Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes; Fourth Edition

by Eamon Duffy

  Against this background the so-called Vatileaks scandal erupted. From mid-2011 an anonymous source began leaking Vatican documents to the Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, including papal correspondence and confidential memos from Mgr Georg Gänswein, the former Lefeb-vrist seminarian, who had been Benedict’s secretary and trusted gatekeeper since 2005. Gänswein’s involvement fed press appetite for the revelations, for he had been nicknamed ‘Bel Giorgio’, ‘Gorgeous George’, by Italian journalists, on account of his film-star looks and dashing life-style (his leisure interests included tennis, skiing and flying light aircraft). Though none of the leaked documents provided proof of criminal malpractice, cumulatively the dossier revealed a labyrinthine and chronically dysfunctional central administration, riven with poisonous rivalries and jostlings for position. Benedict’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Bertone, was portrayed in the leaked documents as unpopular and isolated, inclined to cronyism and resistant to attempts at financial or administrative reform. It emerged that the pope’s own butler, Paolo Gabriele, was the main source of the leaks, though those who thought him a puppet for more exalted conspirators pointed out that he could neither read nor understand the German in which some of the key documents were written. Gabriele’s quarters in the Vatican were discovered to be stacked with crates of papers, purloined, as he claimed, in a desire to purge the Church of corruption. In a blaze of publicity, the pope’s butler was tried, convicted and imprisoned by a specially constituted Vatican court in October 2013, but pardoned by the pope two months later. Benedict stubbornly resisted lobbying to replace Bertone as Secretary of State, but he was badly shaken by the scandal, and established a commission of three senior cardinals to investigate the affair. On 17 December 2012 they presented him with a 700-page report. The secrecy surrounding this dossier gave scope for unconfirmed rumours of phone-tapping, conspiracy, intimidation and blackmail, and a Vatican clerical homintern, meeting in Roman saunas and gyms.

  Whatever its actual contents, the Commission of Cardinals’ findings were apparently disturbing enough to crystallize Benedict’s concern that he no longer had the energy to tackle the multiple problems which beset his pontificate. Never robust, and now in his eighty-sixth year, Benedict’s energies during long papal ceremonies had been visibly flagging for some time: he had been obliged to use an undignified electric trolley during processions in St Peter’s. In the course of a book-length interview with the journalist Peter Seewald in 2010, Benedict had said that ‘if a pope clearly realizes that he is no longer physically, psychologically, and spiritually capable of handling the duties of office, then he has a right and, under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign.’53 At the time of its publication this remark might have been taken as a reflection on the incapacities of the painful final years of John Paul II. It was in fact a statement of sober conviction, and in the face of his own failing strength and mounting difficulties, Papa Ratzinger now determined to act on it. He seems to have revealed his intentions to no-one but his brother Georg, with whom he floated the idea sometime before Christmas 2012. In the course of a routine meeting with cardinals on 11 February 2013, and speaking rapidly in slurred Latin so that only one (female) journalist grasped the enormity of what was being said, Benedict dropped his bombshell. He was careful to avoid any implied criticism of his predecessor’s dogged continuance in office, but was equally clear about his own different perceptions.

  ‘I am well aware’, he declared, ‘that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfil the ministry entrusted to me.’54 He therefore announced that he would step down at 8.00 p. m. on 28 February, clearing the way for the election of a successor.

  Benedict’s sensational resignation was taken by many as a tacit admission of his own incapacity to deal with the problems which had multiplied in his pontificate. He had been elected to halt the secularization of Europe: Europe was more secular than ever. Some in the Church had hoped that a long-term Curial insider would initiate reform of the Church’s sclerotic central administration: that administration was mired deeper than ever in scandal. At one level, therefore, his resignation could be seen as an admission of defeat. Yet the first papal resignation for six centuries was also a revolutionary act of extraordinary imagination and courage, a bolt from the blue, precipitating a momentous shift in understanding of the very office of pope. For more than a millennium the papacy had functioned at least as much as a religious icon as an administrative centre, and the papal office had been exercised and perceived as different in kind from that of all other bishops. A pope’s episcopal colleagues are obliged to offer their resignation when they reach seventy five (an offer which is rarely refused), and all cardinals are automatically disqualified from participation in papal elections when they turn eighty. Only the pope had been thought to be above questions of effectiveness and competence. Both Paul VI and John Paul II had made a religious virtue out of their old age and incapacity, seeing in them a participation in the Cross of Christ, which had to be carried to the end. In his brief and unassuming statement to the cardinals, in which he asked forgiveness for his own deficiencies, Benedict accepted the legitimacy of that view, but rejected it for himself. With his insistence that the papacy is not only Christianity’s most exalted religious office, but precisely a hugely demanding job, with mundane responsibilities which the incumbent must be fit to discharge, this modest professional theologian changed the rules of the game. Many regretted and some deplored his decision. But it was clear at once that Benedict had liberated all future popes to think of their election as a fixed term appointment, just as he had liberated the cardinal electors by the realisation that the Church is not necessarily stuck with an ageing or unsuitable choice: death was no longer the only mode of release.

