirm the one which had elected him.  It seems unlikely, but it would make a dramatic story.

In any case, his election has set us thinking about the burden and joy of leadership.  There is a story about the day that Harry S Truman had this burden thrust upon him, told by the historian David McCullough:

... Truman was having a drink with Sam Rayburn in what was euphemistically known as the "Board of Education." It was Rayburn's hideaway beneath the House side where they would meet for a drink after work every day. And Truman on getting the message ... that he was to come at once to the White House, left Rayburn's office and ran back to his own office, his Vice President's office, on the Senate side. 

It was a long run. ... Truman said later that it ... didn't occur to him that the President was dead. He thought the President had come back from Warm Springs secretly and wanted to confer with him about something. But if he didn't think that the President was dead, why was he running? And if he did know the President was dead, what did he think he was running toward and what was he running away from? If it were a movie or a film, you could almost see a freeze frame on that moment where he's running down the hall. Of course, by then he's President of the United States, and he's running alone. He has no Capitol guards ... running with him. He's running alone. 

He had to have known if he wasn't even admitting it to himself. He had to have known subconsciously. It must have been a dreadful time for him. 

Then he arrives at the White House. He goes up to family quarters, and he steps off the elevator. Mrs. Roosevelt comes forward and puts her hand on his arm and says to him very softly, "Harry, the President is dead." 

I feel that that's a very revealing moment about Harry Truman when you think of how he might have responded. At first he couldn't say anything. But when he was able to speak, he said to her, "Is there anything I can do for you?" And then, of course, she says to him, "No, Harry. Is there anything we can do for you? You're the one in trouble now." 

It's a good story, better for being apparently true.  If you look at it from the perspective of anthropology, this is a rite de passage, and the part where Truman is running alone through the Capitol is the liminal stage, his vision quest.  Eleanor's admonition is the the completion of the ritual, and the first affirmation of his new identity.

Even without that spin, this story is worth telling.  Taking on a new position of leadership -- pope, pastor, executive, committee chair or what have you -- is trouble.  You can't, and shouldn't, do it alone. And if Mrs. Roosevelt wants to help, for pete's sake let her.

Francis in Profile

Nearly everything we were able to read about Pope Francis in the immediate aftermath of his election seems to have come (some of it verbatim) from a single source:  John L. Allen's March 3 profile posted on the National Catholic Reporter website.

Allen, as we have said before, seems to be the best-informed Vatican-beat journalist writing in the English language.  So although we could cut and paste a few of his observations here, we'll simply suggest that you read the whole piece.

Habent Papam

That is, they have a pope.

From La Capital

As we were posting that last note about the now-forgotten Otilo Scherer, the white smoke went up over the Piazza San Pietro.  From the online coverage (yeah, okay, we watched EWTN), it was a cold, wet night, but the crowds seemed pretty enthusiastic.  The flags were waving, the seminarians were running, the Swiss Guard marched in with their pikes and pointy helmets.

For a long time, nothing happened.  The commentators droned on meaninglessly, the camera shifted from long to tight focus, and nothing happened.  It was like watching golf.

Then came Cardinal Tauran, to make the brief and historic announcement.  It is Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio, 76,  the Archbishop of Buenos Aires.   He will reign as Francis, the first of that name -- even though he is a Jesuit.   Frances has a reputation for doctrinal orthodoxy, and has shown no love for the liberationists.  His approach to social reform is of the "purify your hearts and society will follow" school. He was a contender in the 2005 conclave, but had been largely dismissed by the press this year, on the basis of his age.

He was not, it seems, dismissed by his peers.

Frances is, obviously, the first New World pope, the first Latin American, the first Jesuit.  He is also the first native Spanish speaker to serve as pope since the 15th century.  

He does not appear to have much experience of Curial service; it's hard to know what to make of this.  On one hand, he probably owes few debts.  On the other, it may be hard for him to master a deeply entrenched bureaucracy.

We congratulate our Roman Catholic cousins, and will keep their new pontiff in our prayers.

How About a Brazilian?

We at the Egg have not mentioned Odilo Cardinal Scherer, who has emerged as one of the more talked-about possible popes.

Scherer, 63, is a Brazilian of German extraction. He goes on talk shows, uses Twitter, and likes evangelism, which by the standards of the cardinals make him a wild-eyed hippie.  He was ordained in 1976 and made a bishop in 2001; the intervening quarter-century was spent largely as a professor of theology, although he did squeeze in three years of parish work.  If chosen, he would be the first pope from the New World, which is a remarkable thing.

One tidbit that you will see thrown around on the net derives ultimately from a 2007 Times article about liberation theology, written as Benedict XVI was travelling to Latin America.  Near the end of the article, it said:

At a news conference here on April 27, the newly appointed archbishop of São Paulo, Odilo Scherer, 57, tried to conciliate the two opposing viewpoints. While he criticized liberation theology for using “Marxism as a tool of analysis,” he also praised liberation theologians for redirecting the church’s mission here to focus on issues of social injustice and poverty.

He also argued that the movement was in decline. 

