America on the
Tiber Bringing get-it-done spirit to the curia
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome
What the Vatican and the rest of the Catholic world know of
America is often forged by contact with Americans in Rome. Americans in the
curia, in religious life, in pontifical universities, in the diplomatic corps,
and in institutions such as the North American College serve as a bridge
between two worlds. They bring the fruits of American culture to the universal
church, while their Roman experience gives them a new perspective back
home.
In this series, a kind of introduction to America on the
Tiber, NCR offers a look at Americans who matter in Rome, what they do
and what difference they make.
The number of Americans in the Vatican curia is at a historic
high, and though they bring a new level of organization and a drive to get
things done that is unusual in curial circles, none is expected to have near
the effect on church operations as the two Americans many observers identify as
the most consequential to have served in the Roman curia.
Ironically, those two more or less cancel each other out. One, now
retired in the United States, created a financial mess; the other, still
working in the curia, cleaned it up.
First, the mess.
No American ever cut a swath through the Vatican like Archbishop
Paul Marcinkus, originally from Cicero, Ill., and today retired to a home
outside Phoenix. In the 1970s Marcinkus was an intimate of Pope Paul VI and the
organizer of the popes trips. Under the popes patronage, Marcinkus
became head of the Vatican Bank. He presided over a mammoth financial scandal
that ended with a $244 million Vatican payout to enraged creditors of the
Banco Ambrosiano, an institution linked to Marcinkus that folded amid
$3.5 billion in red ink.
At best, observers say, Marcinkus was guilty of naiveté; at
worst, criminal misconduct. As a Vatican prelate, however, he enjoyed immunity
from prosecution. (In Marcinkus defense, the Vatican Bank made money
under his tenure, so it did not have to borrow to pay off the $244 million. But
clearly the loss hit the institution where it hurts, as did perceptions of
conniving and shady deals.)
This was one of the darkest pages of Catholic history in
terms of government and moral issues, Italian church historian Alberto
Melloni told NCR. On that basis alone, Marcinkus is the most
important American ever to work in the curia.
The Marcinkus tragedy makes the impact of American Cardinal Edmund
Szoka, formerly of Detroit, quasi-redemptive.
Aggravated by the Marcinkus crisis, from 1970 to 1992 the Vatican
reported an unbroken string of 23 consecutive budget deficits, topped by a
remarkable $87 million in red ink for 1990 (a staggering sum given that the
annual operating budget of the Holy See is $200 million). Szoka, a
tough-as-nails administrator with a reputation for running his archdiocese in
the black, was brought to Rome in 1990 to clean house, a job he held until
1997. He is today the governor of the Vatican city-state.
Szokas impact was immediate. The Holy See had a balanced
budget in 1992 and every year since. Szoka, 74, managed the turn-around despite
granting pay raises and absorbing the costs of new nunciatures around the
world. He pulled it off, observers say, by doing the unthinkable and the
unheard-of -- he gave Vatican departments a budget and made them accountable
for what they spent.
One could say Szoka restored American karma in the curia.
The Roman curia is, for all intents and purposes, the executive,
judicial and legislative branches of church government all rolled into one. The
cardinals and archbishops who run its nine congregations and 11 councils, plus
the Secretariat of State and the various tribunals and other offices, are
therefore heavyweights in the Catholic church. Below their level, the hundreds
of monsignori, priests, sisters and even a few laity who do the
day-to-day work are influential, if lesser-known, figures.
One way to measure the impact of a national church is by assessing
the role of its personnel inside the Roman curia.
According to Vatican figures, there are some 1,800 employees of
the Roman curia (excluding Vatican Radio, the Vatican library, and the Vatican
newspaper LOsservatore Romano). Curiously, neither the Vatican nor
the American bishops conference maintains a list of Americans in the
curia. By contacting each of the offices, NCR identified 46 Americans.
(Several offices could provide only estimates, however, since they do not track
employees by nationality.)
There is currently at least one American in every congregation
except two, Evangelization of Peoples and Oriental Churches. There are
Americans in seven councils.
The American contingent is at a historically high level.
Archbishop John Foley said that when he arrived in Rome 17 years ago, there
were 13 Americans living at the Villa Stritch, the residence for diocesan
priests working in the curia. Today there are 26. The increase reflects an
internationalization of the curia, breaking what had been a virtual
Italian monopoly.
The majority of Americans are priests. In addition to the diocesan
priests, there are two cardinals, two archbishops, and five religious order
priests. There are also seven religious sisters, three lay women and one
layman.
