America on the
Tiber Institutions are islands of America in Rome
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.
Although their Sunday collections pay the bills, few American
Catholics have ever been inside one of the signature American institutions in
Rome: the Villa Stritch, home to American diocesan priests, 26 of them at the
moment, who work in the Vatican.
The residence, the only one of its kind in Rome, takes its name
from the first American cardinal ever appointed to head a congregation of the
curia, Cardinal Samuel Stritch of Chicago. It is, if truth be told, hardly a
propitious memorial. Stritch was named to run the Congregation for the
Propagation of the Faith in March 1958, set out for Rome on a boat, developed a
blood clot, and died on May 25, 1958, without ever taking up his post.
The other national institutions include Santa Susanna, the
American parish; the North American College, a home for seminarians; and the
Casa Santa Maria, a residence for priests doing graduate study. The Casa Santa
Maria also hosts a welcome center for American visitors.
These institutions exist, officially speaking, to serve Americans.
But they also informally hold up a mirror on the American church, reflecting
its values and traits to the rest of the world. For many Catholics here,
especially decision-makers in the clerical ranks, much of what they know about
American Catholicism is based on friendships with seminarians from the North
American College or priests from the Villa Stritch, or from attending Santa
Susanna.
In late February, NCR was given a tour of the Villa Stritch
by Msgr. Michael Banach, a priest of Worcester, Mass., who works in the
Secretariat of State and is the villas director; and Msgr. Salvatore
Cordileone, of the San Diego diocese, who works in a church court called the
Apostolic Signatura and who is the vice-director.
The original plan was that the villa, which opened in the spring
of 1968, would offer both living quarters as well as guest space for visiting
dignitaries. As the number of Americans in the curia grew, however, that second
purpose was largely discarded.
Its a big rectory, minus the parish office, is
how Cordileone jokingly described the place.
The facility is composed of two buildings, identical except that
the main building has a dining room, TV room and office on the ground floor,
plus a chapel on the top floor.
Four Polish nuns from the Warsaw province of the Felician order
use the first floor of the second building as a convent. The nuns perform
household chores and help supervise local employees. In exchange, the U.S.
bishops conference funds a Felician mission in Kenya.
By reputation, the Villa Stritch is a place where future bishops
go to incubate. Some of the highest-profile members of the American hierarchy
are former residents: Archbishop William Levada of San Francisco, who worked in
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Archbishop Justin Rigali of St.
Louis, who served variously in the Congregation for Bishops, the Secretariat of
State and the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy; and Cardinal Edward Egan of
New York, who was a judge on the Roman Rota.
When asked how many residents had become bishops, Cordileone
paused, then said: Less than half. He obviously meant to play down
the career track aspect, but less than half is still a higher
percentage of men who go on to wear a bishops miter than most American
rectories can claim.
Yet Banach said he doesnt think about such things. I
always remember the line from Isaiah, My ways are not your ways, says the
Lord. Who knows whats going to happen?
Santa Susanna is separated from the Villa Stritch by only a few
minutes on a Roman bus, but they move in different worlds. While talk around
the lunch table at the villa is of the Vatican, the Paulist priests at Santa
Susanna, Fr. Paul Robichaud and Fr. Greg Apparcel, handle the mundane pastoral
tasks familiar to any American parish.
They have to work out Mass schedules, arrange weddings and
baptisms, keep a religious education program running, and deal with the thorny
problems of building maintenance and remodeling (always complicated by the
Italian approach, which is eternally last-minute). The parish serves 190
families.
Santa Susanna also faces a host of uniquely Roman challenges. For
one thing, there is a never-ending stream of American couples that want to get
married in Rome, and guiding them through the ecclesiastical bureaucracy can be
tricky.
Example: St. Peters Basilica has an unwritten rule that only
people who have never before been married may celebrate a wedding there. Hence
even Catholics who have completed the lengthy process of having a marriage
annulled, and who are therefore considered to have never been married, may find
themselves rebuffed.
Robichaud said that lay involvement in parish ministries, plus the
warm and welcoming environment at Sunday liturgies, are the chief identifiers
of the American approach at his parish. (Case in point: Santa Susanna, like
many American parishes but atypically for Rome, invites worshipers to stop for
coffee and rolls after the 10:30 a.m. Sunday Mass).
Meanwhile at the North American College, around 200 seminarians,
drawn from some 85 dioceses, live together while studying at one of the various
pontifical universities. The current rector is Msgr. Kevin McCoy, who told
NCR in an interview at the time of his appointment in 2001 that he wants
the North American College to be a typical American seminary,
preparing men to go back into parish work.
He discourages talk of the North American College, as it is known,
as a bishop factory or the West Point of the American
church.
If a guy cant be happy going back and working as a
parish priest the rest of his life, he shouldnt be here, McCoy
said.
The Casa Santa Maria, the original location of the North American
College and now in use as a residence for American priests doing graduate work,
is two blocks away from the Trevi Fountain on the Via dellUmiltà.
Some 140 priests from 50-plus dioceses live there.
As with the Villa Stritch, a group of Polish religious women, in
this case the Sister Servants of Mary Immaculate, assist with housekeeping,
cooking and administration.
Msgr. Roger Roensch is the director of the Bishops Office
for U.S. Visitors to the Vatican, which has its offices at the Casa Santa
Maria. On Tuesdays Roensch offers tours, featuring both a stunning Baroque
chapel and a slightly disorienting, massive oil portrait of Pius IX in the
refectory.
(Pius IX welcomed the first class of Americans to Rome in 1859. He
encouraged the erection of national colleges as a way of anchoring future
leaders more firmly to Rome).
Robichaud said he believes Americans in Rome play an
evangelizing role, offering their experience and achievements to
the universal church.
We think American Catholicism is lively, beautiful and
dynamic, Robichaud said. We want people in the Vatican to see what
we do.
John Paul II often urges seminarians and clerics to learn
Rome, internalizing its values and psychology. But perhaps, at
Robichauds invitation, some Romans (whether by birth or by conviction)
will also begin to learn America.
Who knows what sparks might fly?
This is the last of a series. John L. Allen Jr. is
NCRs Rome correspondent. His e-mail address is
jallen@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, April 5,
2002
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