  Benedict’s resignation took the Church into uncharted waters. What would a retired pope be called, where would he live, what would he wear? These questions were by no means trivial: the Church has a long memory, and the Vatican had not forgotten Avignon and the era of rival popes. There were concerns that an ex-pope in retirement in Bavaria or elsewhere might become a focus of division. In due course Benedict announced that he would assume the title ‘His Holiness Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI’ and continue to dress in papal white, that he would live in a specially converted convent building in the Vatican grounds (after a period living at Castel Gandolfo, to give his successor a clear run in) but also that he would disappear from public view, living a secluded life of prayer and study in preparation for the one final journey which all men must make. The sentiments were admirable, though many thought that his courageous act of renunciation would have been more complete had he reverted to his own name, to simple clerical dress, and had taken himself permanently out from under his successor’s feet. More problematically, the proposed arrangements for Benedict’s Vatican seclusion included the company of Mgr Ganswein, whom Benedict had appointed Prefect of the Pontifical Household as recently as December 2012. This powerful and prestigious post controlled access to the reigning pope, and carried with it a titular archbishopric. ‘Bel Giorgio’ was duly consecrated just one month before Benedict’s resignation speech. It now appeared to be envisaged that he would remain as Prefect of the Papal Household, while continuing also as Benedict’s secretary and companion. It was by no means obvious that such an arrangement was workable, or if workable, would be likely to appeal to Benedict’s successor.

  A POPE FOR THE POOR

  As the cardinals streamed to Rome in the last weeks of February, the shock of Benedict’s resignation gave way to a ground-swell of rare cardinalatial candour a
bout the dysfunction at the heart of the Church’s central administration. Cardinal after cardinal called for urgent reform of the Curia as the first priority for any new pope. The sense of crisis was heightened by breaking news that the Scottish cardinal, Archbishop Keith O’Brien, had been denounced by a group of serving and former clergy, claiming that, while seminary rector, he had pressed sexual advances on them. O’Brien’s immediate resignation as Archbishop of Edinburgh, and the announcement that he would take no part in the election, supported these allegations and brought the sexual scandals which had haunted the Church for the last two decades insistently close to the Conclave itself.

  Despite an official media black-out on their pre-conclave deliberations, the cardinals’ fiercely critical mood was an open secret, with some heavyweights among them vehemently demanding access to the secret Vatileaks report. This was refused, but it was abundantly clear that no Curial cardinal now had any hope of election. With no obvious front-runner among the rest of the Sacred College, there was widespread speculation that the cardinals might turn to a relatively youthful candidate from one of the Church’s growth-points in the developing world. Pundits canvassed the prospects of a wide range of ‘papabili’ from Africa, Asia and the Americas. The weight of media speculation, however, settled on a tough—minded Italian. Angelo Scola, the sixty-three year old son of a socialist truck-driver, Archbishop of Milan, and a former Patriarch of Venice, combined impressive theological credentials with a vigorous and innovative approach to pastoral ministry. He shared Benedict XVI’s theological concerns and many of his opinions, had enough prior experience of the Curia to be thought able to tackle its reform, and enough distance to be thought willing to do so. A Scola pontificate would combine doctrinal continuity with institutional reform, a prospect which it was thought might meet the mood of the Conclave.

  The Conclave opened on 12 March to widespread expectation that it would be a long-drawn-out process, expectations confounded next afternoon by the news that white smoke was billowing from the Sistine Chapel chimney after only five ballots. In the one-hour delay between the first smoke and the announcement of the identity of the new pope, speculation rose to frenzy, with most commentators agreeing that so swift an outcome must mean that the Cardinal of Milan had indeed been elected. Exultant and eager to be first past the tape, the Italian bishops’ conference sent Scola a fulsome congratulatory telegram. Their enthusiasm proved as premature as it was unfortunate. The diffident, bespectacled figure in white who stepped awkwardly on to the balcony of St Peter’s, hands by his sides, and greeted the crowds with the words, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, good evening’, was in fact a seventy-six year old Argentinian of Turinese parentage, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, the Jesuit who had been runner up in the previous conclave. The first non-European pope for more than a millennium, the first pope from the Americas, and the first Jesuit pope, Bergoglio’s choice of papal title was hardly less startling: he would be called Francis, a name never before adopted by any pope.