From this, virtually all journalists (and Wikipedia) are led to say things which, translated ever so slightly, amount to: "Scherer, although sharing the official Roman Catholic position on social issues [and here they point to abortion], once said something nice about liberation theology.  Therefore he is a theological moderate compared to Ratzinger."  This is, of course, ridiculous.

It is mere diplomacy to find something praiseworthy in one's opponent, and to praise it.  What Scherer seems to have meant is that, although the Leonardo Boffs of the world are a bunch of dirty Commies, they nonetheless managed to stumble upon traditional Catholic social doctrine, and claim it as their own.  John Paul could have said the same thing, even while he was taking away their faculties.  (In fact he did, very gently, in his 1979 Puebla keynote address.)  We ourselves have often pointed out that Pietism, despite using historically ignorant Biblicism as a tool of analysis, has occasionally produced actual piety.  It's like that.

However, there is more to Scherer than this.  As Forbes explains,

Scherer ... is also known as one of the “Vatican bankers,” a committee of cardinals who oversee the Istituto per la Opere di Religione (IOR), or the Institute for Works of Religion, commonly known as the Vatican Bank, as well as being a member of The Prefecture for Economic Affairs, which coordinates the finances of the Holy See. Scherer was a constant presence in Rome during the “Vatileaks” scandal, the leaking of Vatican documents allegedly exposing corruption and money laundering charges that cost the church millions in higher contract prices and cost Ettore Gotti Tedesche, the then-CEO of the IOR, his job.

In other words, Scherer is a Vatican insider.  Assuming that he is not actually implicated in the IOR or Vatileaks mess (and we gather that he is not), this might make him a candidate for those who are most concerned to clean up the Augean stables.  Combined with his non-European nationality, it is a  photogenic combination.

Ironically, this may contrast with the man often identified as front-runner (a useless idea in this context, but whatever), Angelo Cardinal Scola.  Although an Italian himself, Scola is not as closely identified with the central operations.  (Milan, it seems, is further from Rome than Sao Paulo.)  According to NPR's Sylvia Poggioli, Scola -- the Italian,  mind you, not the foreigner -- is "favored by many cardinals from abroad."

Tuesday

The papal conclave begins on Tuesday, March 12.

The last of the cardinal electors arrived yesterday.  One bit of political speculation, then, depends on whether the start of the conclave seems early or late.  If early, then it is looks like a victory for the Italians and curial officials, who already know each other. If late, it may be a victory for those who are not italian and do not live in or near Rome, and now have a little extra time to renew acquaintances.

Frankly, we've got no idea about this one.  The whole question seems a little ridiculous; they all got there as soon as they could, and then picked a start date that lets them get home before Holy Week.

Smart money is that the conclave will be quick -- three days, maybe less.  The cardinals want to look decisive.  (Compared to the typical vacancy in a Lutheran congregation, which can run 6 to 18 months -- and 4-6 months even once a suitable pastor has been identified -- this is like lightning.)

Incidentally, if you really dig conclave news with intelligent analysis, follow Rocco Palmo's Whispers in the Loggia.  Although he isn't in Rome himself -- hotels were boooked and crazy expensive -- Palmo is among the best-informed observers.

Men Who Will Not Be King

There are three related bits of pre-conclave news today.  Together, they paint an interesting picture.

1.  The first is that the American cardinals have been told to shut up.  It seems that they had taken to giving daily press briefings, and that today they announced -- via email -- that these would not continue. Their colleagues seemed to feel that the briefings violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the oath to keep the details of a papal election secret.

NPR (or perhaps it was the BBC) spun this as a victory of old-fashioned, Italian-style omerta over modern, press-savvy American transparency.  That is probably right, up to a point, although there are some other factors to consider.  Chief of these is that the Americans are under particularly severe pressure because of the sex scandals.  Further, they truly do operate in a social environment that is radically different from many of their peers.  Whether or not "openness: does come naturally to the American cardinals (a highly debatable idea, given their past behavior), they know that they need to display some if they are to appear credible at home.

Frankly, we think that the Vatican could learn a lot from the American cardinals, who have themselves learned some hard lessons lately.  Yes, the oath of secrecy is binding, and probably essential to a good election.  But if the overall task, and the mission of the new pope, is to restore public confidence in the Roman Catholic church, then at least a little more transparency will need to be the new normal.

2.  Before the gag order came down,  Francis Cardinal George spoke to the Chicago Tribune about the deliberations, and indicated that the cardinals are making a serious effort to exclude from consideration any of their number who have been tainted by scandal, or who are known or even believed to have moral skeletons in their closets.

Frankly, we're not sure how many this leaves them to choose from.  We're not being glib, or even cynical.  We are reflecting upon the fact that, as we have said many times, these are old men, who have served their church for a long time according to its customs -- and they have been caught off guard by the pace of change in the society around them.  Some have behaved immorally and knew it all along, but others were simply unable to recognize immorality when it appeared before them in an unfamiliar guise.

But one way or another, it will be easy for a close examination to disqualify many candidates.  Among the progressives, it is likely that there are more like Keith O'Brien, whose open-mindedness on sexual questions extended even to inappropriate expressions of his own. Among traditionalists, it may be difficult to find a candidate who did not at one time or another show some support for Marcial Maciel Degollado.  And so forth and so on, ad infinitum.

