All the Pope's Men (4 page)

VATICAN, HOLY SEE, AND ROMAN CURIA

Now we’re ready for some more important terminological clarifications. In conversation about the Vatican there are three terms often tossed around as if they’re interchangeable, but that in fact describe different realities. They are the
Holy See
, the
Vatican
, and the
Roman Curia
.

First, the Holy See. The term
see
in this sense means “center of authority, jurisdiction, or office," and it comes from the Latin word
sedes
, meaning seat. The idea is that the bishop’s chair represents his power and authority. This is where the notion of an ex cathedra pronouncement comes from, since in Latin,
cathedra
means chair. The sense of the importance of the bishop’s chair runs deep in the Catholic tradition. Directly behind the main altar in St. Peter’s Basilica, one finds the chapel of the Chair of Peter, and there is literally a large seat affixed to the wall to represent the authority of Peter as it is passed down to the present Pope. The Church’s liturgical calendar recognizes a Feast of the Chair of Peter, February 22, which is one of the two traditional dates during the year that the Pope might create new members of the College of Cardinals. The other is June 29, the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, the two great patrons of the Church in Rome.

The
Holy See
is thus the proper term for designating the authority of the papacy to govern the Church. It is a nonterritorial institution, an idea rather than a place. Sometimes the term
Apostolic See
is used to mean the same thing, as in canon law, but
Holy See
is more common. The Holy See is an institution rather than a person and continues to exist even when there is no Pope—as during the
sede vacante
, or period of the “vacant seat," after the Pope has died and before a new one is elected. Canon 113 of the
Code of Canon Law
states that the legal personality of the Holy See is a matter of divine law. In other words, from a canonical point of view, God gave the Holy See its authority. It is not something erected by human beings on the basis of a social contract. By way of contrast, the legal personality of the Vatican City-State is based on a 1929 treaty with Italy. More on that later.

As the central government of the Roman Catholic Church, it is the Holy See, not the Vatican, that enters into treaties as the juridical equal of a sovereign state and sends and receives diplomatic representatives. It is the Holy See that conducts full diplomatic relations with 174 nations, plus lesser ties with Russia and the Palestinian National Authority. Many of these countries are non-Catholic and even non-Christian. The Holy See also maintains a presence in all major international organizations. Historically, this diplomatic activity dates to the time when the Pope was also the secular ruler of much of central Italy. The sovereignty and legal personality of the Holy See endured, however, even after the fall of the Papal States in 1870. The Holy See is recognized by a wide variety of international treaties and agreements. Article 16 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, for example, codified the informal practice that the ambassadors of the Holy See are recognized as the dean of the diplomatic corps in many countries to which they are accredited.

The Holy See is not dependent upon any physical territory for its sovereignty. Between 1870 and 1929, no bilateral treaty or international convention recognized the Holy See as the ruler of a physically defined space. Yet the Holy See during this period negotiated a total of sixty-two concordats with governments around the world to regulate the affairs of the Catholic Church, and these concordats were considered international conventions, with fully recognized legal force. In the same period, the Holy See acted as a mediator in several international conflicts: Germany versus Spain (1885); Ecuador versus Peru (1893); Argentina versus Chile (1900–1903); Colombia versus Ecuador (1906); and Haiti versus San Domingo (1926).

The Vatican
, on the other hand, refers to the 108-acre physical territory in Rome. Historically the term referred to the
mons vaticanus
, the hill sloping up from the Tiber River away from the heart of ancient Rome. Pliny the Elder records that the area was known for snakes and bad wine. It was a cherished spot for early Christians because tradition regarded it as the burial spot of St. Peter, whose tomb was located in a pagan cemetery. (Claims have been made that later archeological discoveries under the basilica have identified the very bones of St. Peter, but this is a complicated discussion for another time.) The basilica erected by Constantine on the spot was never intended to be the center of papal government, but a shrine to Peter. The Pope’s personal basilica was always considered to be St. John Lateran, and the administrative activity of the papacy was centered in the nearby
cancelleria
and the
Quirinale
, the latter of which is now the symbol of Italy’s secular republic. Even today, when a new Pope is elected, among his first ceremonial acts is taking possession of St. John Lateran. The Vatican only became the center of papal activity in 1870 when the Papal States were lost along with the Pope’s temporal authority. As a concession to the papacy’s moral prestige, King Vittorio Emmanuel allowed the Pope to retain St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Palace.