Two other American curial prelates, Cardinal William Baum of the
Apostolic Penitentiary and Archbishop Charles Schleck of the Congregation for
the Evangelization of Peoples, recently retired.
The priests come from 21 dioceses. Philadelphia has the highest
number of curial personnel, with three priests, one archbishop (Foley), and one
laywoman, Joan Collemacine-Parenti in the Council for the Family. Foley hosts
an annual dinner for Philadelphians in Rome. The Lincoln, Neb., diocese, with
just 88,000 Catholics, has two priests in the curia, Msgr. Michael Jackels in
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Fr. Thomas Fucinaro in the
Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
Beyond Szoka, todays most powerful American curialist is
Archbishop James Harvey, 52, originally from Milwaukee and now serving as
prefect of the papal household. He was previously in the Secretariat of State,
where he ran the English-language desk.
Harvey is the first American to hold his post, which makes him the
keeper of the popes public schedule. When a head of state arrives to meet
the pope, its Harvey who greets them. If a bishop wants front row seats
for some VIP buddies at an audience, its Harvey he has to persuade.
Though the role is important, one should not exaggerate. Papal
secretary Stanislaw Dziwisz is a more influential figure. It is Dziwisz who
lives next door to the pope and controls access to his apartment. VIPs seeking
face time with John Paul have to go through Dziwisz, not Harvey.
The other two American prefects in the curia are James Francis
Stafford, 69, who heads the Council for Laity, and Foley, 66, who runs the
Council for Social Communications. Neither is counted among the innermost
circles of the curia. (Councils, such as those led by Stafford and Foley,
advise and promote, while congregations have decision-making authority.)
In an interview in his office in Romes Piazza San Calisto,
Stafford told NCR that one virtue of having Americans around is that
some of the complexity of the United States can be explained to Europeans, who
like to think of the New World as one big place called America.
I come from Baltimore, then served in Memphis and
Denver, Stafford said. I learned that the cultures, including
church cultures, in each are remarkably different. If it took living there for
me to get it, imagine how hard it is from over here.
Among Americans below the level of prefect, observers speak
especially highly of Immaculate Heart Sr. Sharon Holland in the Congregation
for Religious. Holland, those sources say, has won respect through competence
and loyalty, in the process diminishing some of the suspicion that has
surrounded American religious women since the Second Vatican Council
(1962-65).
Among the men, insiders such as Stafford point to Msgr. Frank
Dewane, undersecretary of the Council for Justice and Peace, as among the most
impressive figures. Dewane worked for the Pepsi Corporation before entering the
priesthood, and has represented the Holy See at international conferences.
Another up-and-coming figure is Msgr. Michael Banach, who is in
the Vatican diplomatic service and who runs the desk for Central and Eastern
Europe in the Secretariat of State. (Banach is also the administrator of the
Villa Stritch.) If his career follows a normal pattern, he will eventually be
named an archbishop and papal nuncio, as happened in March 2001 to American
Timothy Broglio, a Cleveland native and now nuncio to the Dominican
Republic.
Banach, who comes from Worcester, Mass., said one lesson curial
service has imposed is patience.
As Americans, we want to get things done right away, to
clear the desk, he said in an interview at the Villa Stritch. Here
you see the value of waiting a day or two. A situation might resolve
itself.
Thats not to say the get-things-done American spirit has not
rubbed off a bit in the curia. Szoka, for example, talked Dominos Pizza
founder and conservative Catholic activist Tom Monaghan into financing the
computerization of the Roman Rota, the main curial court. That act sped up
response time and efficiency in notable ways.
Collemacine-Parenti said that over her 30 years inside the
Vatican, she has seen a shift toward greater efficiency and informality, in
part under the impact of American ways of doing business.
Yet, most observers concur that American curialists have not, at
least in any dramatic fashion, pushed the Vatican toward a greater embrace of
the characteristic values of American Catholicism -- democracy, say, or
egalitarianism. This is in part because people chosen to work in the curia tend
to have already exhibited key curial values, such as caution and loyalty.
It is the price of admission, said Giancarlo Zizola,
the dean of the Vatican press corps who writes for the Italian daily Il Sole
delle 24 Ore. Especially with the Americans, appointments are
informally screened, psychologically and theologically, to ensure a certain
Romanità.
Most are already in some sense Roman, he said.
Thats how they survive in Rome.
John L. Allen Jr. is the Rome correspondent for NCR. His
e-mail address is jallen@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, March 8,
2002
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