3.  SNAP, the organization for those who have survived abuse by a priest, has released a list of cardinals whom it considers tainted and unacceptable .  The list can be found here; it includes brief explanations for each man's inclusion.  It is tilted somewhat toward cardinals from the English-speaking world, which reflects SNAP's constituency, and we aren't especially impressed by some of its explanations. Nor are we are not sure that releasing it was tactically wise, as there may well be some cardinals who take it as a challenge to their authority. But there it is.

The most instantly notable thing about SNAP's list of twelve cardinals is that several of them -- specifically, cardinals Oellet, Scola, Dolan, Sandri, and Turkson --  have indeed been mentioned as potential pontiffs.

Taken, together, these three items do paint a picture of what is going on behind the scenes.  The cardinals recognize, at last, that they are in a time of immense crisis, principally because they no longer live in an age when sexual misconduct can be handled privately.  They feel the pressure, both from within their ranks and from the world outside.  One one hand, they want to make a wise choice; on the other, they do not want the process by which they make that choice to look as though it has been directed by anyone but themselves.

We wish them well.

Bogus Bishop Visits Vatican, Confuses Cardinal

A guy dressed in a (very bad) bishop's outfit wandered into St. Peter's Square, and got his picture taken with a genuine cardinal.

USA Today reports that Ralph Napierski, a German, slipped past security and passed himself off as "Basilius," of the non-existent Italian Orthodox Church.  he had friends with him, dressed as priests, and managed to score a photo-op with a smiling Sergio Cardinal Sebastiani, former president of the Prefecture for Economic Affairs.

Napierski was escorted off the premises by some alert Swiss Guards.  They pegged him for a phony, it seems, because his cassock was too short.  (Let that be a lesson to us all:  to the ankles, people!)

They might have been tipped off by the fact that he was wearing a hipster-size fedora instead of a zucchetto, and a street-vendor purple pashmina instead of a cincture.

Napierski's website is Grade-A eccentric.  Setting aside his "Basilius" persona, he claims to be the bishop of a "Catholic order ... in union with Pope Benedict XVI" called (ahem!) Corpus Dei.  In broken English, he lays out the purported lineage of his consecration, which come by way of a Vietnamese sedevacantist bishop named Ngo Dinh Thuc.  Thuc really existed, and really performed some illicit episcopal ordinations; we have no idea whether Napierski has any genuine connection to this crowd, although it seems possible.  As the Psalm says, "Loony calleth unto loony in the noise of thy cataracts."

In any case, when you scroll down, Napierski also identifies himself as "an inventor, hacker, and internet activist."  This says it all, we think.

In related news:  Father Guido Sarducci should be the next pope.  Because the time has come.

Neither New Nor Spartan, But ...

Pity the news media, as they try to report on the coming conclave.  Even when they consult (or steal from) experts, many reporters are hampered by the fact that they don't know what they're talking about.

For example, a story on the Fox News Latino website begins like this:

Let the politicking begin. 

The world’s eyes are on Rome as the leaderless Roman Catholic Church begins its 2,000-year-old process of choosing a pope.

Groan.  Okay, sure, there are politics involved in this sort of thing, in the broadest sense, as the cardinals present their competing visions for the church, try to build or renew alliances with those whose visions are comparable, and discern possible leaders from among their ranks.  But it's not, so far as we have ever heard, Tammany Hall.  Offices are not bought and sold; the cardinals are not men who have the power to twist each other's arms, to any great degree.  

But the main problem with Fox's lede is that remark about "its 2,000-year-old process of choosing a pope." Oh, piffle.

The process is no more than 742 years old, which is still old as heck by secular standards, but only medium-old by church standards.  As we've said before, the conclave system was imposed by the secular power to spur some recalcitrant cardinals; it was put into canon law by the Pope they elected, Gregory X, in 1274. It has been updated occasionally since then, including an overhaul by John Paul II and a few tweaks by Benedict XVI -- although it is still, clearly, the same process.

But beneath the lock-in aspect of the process, there is another discrete element, the method of scutiny -- meaning direct election by all the cardinals.  This replaces two older methods, both of which enjoyed great currency in their time:  acclamation (about which you have probably read romantic things in Church History courses) and compromissum, which seems to have been the formation of a committee to appoint a pope.  In Universi Dominici Gregis, John Paul mentions the "difficulty" of this latter process, which required the frequent promulgation of new rules.  We shudder to imagine.

Mind you, there are elements of the system much older than the conclave itself.  Popes, like other bishops, seem originally to have been chosen by the clergy of their diocese, in this case Rome. The office of "cardinal," a word once applied generally to the pastors of principal parishes in many cities, emerged gradually through the Middle Ages.  It was only after 1029, though, that the Roman cardinals came to have principal responsibility (after the Holy Spirit, one hopes) for the election of a pope.  According to the old Catholic Encyclopedia, it was only after 1179 that cardinals became the sole electors.   