The Pope at the time, Pius IX, refused to reconcile himself to the loss and declined to recognize the new Italian republic, declaring himself a “prisoner of the Vatican." That state of affairs endured until February 11, 1929, when Pius XI and the Italian government under Benito Mussolini reached an agreement. Vatican City was born, recognized under the Lateran Treaty as an instrument of the Holy See in its spiritual mission to the world. The Vatican City-State (
Stato della Città del
Vaticano
) is, like the Holy See, recognized under international law, and it is party to international treaties such as the International Telecommunications Union and the Universal Postal Union. Unlike the Holy See, however, it does not receive or send diplomatic representatives and has no diplomatic relations with states. Former Secretary General of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld expressed this distinction: “When I request an audience from the Vatican, I do not go to see the King of Vatican City but the head of the Catholic Church."

Cardinal Renato Martino, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and for sixteen years the Holy See’s observer to the United Nations, has offered a metaphor for understanding this relationship: “Vatican City is the physical or territorial base of the Holy See, almost a pedestal upon which is posed a much larger and unique independent and sovereign power: that of the Universal Church, respected and esteemed by many, suspected and combated by others, yet always present by its stature, its history and its influence in the international forum."

The Pope, through the Holy See, is the supreme governor of Vatican City. He delegates its administration to the Pontifical Commission for the State of the Vatican City. The legal system is based on the November 2000 Fundamental Law of the Vatican City-State, promulgated by John Paul II. Beyond that, canon law rules; if canon law is not applicable, the laws of the city of Rome apply. The Vatican City maintains the Swiss Guards, a voluntary military force, as well as a modern security corps. It has its own post office, commissary, bank, railway station, electrical generating plant, and publishing house. The Vatican also issues its own coins, stamps, and passports. Today the Vatican City-State has its own legal system for traffic control, customs duty, and telegraphic services, a nine-hundred-foot railway that connects with the main Italian line, electric power and water services from Rome supplemented by a local water supply, and a small electric power plant. Beyond St. Peter’s Basilica, there is a parish church inside the Vatican, St. Anne of the Palafrieneri, for permanent residents and employees. It is staffed by the Augustinian friars.

The Vatican City-State also has its own penal system and tribunals, along with two jail cells. For the first time, in 2003, the Vatican issued a report on crimes committed on its territory. Presented by the citystate’s chief prosecutor, Nicola Picardi, the report said there had been 397 civil offenses and 608 penal offenses in 2002, the vast majority petty crimes such as purse snatching, pickpocketing and shoplifting in the Vatican museums. If one uses the traditional measure of dividing the number of crimes by the number of citizens, the Vatican City-State would appear to have one of the highest crime rates in the world, since it has only 455 permanent residents. The museums, however, draw over 3 million visitors a year, so 608 minor crimes are far less dramatic. The perpetrators—like the victims, tourists to the Vatican—were rarely caught, with 90 percent of complaints never leading to a prosecution. There is a backlog of cases before Vatican courts, which had to deal with a record 239 cases in 2002, with 110 still unresolved into 2003. Anyone sentenced to a prison term by the Vatican’s civil court is transferred to an Italian prison, with the Vatican paying the tab.

The total number of employees of the Vatican city-state in 2003 was 1,511, which includes 4 top directors, 75 men and women religious, and 1,432 laity. Also on the books are 566 retired employees drawing a pension. Salaries for Vatican employees are shockingly low by American standards; a mid-level official working in the Vatican travel agency, for example, might earn the equivalent of $18,000 a year. Among Italians, however, Vatican jobs are highly coveted, because they bring access to the Vatican supermarket, clothing store, electronics store, and gas station, whose products are untaxed and therefore significantly cheaper than anywhere else in Rome. The Vatican also offers access to quality health care and a well-stocked pharmacy. In addition, salaries are not taxed, and the Vatican has a generous pension system and severance plan. (An employee of Vatican Radio who left in 2001 after thirteen years of service received the equivalent of one month’s pay for every year he had put in, so he left with a check in hand for more than a year’s salary.) Most importantly for a country where instability is chronic, the Vatican offers a secure source of employment—it is never going out of business. Under the Vatican’s labor laws, which basically parallel those of Italy, it is also virtually impossible to fire someone. For example, one pontifical commission has a laywoman who does secretarial work and who became pregnant some years ago. Under the rules she was entitled to nine months of maternity leave, but by craftily navigating the system, she actually took more than eighteen months. The number two official of this small office tried to replace her, but gave up after a battle that stretched over four years.

