To Raymond and Laura Frazier, my grandparents, whose love made
this book possible; to the Capuchin Franciscans in Hays, Kansas, whose
wisdom helped to make the book intelligible; to my colleagues in Rome
and at the
National Catholic Reporter,
whose companionship made
researching and writing the book enjoyable; and to my wife, Shannon,
whose unfailing support made the book a reality.

INTRODUCTION

The aim of this book is to promote better informed, and hopefully less acrimonious, conversation between the Vatican and the English-speaking world by identifying the core values and experiences that underlie specific Vatican policy choices. In that way, discussion can be based on real, as opposed to presumed, motives, and thus can be more akin to genuine dialogue. The book is rooted in my experience of covering the Vatican on a daily basis in Rome, as well as following the Pope to scores of spots around the world, and then translating these experiences for English-speaking audiences. I approach this work both as a journalist and as a Catholic, and it’s probably in order here to say a word about each.

As a journalist, my goal is to inform and to explain. I want to tell readers what’s happening, but I also want to help them understand why it’s happening and what importance it might have. This way of conceiving the task takes me beyond the strict objectivity of simply “recording the news," in the way that a wire service such as the Associated Press or Reuters approaches things, and into the more subjective realm of context, background, and consequences. I stop short, however, of offering my personal opinion on the news, such as whether a particular Vatican document or policy choice is right or wrong, good or bad, successful or not. First of all, I doubt most readers care what John Allen thinks (though I’m always surprised, based on my mail, how many people are convinced they
know
what I think, and how often these hypotheses contradict one another). In any event, my personal conclusion would be the least interesting aspect of any story. Far more intriguing is trying to ferret out where a particular Vatican choice came from, how it reflects the logic and psychology of the institution, and what implications it might have across a range of other issues. This work of analysis aids readers in forming their own judgments, and I hope my journalism is of equal interest to all parties—liberal and conservatives, Vatican critics and defenders, reformers and traditionalists. I do not intend to take sides. Of course, this describes my
intent
, and how well I pull it off is for others to judge.

Despite the fact that I’m Catholic, I do not view covering the Vatican as a religious mission. The principal danger with many Catholic journalists is that they tend to fall into one of two camps: either Catholics angry with the institution seeking to reform it or Catholics in love with the institution seeking to propagate it. Both can be noble instincts, and I believe they can coexist in the same soul. Neither, however, makes a good point of departure for analytical journalism, because both end up skewing one’s judgment toward one side of arguments that are always complex. I do not see my role as promoting a particular set of theological or ecclesiastical conclusions. Truth to be told, in many cases I wouldn’t have personal judgments to offer even if I thought someone wanted to hear them. One puzzling aspect of public discussion these days is the way that everyone is expected to have an opinion on everything, regardless of what they actually know about the subject. My experience is that the more shades of gray you perceive in a situation, the harder it usually is to be definitive about who’s right and who’s wrong. Personally, I’m not sure if celibacy should be made optional, or if the Pope should travel less, or whether celebrating Mass with both priest and people facing East would enhance the reverence of the liturgy. I can see good arguments on all sides. What I can talk about with authority, however, is what the main points of contention surrounding these issues are, what values motivate the various parties to the debate, and what consequences might flow from particular choices. That’s the service I can offer as a journalist, and it is the spirit in which this book is written.

The suspicion that I
must
have a theological agenda is sometimes exacerbated by the fact that the newspaper I write for, the
National
Catholic Reporter
, is widely identified as the leading voice of liberal Catholicism in the English-speaking world. Some readers assume I must be trying to push a liberal point of view, and if it’s not obvious how I’m doing that, it’s probably because I was especially crafty at concealing my premises. It’s true that my paper does express a strong perspective on its editorial pages, but thankfully I’m left clear of all that. I don’t write the paper’s editorials, and am rarely consulted about them. In terms of my own work, I have never been pressured by
NCR
to pursue a particular story, or to take a particular line, in order to score an ideological point. I have always felt free to try to describe the reality of the Holy See as honestly and fairly as possible. When I have occasionally disappointed or angered some elements of the readership, the editors have always stood by me. The fact that I am paid by a newspaper with a strong editorial line does not, I hope, mean I am incapable of living up to the journalistic aims described above. All I ask is that readers judge my work on its merits. In the same way, it’s true that I was raised, educated, and acquired most of my professional experience prior to Rome in moderate-to-liberal American Catholic environments. But everyone emerges from a particular context; that can’t be helped. The question is how well one is able to bring other points of view into focus and to do them justice. That’s a discipline the Thomist in me wants to believe everyone, at least in principle, is capable of exercising.

It would be disingenuous, however, to suggest that my work is value-neutral with respect to my religious affiliation. As a Catholic, I hope my journalism is of value to my Church. I see that contribution, however, not in terms of steering the Church in some specific direction, but in facilitating conversation among Catholics that is informed and respectful. After four years of covering the Vatican, my perception is that often people base their judgments about “Rome" on misconceptions and mythology, imputing motives or making assumptions that are either inaccurate or, at best, highly selective. Lacking context, people spin off into accusation and acrimony. By providing better information and context, I hope I can promote better understanding.

As an American Catholic, I see this work as especially crucial because quite often America and Rome are not on good speaking terms. I saw this repeatedly during both the sexual abuse crisis and the war in Iraq, both cases in which many American Catholics, though not necessarily the same ones on both issues, felt misunderstood, even sometimes betrayed, by the Vatican. Officials in the Holy See felt equally uncomfortable, dismayed, and even occasionally scandalized by what they saw coming from the American Catholic community. The emotion on both sides often reflected incomprehension. Communication between Rome and America was sometimes impossible, not because there was nothing to talk about, but because the two parties were talking past each other, making assumptions that were often flawed and then responding to those assumptions rather than to what was really motivating the other. Americans, for example, often assumed that the Vatican’s “real" concern in both the sex abuse crisis and the war was maintaining its own power, while officials in the Holy See sometimes suspected that what was really motivating the Americans in both cases was money. In truth, neither factor explains very much, as we will see later on in chapters 6 (the sex abuse crisis) and 7 (the Iraq war).