It is possible, depending upon how one reads St Cyprian's description of the election of Pope Cornelius, that in the early days laypeople also had a voice in the decision.  It is certain that, as late as the Second Lateran Council, in 1139, some laypeople (Roman nobles, as well as the lower clergy, who by that time were no longer electors) had the right of refusal.

We mention this only to make the point that Fox has fallen into the trap of imagining that everything the Roman Catholic Church does, it does just as it has always done.  This is not true, nor does Rome make any such claim.  (The Orthodox often do make this claim for themselves, which is exasperating.  We wish they would stop.) 

Fox is also stretching things a bit when it  describes Casa Santa Marta, where the cardinals will stay, as "posh."  The pictures we have seen seem ... nice.  Certainly better than a borrowed cot in the hallway of the Apostolic Palace, curtained off with a bedsheet.  But not posh.

In Defense of That Guy I Just Bashed

In defense of John Cornwell and the many other people who are writing speculative, unsubstantiated "exposes" of Benedict XVI's ostensible reasons for resignation, this must be said:

Keith Cardinal O'Brien will not take part in the conclave.  Last week, Benedict accepted his resignation as Archbishop of St. Andrew's and Edinburgh, the ranking Catholic prelate in Scotland.  Although he once called for "discussion" on the topic of sexuality, both homo and hetero, O'Brien began to toe the line when he was given the red hat, and this is apparently no coincidence.  However, it appears that, years ago, he made unwanted advances to a number of seminarians and young priests, several of whom have made official complaints.

Roger Cardinal Mahony will participate in the conclave, despite a grassroots campaign calling for him to recuse himself as well.  Mahony did not proposition any young men, but has been shown to have helped protect predatory priests.

An ABC News article contrasts the two thusly:

The difference in cases boils down to the fact that O'Brien himself was accused of improper behavior, whereas Mahony has been shown to have covered up for other priests who raped and molested children - a distinction that has long shielded bishops accused of cover-up from Vatican sanction.

And here we have one of two further things that must be said.  It has not hitherto been clear to the Roman Catholic hierarchy that protecting a criminal is in fact "improper behavior."  This reflects a vast, almost indescribable, moral myopia ingrained deeply into their system of governance.  (Whether it is ingrained also in Roman Catholic theology is a delicate and debatable point, upon which we are reluctant to venture an opinion.)  Protecting child abusers is probably a crime, and if it isn't then the criminal codes should be changed.  It is, by any reasonable estimation, far more improper than violating one's chastity or (arguably) even abusing one's office by making a drunken pass at a subordinate.

In other words, we find Mahony's presence in Rome this week far more problematic than O'Brien's would be, and his absence far more desirable.  Consequently, we are inclined to see in O'Brien a figure of greater circumspection, and one whom we might even find admirable despite his failures.

The second thing that must be said is that the shadow over these two prelates in particular may give a certain bitter comfort to some traditionalists.  Both Mahony and O'Brien have reputations as "liberals," a word which must be used ever-so-carefully in ecclesiastical matters.

It was Mahony, for example, whose pastoral letter encouraging careful Eucharistic planning in parishes so enraged Mother Angelica some 15 years back.  She evidently misread the letter, and announced on the air that Mahony did not accept the doctrine of transubstantiation.  For this reason, she told viewers in his diocese that she hoped they would be disobedient to him.  Mother Angelica was eventually moved to apologize, albeit grudgingly, and her supporters continue to treat Mahony as the epitome of all that is modern, liberal and hateful.  (It is likely that they are less enraged by his teaching on the Eucharist than by his reluctance to excommunicate pro-choice politicians).

As for O'Brien, his apparent support for an end to compulsory clerical celibacy, restated just recently, gives a sense of where he stands.

No, neither man is well-loved in conservative circles.  But of course, Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the very conservative Legionaries of Christ, appears to have been an abuser of seminarians, father of children by several women, child molester, drug addict and, somewhat incidentally, plagiarist.  He makes Mahony look like ... well, a saint.  Only Degollado's death prevented Benedict from mopping the floor with the guy.  Officials of the Legion, who surely knew some of the facts and protected him from scrutiny, are still under investigation by the Vatican.

Point being that many, many Roman Catholic officials, upon close scrutiny, will be found to have made grave moral errors -- and that this includes prominent figures on both sides of every liturgical or theological question.  Sin does not come from our opinions, but from our broken and fallible natures.

All of which means that, while we still wish Cornwell et al. would offer facts instead of speculation, it is easy to see why their speculation has reached such a fever pitch.  They are responding emotionally, as nearly the whole world is now responding, to the revelation of a systematic pattern of misbehavior in the largest Christian communion, which, while it validates centuries of vicious Protestant polemic, also shames and enrages the faithful of every Christian church, and brings upon us all the stink of association when we leave our sectarian dugouts to confront a culture of doubt and disbelief.  Whether the rest of us like it or not, the future of Christianity is deeply entangled with the future of Roman Catholicism.

