Both the outgoing Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio
Bertone, and his incoming successor, Archbishop Pietro Parolin, have
made interesting public comments recently.
Let’s take a closer look.
Cardinal Bertone defended his own performance, and lashed out at the
“crows and vipers” who leaked critical stories about him, in an outburst
shortly after his resignation was announced.
It’s quite understandable
that Cardinal Bertone would be unhappy with the treatment he has
received in the past several months.
When people think about the Vatican
bureaucracy, they think first about the Secretariat of State.
So the
many complaints about the Vatican bureaucracy that have been aired
recently are perceived, rightly or wrongly, as indictments of the man in
charge of that powerful office.
It’s simplistic at best—actually quite misleading—to think that all
the troubles might be traced to one office and one prelate.
The odd,
byzantine way of doing business at the Vatican was in place long before
Cardinal Bertone took the helm at State, and unless there is a
thoroughgoing effort at reform, the old bad habits will persist long
after his departure.
It is telling that the cardinal’s predecessor,
Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the quintessential Vatican insider and
manipulator, was reportedly present at the meeting at which Cardinal
Bertone told Pope Francis that he wanted to resign.
If Bertone is
leaving and Sodano is still on the scene, that is not a step forward for Vatican reform.
As Cardinal Bertone prepares to leave, then, it is not surprising that at least one Vatican official is defending the departing prelate,
hinting that he, Bertone, was the real reformer, whose plans were
thwarted by other Vatican insiders.
Certainly it is revealing (if the
story is accurate) that Cardinal Bertone tendered his resignation early because he was frustrated that no prominent Vatican officials had given him public support.
Was Cardinal Bertone part of the problem, or part of the solution to
the bumbling of the Vatican staff?
That debate has now begun.
To date
only one Vatican official (or maybe two officials, speaking in
confidence to one reporter) has come to his defense?
For now he is a
convenient scapegoat.
But as Pope Francis moves forward with his plans,
and other prelates feel the pressure for reform, I suspect we’ll
discover more evidence that Cardinal Bertone, whatever his shortcomings,
was stymied in his own efforts to make the Vatican more efficient and
accountable.
Meanwhile Archbishop Parolin—who was in the Western hemisphere when
the Vatican infighting became public, and presumably was not involved in
the squabbles—made some revealing comments of his own in an interview with the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal.
He pointedly welcomed the forceful Vatican diplomatic offensive against
American intervention in Syria—indirectly calling attention to the fact
that no such forceful activity in the international sphere was evident
during the tenure of Cardinal Bertone, the first non-diplomat to serve
as Secretary of State in decades.
Archbishop Parolin also called for
“collegial leadership” and a “more democratic spirit” in Vatican
governance—a statement that could be taken as critical of the current
style of leadership, in which the Secretariat of State always has the
last, and sometimes the only, word.
Archbishop Parolin provided some food for thought in that interview:
some hints at how he will approach the job, and how his style might
contrast with that of Cardinal Bertone.
Oddly, though, most of the media
coverage of the El Universal interview centered on comments that I did not
find particularly interesting.
Archbishop Parolin observed that
priestly celibacy is not a matter of Church doctrine, but a discipline
that could be changed.
He did not call for change—in fact he seemed to
lean against it—but he acknowledged that “the Church could review this
question.”
That’s simply a statement of fact, not material for a news
headline.