To be precise, it is the Holy See that governs the Catholic Church on behalf of the Pope, not the Vatican. In this book I will slip back and forth between these two terms, because it is simply too repetitive to use only
Holy See,
and because the word
Vatican
is far more familiar to most English-speakers. Readers with a penchant for detail, however, will want to recall that the Holy See is the government of the Church, the Vatican is a place in Rome where the Holy See is currently located.

THE ROMAN CURIA

Finally we come to the
Roman Curia
, which is the bureaucratic instrument through which the Pope administers the Holy See and carries out his function both as supreme governor of the Catholic Church and as a sovereign diplomatic actor. The term
Curia
is borrowed from ancient Rome, where it referred to the seat of the Roman Senate. The Pope isn’t the only figure in the Church with a Curia. The head of the Jesuits, for example, has his own Curia that helps him administer the affairs of that religious order. Though the Roman Curia has taken different forms over the centuries, it currently consists of the Secretariat of State, nine congregations, three tribunals, eleven councils, and a complex of offices that administer church affairs. There is a catchall term for these various departments in the Vatican, which is
dicastery
. The term comes from the Greek
dikasterion
, a court of law in Athens, with 501 jurors over thirty years of age, picked by lot. All deliberations had to conclude by nightfall. Applied to the Holy See, the word
dicastery
refers to the offices that assist the Pope in the government of the Church.

(Technically, the term
dicastery
refers only to the Secretariat of State, congregations, tribunals, councils, and certain offices—namely the Apostolic Camera, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, and the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See. It would not, therefore, include the Prefecture of the Papal Household or the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff. Most Vatican-watchers use the word loosely, however, to refer to just about every department within the institution.)

Examined on a flow chart, the structure of the Roman Curia would seem rather straightforward, with lots of different offices reporting more or less independently to the Pope. There is some reality to this, as the dicasteries do operate in relative isolation from one another (and sometimes at cross-purposes; more on that later). Yet what the flow chart would fail to reveal is that some dicasteries are more equal than others. The Secretariat of State is sometimes called the “super-dicastery" because of the way it oversees and coordinates the work of the others. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was traditionally known as la suprema, “the supreme" congregation, prior to Pope Paul VI’s reform in 1967, and in some ways it retains a kind of preeminence because of the gatekeeper role it plays on doctrinal questions. Any document or decision with doctrinal implications, which covers a great deal of what the Roman Curia does, has to be cleared with this congregation. These realities make the secretary of state and the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith arguably the two most important men in the power structure of the Roman Catholic Church after the Pope.

Secretariat of State

The secretariat of state directs and coordinates the other dicasteries of the Curia. The incumbent secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, is the Holy See’s equivalent of a prime minister. The office dates back to 1644, with the appointment of Cardinal Giovanni Giacomo Panciroli by Pope Innocent X. Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, secretary of the Section for Relations with States, is the Vatican’s foreign minister, while Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, the
Sostituto
, is the man who runs the day-to-day operations of the Catholic Church.

The secretariat is divided into two sections.

The First Section deals with internal Church affairs and is organized into language desks. The English desk, for example, at full strength has seven or eight priests handling all the correspondence into and out of the Secretariat of State in the English language. There’s a history of heads of the English section moving on to higher office. Cardinal Justin Rigali, the current archbishop of Philadelphia, once held the job, as did Archbishop James Harvey, the American who now serves as prefect of the Papal Household. More recently, Bishop Brian Farrell was given the post of secretary of the Council for Promoting Christian Unity after heading the English desk. The overall head of the First Section is the
sostituto
, or “substitute," regarded as the figure with the most direct control over the day-to-day affairs of the Church. The
sostituto
is able to see the Pope without an appointment, a privilege not even the secretary of state himself enjoys. Giovanni Battista Montini was the
sostituto
under Pius XII before becoming archbishop of Milan and later Pope Paul VI. Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, currently prefect of the powerful Congregation for Bishops, was John Paul’s
sostituto
for eleven years. The number three official in the structure is known as the assessore, or “assessor," and this person too is usually someone who is going places.