In other words, Cornwell's "analysis" of Benedict's resignation, like Hans Kung's comically unrealistic vision of a "Vatican Spring" in which decades of liberal fantasies are realized at once, may be disconnected from the facts.  But both are deeply connected to something else, which is the desperate, almost-universal sense that radical change must take place at the highest levels of the Roman communion.  We say "almost" because only the results of the conclave, and of the actions taken soon after by the man it elects, will reveal whether this sense is shared by those people who have the most power to act upon it.

Evidence, Please

In the week leading up to the present sede vacante, the media -- notably but by no means exclusively the Italian press -- have been making some wild claims about Benedict XVI's renunciation of the papal office.  We do wish that they would produce some evidence.

A nice example, in English, is recent Daily Mail think piece by John Cornwell.  Evocatively entitled  "Gay sex rings, 'The Filth' corrupting the Vatican...and why the Pope REALLY quit," the gist is pretty easy to take in at a glance.

Cornwell was raised Catholic, lapsed, and has since returned to the faith.  he writes a great deal but we wonder whether, as the author of Hitler's Pope, he enjoys ready access to any reliable sources within the Vatican.

The way Cornwell spins it, the church hierarchy, and especially the Curia, is a vast moral cesspool.  It needs a radical, Augean stables sort of cleansing.  And how is this to be achieved?  Well, once a pope dies or leaves office, members of the Curia lose their jobs.  Most are generally appointed to them again by the new pope, in order to assure some bureaucratic continuity, but they need not be.  So, to put it simply:

Benedict realises the Curia must be reformed root and branch. He knows this is a mammoth task.

He is too old, and too implicated, to clean it up himself. He has resigned to make way for a younger, more dynamic successor, untainted by scandal – and a similarly recast Curia. 

Benedict was not prepared to wait for his own death to sweep out the gang who run the place. 

In one extraordinary gesture, by resigning, he gets rid of the lot of them.

As Cornwell tells it, then, Benedict, who wanted to be pope and has enjoyed being pope, is not resigning for personal reasons, but rather in an heroic act of self-sacrifice.  Leaving, he takes the corrupt and incompetent courtiers with him.

To an outsider, there appears to be at least one whopping logical hole in this argument.  The bureaucrats, including those of very high rank, serve in their offices at the pleasure of the pope.  He can, without too much trouble, fire whomever he chooses.  Traditionally, such firings are presented as promotions, but nobody is fooled when the secretary of a congregation is sent to watch over some Spanish nuns.  Bishops who annoy the pope can be "translated" from an actual diocese to, say, Partenia.  The pope is a monarch, and while that certainly does not free him from the politics of his court, it does give him immense power over the constitution of that court.

So it is at least counterintuitive  to propose that he is exercising his monarchical power by giving it up.

The second bit of dubious logic is that Benedict is resigning because he is "too implicated" in the church's problems.  The degree of his implication in the covering up the crimes of sexual predators has been hotly debated.  It appears that, like virtually all bishops of his age, he labored long under the old and horribly wrong moral, psychological and legal misconceptions which helped to these criminals escape punishment. In this, he has indeed been one part, neither the smallest nor the largest, in a vast if largely inadvertent criminal conspiracy.  But it also appears that, as a cardinal, he was one of the first to take John Paul II aside and impress upon him the gravity of the crimes, and call for genuine change.  (Frankly, we are saddened that so much animus in this matter is attached to Ratzinger, and so little to his predecessor in office.)

But our real point here is that Cornwell does not offer one single bit of evidence to substantiate his remarkably confident claims.  He can't, because to do so would require access to Benedict's own process of discernment, which appears to have been entirely private.  Cornwell's case is circumstantial, and goes basically like this:  there have been serious crimes; Benedict has a long acquaintance with these crimes; many of them are now in the public eye; Benedict is aware of many that are not; some people have called upon him to resign; he has resigned.

Cornwell evidently believes that the correlation of these facts proves causation.  But a far simpler and more intuitive string of facts goes like this:  Ratzinger wanted to retire as early as 70; he was elected pope at 76; he is now 86; he has retired.  

The fact that no other pope has renounced the office because of age, while certainly interesting, is hardly as decisive as Cornwell makes it sound.  "Retirement" is a fairly modern idea, after all.  During most of human, and therefore ecclesiastical, history, nobody did it; these days, anybody with the means expects to.

None of this means that Cornwell, or any of the journos making similar arguments, is mistaken.  We don't know, and we don't pretend to know, what is happening in Benedict's brain, or behind the frescoed walls of the Roman bureaucracy.  Certainly, these are difficult times for the church's leaders, and they will be well served by a thorough housecleaning, undertaken by an energetic pope, ideally one young enough or lucky enough to have prosecuted sexual predators rather than protecting them.  But it is hard to see how a resignation assures such a thing, and if the reporters have any proof that this was Benedict's plan, they have a duty to produce it.

Choose Your Pope

From Lutheran Satire, via Patheos:

Old Pope's New House

Built in the early 1990s, the convent Mater Ecclesiae is surely one of the newest buildings in the Vatican City.  It is also, from the few reports we have had, among the plainest.  But renovations are already under way, and at 4300 square feet, it will no doubt make a spacious retirement villa for Benedict XVI when he begins life as the Bishop Emeritus of Rome.

