Multiple reports suggest Pope Francis intends to name 58-year-old
Italian Archbishop Pietro Parolin to the key position of Secretary of
State, traditionally the most important figure in the Vatican after the
pope himself.
Although the pope is the head of state, the Secretary of State
generally functions as the Vatican's head of government, both for
internal church affairs and for diplomatic relations, making him,
effectively, the prime minister.
Currently the papal nuncio, or ambassador, in Venezuela, Parolin is a
career Vatican diplomat who's been involved in shaping Rome's response
to virtually every key geopolitical challenge during the last two
decades.
Parolin is also widely seen as a talented and efficient administrator
who served from 2002 to 2009 as the undersecretary for relations with
states, the No. 3 position in the Secretariat of State. In that role, he
often functioned informally as the Vatican's primary interlocutor with
the outside world.
Assuming the reports are accurate, the choice would appear to confirm
at least two important points about the direction Francis intends to
set.
First, it suggests that though Francis is trying to engineer a reform
in the Vatican, he doesn't mean to start from scratch. Instead, Parolin
would represent a sort of "reboot" -- an effort to restore the
Vatican's operating system to a time when it was perceived to work
effectively.
He's a consummate insider, yet one not associated with the most
notorious breakdowns in management that occurred on the watch of
Benedict XVI's Secretary of State, 78-year-old Cardinal Tarcisio
Bertone.
Those episodes included a 2009 controversy involving the lifting of
the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop, as well as the
Vatican leaks scandal.
Taken together, they stoked dissatisfaction among
senior churchmen around the world and helped set the stage for electing
a Latin American outsider to the papacy.
The option for an Italian likewise would seem to confirm that Francis
does not intend to completely upend the Vatican's traditional culture.
On another front, the choice also suggests Francis does not want the
church's diplomatic capacity to dim while he deals with internal
challenges.
Immediately, Parolin would become the church's primary spokesman on
pressing international concerns such as the current crises in both Syria
and Egypt. He has background in the region, among other things having
represented the Vatican at the 2007 Annapolis Conference on the Middle
East convened by the Bush administration.
On the other hand, longtime Vatican-watchers caution that whoever
becomes Secretary of State under Francis may not be quite as powerful a
figure as in previous papacies for two reasons.
First, Francis is a pontiff who takes the reins of government into his own hands, making him less dependent on aides.
Second, the new council of eight cardinals from around the world
announced by Francis in April may become his most important sounding
board, as opposed to the Secretariat of State being the crucible in
which key policy decisions are forged.
In that sense, the Secretary of State under Francis may function as more of a chief of staff rather than a kind of "vice pope."
Born in Italy's Veneto region, Parolin is fluent in French, Spanish
and English in addition to Italian. At earlier points in his career, he
served in papal embassies in Mexico and Nigeria, and also held the desk
in the Secretariat of State for southern Europe.