The Second Section handles the Vatican’s relations with foreign governments and is organized into regional desks. One official handles the Balkans, for example, another deals with Central and Eastern Europe, and so on. The official tracking the United States is currently an Italian, Monsignor Paolo Gualtieri. The section is headed by the secretary for Relations with the States, currently an Italian, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo. This position is known informally by the world press as the Pope’s foreign minister. Below him is the undersecretary, currently an Italian named Pietro Parolin. This post too is often a launching pad for Church careers. One former occupant, for example, is now the Holy See’s permanent observer to the United Nations, an Italian named Archbishop Celestino Migliore.

Compared to other bureaucratic structures with a comparable scope of responsibility, the Secretariat of State is either remarkably efficient or remarkably understaffed, depending on one’s point of view. The United States Department of State, for example, has a workforce of eleven thousand, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, some nine thousand of whom are in Washington, and with roughly half that number representing policy and analysis positions. The Second Section of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, by way of comparison, has thirty people trying to do a comparable job. Under these conditions, it is a miracle that the Vatican’s bilateral relations and its diplomatic activity are as professional and successful as they are. Management expert Peter Drucker once classified the Holy See as one of history’s most efficient organizations, along with General Motors and the Prussian army. If the ratio of government employees to Americans were the same as Catholics to curial officials, Drucker found, the U.S. government would have a workforce of 588. It is also no secret, however, why some things slip through the cracks, and why analysis of world events or local situations can sometimes seem superficial or half-baked. Vatican legend records a quip along these lines from Cardinal Domenico Tardini, a close aide of Pope Pius XII and secretary of state under John XXIII. Someone once said to Tardini that the Holy See’s diplomacy was the best in the world. “God help whoever’s number two," Tardini is said to have replied.

Congregations

The congregations are the most important offices in the Curia because they have what canon lawyers call “the power of governance," meaning the power to issue binding documents, judgments, decrees, and dispensations. They deal with the most important issues: theology, clerical discipline, bishops, saints, the Eastern churches, evangelization, and so on. Technically speaking, each congregation is composed of a body of cardinals, bishops, and prelates of Eastern churches who are its full members. These groups are analogous to boards of directors in the United States, with a lower-level staff then responsible for the actual day-to-day work. While the staff has an extraordinary influence on what the dicastery does, it’s also true that many important decisions—who gets a particular bishop’s appointment, for example—are usually made around the table when the full body of cardinals and bishops that governs the congregations meets.

The congregations conduct their business in three types of meetings. A
plenary session
brings together all the cardinals and bishops who are members, which also includes the prefect and the secretary as voting members. The plenary generally meets once a year because of the difficulty of coordinating travel schedules and handles the most important questions. An
ordinary session
includes those members of the congregation who are resident in Rome, though any member who wishes to participate has the right to do so. Such meetings will be held a few times a year, outside “down" periods such as the August holidays, and handle more routine matters. The internal work of the congregation’s staff, especially decisions about which matters to refer to the full body of members, is done at the
congress
, which is a meeting of the prefect, secretary, undersecretary, and other key personnel. (Some offices may have more than one undersecretary.) The congresses may happen once a month.

The congregations are:

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Holy Office, which determines the official teaching of the Church and investigates theologians who deviate from it. As mentioned above, it also screens the documents and decisions of other dicasteries to the extent that they have doctrinal implications, and much of the work moving through the Vatican does touch upon matters of doctrine. When the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue wanted to put out a document on the spirituality of interreligious dialogue, it had to be cleared with the congregation, and its consultors asked for significant revisions in the proposed text. This congregation also has legal responsibility for handling cases of particularly grave offenses by priests, including the sexual abuse of minors.