John Paul II had the convent built so that there would be a team of nuns supporting him with prayer.  It was not the fixed home of a single community, however.  Instead, specific orders were asked to send a team to live there in rotating five-year shifts.  (The most recent group, the Order of the Visitation, was only invited for three years, which raises some questions about just far ahead long Benedict may have planned his renunciation.)

We don't suppose that nuns will continue to live there, apart from any who may wind up part of the personal household of the Emeritus.  (Including, no doubt, Gorgeous Georg Ganswein. UPDATE:  Yeah, he's moving too.)  We wonder if the house will be given a new name -- the Ratzinger Residence or something classier, like Domus Coelestini.

There's been quite a bit of speculation in the press, much of it absurd, about the effect that the presence of a former pope may have upon a new one.  (Daily Mail:  "Now There Will be TWO Popes?"  Somebody smack them.)  While we generally believe that old pastors ought to retire outside their former parish, this may be a notable exception.  Inside the Vatican, access to the Emeritus can be pretty effectively controlled -- this protects him from curiosity-seekers, and protects his successor from the possibility of a loose cannon, prattling on to any reporter or graduate student who drops by the house.

We gather it's a bit of a fixer-upper.  Some water in the basement, drafty windows, and a little snow damage to the terrace.  But there's a fruit and vegetable garden next door, so he won't get hungry.  And, along with its own chapel, the place is a few yards from St. Peter's, so he can walk to church.

Yes, It's a "Resignation"

In the days since Benedict XVI announced the intention to give up his office, a curious urban myth has sprung up on the internet.  And no, we aren't talking about any of the wacky conspiracy theories.  We mean the assertion that Benedict didn't say he was going to resign, because he can't resign, but only abdicate.

Please don't fall for this foolishness.

The claim is that, as matter of language, resignation requires a superior, to whom one can hand a letter, the way you might at your office (if you didn't scream profanities and storm out the door, you impulsive creature).  Since Benedict has no mortal superior, the argument goes, he can only do what, say, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands recently did -- abdicate.

That argument hinges on an understanding of the word "resign" which is ... idiosyncratic.  By which we mean "wrong."  Terry Mattingly recently headlined a column with this contention.  His better-informed readers took him to task at once, saving us the effort.

Our proper dictionaries (OED and American Heritage) are still in crates, but here is what the Online Etymological Dictionary site says:

resign (v.): late 14c., from Old French resigner, from Latin resignare "to check off, cancel, give up," from re- "opposite" (see re-) + signare "to make an entry in an account book," literally "to mark" (see sign). The sense is of making an entry (signum) "opposite" -- on the credit side -- balancing the former mark and thus canceling the claim it represents. The meaning of "give up a position" is first recorded late 14c. Sense of "to give (oneself) up to some emotion or situation" is from 1718.

This sounds quite convincing.  "Give up a position" is certainly the most common sense of the word.  Although there is a remote sense of signing something, that thing certainly need not be a letter to one's boss, and is in any case metaphorical at this point anyway.  Other sources provide synonyms which include -- wait for it -- "abdicate."

Mind you, they do have a point.  "To abdicate" originally meant "to disown or disinherit," but from the late 17th century has also been used to mean "renounce sovereignty."  In that sense, it is a very useful and specific word to describe what Benedict has chosen to do.

But "resign" is more common, and is simply not incorrect.

In any case, it is worth remembering that Benedict didn't use either of these words.  Speaking in Latin, he used the verb renuntio, congnate with "to renounce."  (Lewis & Short gloss it as "To retract, revoke, recall, refuse, give up, break off, disclaim, renounce, repudiate"). This is, as you might expect, the same verb used in Canon 332, with which Benedict took care to comply:

Si contingat ut Romanus Pontifex muneri suo renuntiet, ad validitatem requiritur ut renuntiatio libere fiat et rite manifestetur, non vero ut a quopiam acceptetur.

And what is the official translation, as published at the Vatican website?  Here:

If it happens that the Roman Pontiff resigns his office, it is required for validity that the resignation is made freely and properly manifested but not that it is accepted by anyone.

Oh, yes.  Resign.

So, in other words:  abdicate is a great word, and we should all use it freely in this case.  Renounce is an excellent word, and seems quite literal here.  But resign is also perfectly good English, and describes what the Pope has said he will do at the end of the month.

Electing the Pope

First off, let's just say it:  the idea that popes are elected may seem unremarkable in this age of widespread democracy, but we should in fact be at least a little surprised by it.  After all, the Pope is a monarch, in many ways -- even most -- a Renaissance prince.  But of course, even in those bad old undemocratic Middle Ages, the Church was one place where leaders, including some of the most powerful ones, were chosen by a vote of their peers.  Long after the days when a bishop might be chosen by popular acclamation, abbots, abbesses and popes were elected, and of course they still are.  In other words, democracy -- of a limited sort -- has always had an important place in Christian churches.

As to how it is done, the modern rules are provided in Universi Dominici Gregis.  The Fisheaters website provides a  useful one-page summary, particularly including the prayers.  Here is our own quick guide; please let us know if we have omitted anything essential.