My agenda in my work qua Catholic is to bring the local church from which I come, that of the United States and, more broadly, the English-speaking world, into more fruitful conversation with the center of the universal Church in Rome. Naturally, putting things this way glosses over much complexity; not every English-speaking Catholic and not every Vatican official thinks alike. These are ideal types, not real people. Still, there is a genuine communications problem between Rome and the world I write for, and it fuels an atmosphere of division that is not in anyone’s interest. At the very least, I hope this book will help English-speaking Catholics see that in many cases the values Rome is striving to protect are dear to them too, even if they differ on specific applications, and that this shared set of values provides a basis for dialogue. If one wants to place a theological label on this, I suppose it would be
communion
. I hope to serve communion in the Church by helping Catholics speak the same language.

Striving to explain the Vatican is a slippery business, however, because it is easily confused with trying to justify the Vatican. This point was brought home for me one night in May 2002, during the peak of the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States. CNN, the network for which I serve as a Vatican analyst, had asked me to appear on that night’s segment of Q&A, which usually has two guests representing different points of view, plus a host who fires questions back and forth. This particular night, the lineup featured a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest and me. Perhaps it was naivete on my part, but it never occurred to me that the producer for Q&A expected me to play the role of someone “opposed" to the victim. That didn’t become clear until about three minutes into the show, which went out live, after the host had asked the victim to tell his terrifying story of being abused by a trusted priest when he was ten years old. This guest, a soft-spoken and articulate young man of perhaps twenty-five, described in heartbreaking terms the psychological fallout from that experience. He added that he was repeatedly ignored when he sought acknowledgment from Church officials, above all from the bishop whose job should have been to protect him, and failing that, to give him comfort when the Church had let him down.

The host took it all in, paused for dramatic effect, then flung the gauntlet down: “John Allen, how can you possibly justify that?"

After choking back a wave of panic, I tried calmly to explain that I had no way to justify this person’s suffering, nor was I inclined to justify it, and what’s more, it was not my role to do so. My job is to analyze and explain the Vatican, not defend it. I could, and did, explain the logic that might have led the Vatican to approve of bishops trying to keep struggling priests afloat, in part out of a sense of brotherhood within the clerical fraternity, in part out of a need to fill slots in a priest shortage. I could, and did, also try to explain why the Vatican does not step in and clean house when bishops fail, because the understanding of the bishop’s office is quite different in Rome from the corporate model many Anglo-Saxon Catholics hold. But it’s not my job to tell CNN’s viewers, or my readers in the
National Catholic Reporter
, whether these Vatican perspectives are right or wrong, good or bad, adequate to the task of resolving the crisis or not.

The danger that journalists will be seen as apologists is compounded on my beat because the Vatican often does such a poor job of telling its own story. If this had been the White House, or the Pentagon, or IBM, CNN would have had no problem filling its slot with a smooth-talking spokesperson who could have articulated the institution’s point of view. When there is a major news story breaking, American institutions deploy an army of spin doctors to get their message out. Look how many talking heads the Bush team provided every day during the Iraq war to make sure we got the news and perspective the White House and Pentagon wanted us to get. The Vatican simply does not respond this way. Reflecting the ethos of an age before 24/7 news cycles, the Vatican still believes in communicating only when it has something to say. Most of the time when colleagues in either the broadcast or print media are looking for someone to speak on behalf of the Vatican, they can’t find anyone and are forced to resort to “expert commentators" to represent the Vatican’s view. Ironically, therefore, on TV and radio I am often cast in the role of balancing out the Vatican critics. This is a precarious situation for a journalist, because it can easily lead to confusion about one’s role.

A related problem is that English-language journalism generally does not take the Vatican seriously. This also fuels misunderstanding. The Rome correspondent for The
New York Times
, for example, is responsible not just for the Vatican, but for Italian politics, finance, and culture, as well as the Southern Mediterranean, plus some of Central and Eastern Europe. The current occupant of the post says that he devotes roughly 25 percent of his time to the Vatican. For the broadcast media, the situation is about the same. To take but one example, CNN’s Rome bureau chief missed every Vatican story from late February 2003 until early May because he was imbedded with the Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq. Yet the
Times
and CNN are fortunate to even have people in town. Most American news outlets parachute someone into Rome to cover the Vatican when something breaks, expecting them to “figure it out as they go along." The irony is that the Vatican is perhaps the world’s most singular institution, utterly unlike anything else an English-speaking journalist has ever encountered. It is not city hall or the White House. For one thing, most business here is conducted in Italian. Beyond that, there’s the question of context. On the White House beat, a reference to something that happened in the Clinton administration is considered ancient history. Around the Vatican, it’s nothing for officials to cite decisions made by regional church councils in the fourth century. If a reporter doesn’t have at least some background in Church history and theology to make sense of such things, it’s a prescription for misunderstanding. The result is that English-language reporters tend to rely on a stock set of great myths about the Vatican, recycling them endlessly in different combinations. This is not principally the fault of the reporters, most of whom are talented professionals doing the best they can. But bad judgments and sloppy conclusions are inevitable when news organizations don’t invest the resources necessary for reporters to do their jobs. The bottom line is that English-language coverage of the Vatican often sheds more heat than light.

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