The Congregation for Eastern Churches, which applies the role of the papacy as supreme governor to the twenty-one Eastern Rite churches that are in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church.

The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, which oversees the liturgical life of the Catholic Church, deciding which rites and texts are acceptable for Catholic worship.

The Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which handles cases for beatifications, declaring someone “blessed," and canonizations, declaring someone a saint.

The Congregation for Bishops, which handles the appointment of new bishops and the supervision of current bishops. It should be noted, however, that at least a third of the dioceses of the world are considered to be in “mission territory" and depend upon the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples for their bishops. Similarly, the bishops of the Eastern churches are elected by their synods and “confirmed" by the Congregation for Eastern Churches. The nominations of bishops for Eastern Europe are prepared by the Secretariat of State. For historical reasons, the congregation also has responsibility for the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

The Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, formerly known as Propaganda Fidei, which applies the role of the papacy as supreme governor to all the “mission churches," mostly in the Third World. This congregation administers perhaps the largest and most complex bureaucratic structure of all the curial offices. It is in effect a sort of “mini-Vatican" for the mission territories.

The Congregation for Clergy, which has responsibility for overseeing clerical discipline, as well as the ongoing formation of clergy. The congregation has three sections: (1) life and ministry of the clergy; (2) preaching and catechetics; (3) temporal administration, including alienation of property above a certain value, pious foundations, and support of the clergy.

The Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life (generally known as the Congregation for Religious), which deals with the creation and suppression of religious orders, any changes in their constitutions, questions of government, and property and privileges. The congregation works with councils of major superiors for both men and women.

The Congregation for Catholic Education, which oversees Catholic schools, universities, and seminaries.

Tribunals

The Roman Curia is also the judicial branch of government. The Church has its own law code, the
Code of Canon Law
, which canon lawyers say is the oldest continually functioning system of law in the Western world, even if the first time the system was formally codified was in 1917. There is also a separate code of canon law for the Eastern churches. The 1983 Latin Rite code consists of 1,752 canons or rules, divided into seven topics, or books. Within the Curia are three tribunals whose function it is to apply this code to cases that arrive in Rome. They are:

The Apostolic Penitentiary, which deals with what canon lawyers call the internal forum, meaning things that pertain to the sphere of individual conscience and can only be judged secretly, perhaps in the sacrament of confession. The Apostolic Penitentiary also handles a number of other delicate situations: sins and censures reserved to the Holy See; dispensations from hidden impediments to marriage and from irregularities (for example, someone who wishes to marry within the forbidden range of kinship); release from oaths; commutations of religious vows; release from duties derived from pious foundations and of every other kind of obligation; the regularization of invalid religious professions, of invalid divisions of ecclesiastical offices and goods, or of invalid marriages caused by some unsuspected impediment; and releasing possessors of usurped ecclesiastical goods from their obligations. Such cases are rare, but when they arise they can be extremely urgent. It’s for this reason that the head of the Penitentiary keeps his job even during the interregnum between popes and is allowed to receive messages from his office even during the conclave, or election of the new Pope, when the cardinals are sealed off in the Sistine Chapel.

The Roman Rota, which is the main judicial organ of the Holy See. It is an appeals court from decisions made by local tribunals around the world, and in the vast majority of instances these cases concern requests for annulment of marriages. The number of requests for annulments has been increasing for years. On December 31, 1991, there were 591 marriage cases pending, while on December 31, 2001, the total was 1,055. The Rota is also a court of first instance for cases that local tribunals cannot handle. For example, any case involving an appeal against a decision by a bishop has to go to the Rota, or, depending on the nature of the case, to a congregation, rather than the bishop’s tribunal. Certain types of marriage cases also have to come directly to the Rota, such as annulment requests from royalty; Caroline of Monaco had to appeal to the Rota rather than the marriage tribunal of the Archdiocese of Monaco. She also had to wait ten years for a favorable decision. The court is called the
rota
because of the circular room in which judges at one time met to hear cases. In 2003 there were twenty-eight judges (technically called prelate auditors) who meet in panels of three to hear cases. The Rota pronounces between 150 and 200 sentences each year. Not just anyone can bring a case. The Rota has a list of lawyers, usually around seventy-five, that can bring business before the court.