1.  Make sure the Pope is dead.  Or at least that he has resigned.  How do you make sure a pope is dead?  Traditionally, you hit him on the head with a silver hammer and ask, "Are you dead?"  Then you steal his jewelry.  (Well, the Fisherman's Ring, anyway.  They break it, along with his official seal, and put them both in the coffin.  There are lots of other funeral customs, which -- God willing -- will not be necessary this time around.)  

2.  Assemble the cardinals.  You have twenty days to do this.  All cardinals are eligible to participate in the discussions leading to the conclave proper, but only the 117 under the age of 80 have a vote.  (This number may drop to 114, depending on the precise date that the conclave begins.)  The number of electors is capped at 120 in any case.  The Court Chamberlain, usually called by his Italian title of Camerlengo, has already been running things since the Pope died or abdicated

3.  Lock them into a big room.  Seriously.  It's the Sistine Chapel, so at least they have something to look at if they get bored.  They come in together, singing Veni Creator Spiritus. They take an oath, both of secrecy and of independence from external control.  Then the order is given -- Extra omnes! -- and all non-essential personnel vacate the premises.  The place has already been swept for bugs; telephones and radios are forbidden; electors may not watch television, even back in their rooms.

4.  Pray, and then start voting.  

A. The first phase of voting is the Pre-Scrutiny.  They elect  9 officers, of three types -- Scrutineers, who count the votes; Infirmarii, who collect votes from sick electors; and Revisers, who double-check the work of the Scrutineers.

B. The second phase is the Scrutiny proper.  Each elector is given a few sheets of paper, printed with the words "Eligo in Summum Pontificem."  Under that, there is space to write a name; the idea is to disguise your handwriting, fold the paper twice, then carry it to the altar and place it into a covered urn, swearing before God that the name written is the person he believes should be elected. (Infirmarrii go to the rooms of electors who are medically unable to be present in the chapel.)  

C.  The third phase is the Post-Scrutiny.  Scrutineers open the ballots and read them aloud, recording the votes.  Revisers double-check, and the ballots (along with any other written notes taken by electors) are burned. 

D.  This process continues, two ballots at a time, until one person has received 2/3 of the votes. 

5.  After three days, take a break.  (Even Jesus was only good for three days in Hell).  They can take up to one day for "prayer, informal discussion and an exhortation."  Voting resumes, and if there is still no election after seven more ballots, they can take another break, and cast another seven ballots.

6.  Change the rules.  If, after something like 21 ballots (are we counting correctly?), there is still no election, the rules change.  An absolute majority, but not 2/3, is now required.  It is possible, if the majority agrees, to limit the voting to the two names that received the greatest number of votes on the preceding ballot.   [UPDATE:  In 2007, Benedict amended Universi Dominici Gregis, so that a valid election requires 2/3 at all time.  A simple majority will not do it.  Sorry for any confusion!]

7.  Elect the guy.  Get his consent.  (He can refuse, but this is rare.)  Then find out what he wants to be called.  Then, if he is not a bishop, ordain him bishop.  Then, and only then, announce his name to the crowd.  Habemus papem!  Technically, btw, we -- or at any rate they -- had a pope the moment he said yes, if he was a bishop, and the moment he was ordained, if not.

The rules are designed to emphasize fair play, honesty and, above all, the secrecy of the process.  But there is one curious exception.  The Camerlengo is instructed to write a report of each ballot, all of which are collected and sealed in an envelope which can only be opened by the permission of the Pope himself.

Casa di Santa Marta

A room at St. Martha's House.   From L'Osservatore Romano

At one point, during the evacuation from Storm Sandy, we spent a couple of nights at the Howard Johnson's motor lodge in Saugerties, New York.  It was pretty typical of an older, low-end chain motel:  comfortable enough without being pleasant.  The bedding was clean, but the carpets had their share of cigarette burns.  There were a pool and a sauna, but neither was warm enough to use.  The halls had an antiseptic aroma.

We arrived just a few hours after a much larger group of evacuees, the elderly and infirm residents of a nursing home, along with their caregivers.  Empty wheelchairs blocked the entrance to the restaurant, and the whole building came to smell a little less antiseptic.  The old people, when we passed them, all appeared to be a little lost, and a little unhappy.  We felt sorry for them.

This rural HoJo's would have been paradise itself next to the traditional conclave of cardinals.  For centuries, the most powerful men in the Roman Catholic world, many of them very old, were housed in surprisingly uncomfortable circumstances as they gathered to elect one of their number to a position of still greater power.

The idea of a conclave -- meaning, obviously, to be locked in "with a key" -- goes back to 1271, when a secular authorities, annoyed that the politicking of the cardinals had delayed the choice of a new pope for two years and nine months, literally locked them into a room and told them not to come out until their work was finished.  They were done in a day.  The pope they elected, Gregory XI, was sufficiently impressed by this system that he made it a law, and so it has endured, with significant changes and one brief abrogation, ever since.

This "locked in" business is pretty literal, too.  The old Catholic Encyclopedia describes the original rules:

When a pope died, the cardinals with him were to wait ten days for their absent brethren. Then, each with a single servant, lay or cleric, they were to assemble in the palace where the pope was at his death, or, if that were impossible, the nearest city not under interdict, in the bishop's house or some other suitable place. 

All were to assemble in one room (conclave), without partition or hanging, and live in common. This room and another retired chamber, to which they might go freely, were to be so closed in that no one could go in or out unobserved, nor anyone from without speak secretly with any cardinal. 

And if anyone from without had aught to say, it must be on the business of the election and with the knowledge of all the cardinals present. No cardinal might send out any message, whether verbal or written, under pain of excommunication. There was to be a window through which food could be admitted. 

If after three days the cardinals did not arrive at a decision, they were to receive for the next five days only one dish at their noon and evening meals. If these five days elapsed without an election, only bread, wine, and water should be their fare. .... Those who disregarded the laws of the conclave or tampered with its liberty, besides incurring other punishments, were ipso facto excommunicated.

Imagine another crowd of comparably old and powerful people -- let's say, the Senate and the Supreme Court -- setting up camp in a single unpartitioned room for days or even weeks on end.  You can't, can you?  Neither can we. And yet this seems to have been how it was done for a long time, although by the modern era it was no longer a single undivided room, but several floors of the Vatican Palace, the offices and corridors of which were crowed with cots borrowed from seminaries, separated (sometimes) by no more than a sheet hung from a rope.  Primitive enough, and then remember the limited bathroom facilities.

The most recent legislation on the subject is John Paul II's Universis Dominici Gregis (1996).  For lodging, he caused to be built the Domus Sanctae Marthae, or St. Martha's House, a residence within walking distance of the Sistine Chapel.  Given the age and infirmity of so many cardinals, this was an act of human decency.  Rooms at St. Martha's House are described as small and comfortable; best of all, each has its own toilet.

Mood Music

What's that?  You're trying to get excited, but you just ... can't?  Don't feel bad; it happens to everybody, once in a while.  Maybe you just need to relax and put on some music to get you in the mood.

May we suggest Palestrina?  Because, really, what would sound better, echoing through the Sistine Chapel?  And obviously, that's what we're talking about here:  getting in the mood to enjoy the greatest unseen spectacle in the world, the gathering of Rome's cardinal-priests in conclave, as they elect a new bishop for their fair city.

It can be hard to build up much enthusiasm, and not just for Protestants.  These gatherings are, by their nature, intensely secretive.  This means that, although people all over the world are eager to know who is selected, virtually none have any idea how he is selected.  The whole world is involved, and the whole world is shut out.  It's a little disorienting.

So we suggest a little background reading, to provide a little information on how these things are done -- and, more important, on what they feel like to the participants.

You could read some nonfiction.  John Allen's Conclave  is, unquestionably, the place to start:  a seasoned journalist's look at the what is coming this year, taking into account the current rules and the current players (at least as of a few years ago).. We're ordering a copy tonight.  Or maybe The Conclave, by Michael Walsh, a look at the history of papal elections.  (As you've noticed, writers on this subject don't place much value on original titles).

But non-fiction is so ... non-fictional.  We much prefer novels, and there are some famous ones to choose from.  Here are a few:

The Cardinal, by Henry Morton Robinson (1950).  An oldie but a goodie, about a young American priest who makes good.  It has some great set-pieces:  on a swing through the South, the priest is beaten up for wearing his collar; in Boston, he risks his own life to give last rites to a man trapped by a construction accident.  The Vatican scenes feel very lifelike, as they combine politics and culture; we especially remember two archbishops quoting Horace from memory.  It's a solid read, plus the author lived in our hometown.

The Shoes of the Fisherman, by Morris West (1963).  A Russian bishop is released from the Gulag and, through an unlikely chain of events, becomes Pope Kiril.  He ends the Cold War, gives away the Church's fortunes, and drives Teilhard de Chardin to suicide.

The Vicar of Christ, by Walter F. Murphy (1980).  An American monk is released from the Supreme Court (seriously, he was Chief Justice, as a well as a Medal of Honor winner) and through an unlikely chain of events becomes pope.  He then solves all the world's problems and is assassinated.  Notable for the least likely premise of any novel ever written including those featuring starships and time machines, as well as for the striking contention that, despite what you've heard,  the Roman Catholic Church has an endowment roughly equal to Harvard's.

The Final Conclave, by Malachi Martin (1978).  We haven't read it, but Martin was a former Jesuit and an able scholar, so this one probably has some inside dope.  It certainly seems to have some actual theology. Maybe we'll read this instead of the the non-fiction one.

USA Today's Future Pope List

Well, don't we all get our Vatican dope from USA Today?

For what it's worth, though, here is the McPaper's list of contenders.  The article gives some useful background on each:

1.  Angelo Cardinal Scola (see our last post)
2.  Angelo Cardinal Bagnasco, 69, Italy
3.  Marc Cardinal Ouellet, 68, Canada
4. Gianfranco Cardinal Ravasi, 69, Italy
5. Leonardo Cardinal Sandri, 70, Argentina