  Bergoglio’s credentials as a papal candidate turned unequivocally on his manifest personal integrity, his passionate engagement with and on behalf of the poor, and his exemplary pastoral ministry as Archbishop of Buenos Aires. Despite dwindling clergy recruitment there, he had quadrupled the number of hand-picked priests working in the rawest slums, and he had been open to pastoral experiments, suggesting that his priests might establish devout layman as church workers in disused warehouses and factories in the barrios, preaching and distributing communion where there were no clergy. He was an outspoken critic of both social injustice and ecclesiastical careerism. He had refused to live in the Archbishop’s palace, preferring an austere bed-sit in the diocesan office-building. He worked from a drab office smaller than that of his secretary’s, kept his own diary, disposed of the Episcopal limousine, and travelled unaccompanied to pastoral engagements by bus or subway. On being made a cardinal he refused to spend money on the appropriate robes, and instead had those of his predecessor tailored to fit, but in any case went on wearing black like a simple priest. He declined social invitations, and usually ate alone. But he was no puritan – he was compassionate towards the women forced into prostitution by poverty, and ferocious to those clergy, ‘the new Pharisees’, who refused to baptise the women’s children. A strong and vocal upholder of the Church’s traditional teaching on pro-life issues, he nevertheless deplored those who harped obsessively on sexual morality, who ‘wanted to force the whole world into a condom’, when they should be denouncing social injustice and above all proclaiming the gospel of Christ and his message of love and mercy to sinners. He loved music (favourite conductor Furtwängler, as the best interpreter of Beethoven and Wagner), cinema (favourite movie Babette’s Feast), literature (favourite poet Hölderlin in German, favourite prose-writer, his friend Jorge Luis Borges). His speeches and sermons were informal, folksy, larded with jokes and asides, often politically incorrect. And he was also an avid local soccer fan, had been a keen dancer in his youth, and, even as cardinal, took pride in being ‘quite knowledgeable on the two ages of tango’. For all the geniality, however, he was a fiercely outspoken critic of financial and political corruption, and of economic oppression, above all the exploitation of workers by sweated labour. ‘Political but not partisan’, he scourged unstintingly the failures of successive Argentinian governments to improve the conditions of the poor. As Archbishop he preferred not to dispense communion himself at major liturgical celebrations, in case the great and the good, whom he believed fattened off the poor, should use communion from the hands of the archbishop as an image-burnishing ‘photo-op’. The gentle and grandfatherly manner cloaked an austere and steely personality. It was plain at once that all these emphases would be carried over into the new pontificate. The choice of name was itself a manifesto, an unfamiliar identification of the papal Church with the spirit of the ‘poverello’, the little poor man of Assisi, symbol of humility, renunciation of riches, and care for the creation. Bergoglio later claimed to have given no thought to a name till the balloting had passed the necessary seventy-seven, when his friend Cardinal Hummes of Brazil embraced him and whispered ‘Don’t forget the poor’. He departed from his prepared speech at his first press conference to exclaim ‘How I long for a church that is poor, and that is for the poor’, and humility and poverty were evident priorities from the moment Papa Bergoglio stepped onto the balcony. Before blessing the crowds that first evening, he bowed low before them and asked for their prayers. He pointedly referred to himself not as pope, but as the city’s new bishop (a shift of emphasis which made its way awkwardly into the house style of Vatican press-releases in the weeks that followed). The evening of the election was cold and wet, and as he had robed in white for the first time, the papal master of ceremonies had offered him the ermine-lined shoulder-cape, the Mozetta, favoured by Benedict. Bergoglio declined both the ermine and an elaborate gold pectoral cross. The eagerly reported rumour that he had added ‘you wear it Monsignor, carnival time is over’, sadly turned out not to be true. But ‘si non é vero, é ben trovato’ as they say in Rome. It was clear that this pope would have no interest in styles of head-gear or hand-made red slippers. After his balcony appearance Pope Francis travelled in the bus with the rest of the cardinals back to the Casa Santa Marta, the hostel where they had stayed during the Conclave. At his inaugural Mass he was simply, almost shabbily, vested in plain white vestments, in contrast to the gold of those around him. When shown round the papal apartments by Archbishop Ganswein he exclaimed ‘there’s room for 300 people here. I don’t need all this space,’ and was as good as his word, opting to live instead in a modest set of rooms back at the Casa Santa Marta, where he fetched his own meals from the communal canteen and said mass each morning for the staff. On one of his first mornings as pope he discovered that a Swiss Guard had stood on duty outside his door all night: anarchically, Papa Bergoglio insisted on fetching the thunderstruck soldier a chair and making him a sandwich. On the day after his
election he went to Santa Maria Maggiore to pray before the icon of the Salus Populi Romani: on the return journey to the Vatican he diverted the car to the Piazza Navona, so that he could collect his own luggage and pay his bill at the hostel where he’d stayed before the Conclave.

  Such gestures filled media coverage in the days after his election: the humble pope, the people’s pope, the pope on the bus. But there were disturbing shadows from his past as well, above all the shadow of Argentina’s Dirty Wars, and questions about Bergoglio’s role in the Church’s cosy relationship with the military dictatorship there in the 1970s. Bergoglio, who was born in 1936, was the eldest son of a family of pious Turinese immigrants who had made a modest success in Peron’s Argentina. The biggest religious influence in his life was his grandmother Rosa, a devout Piedmontese peasant who embodied for him the wisdom of the folk, and whose spiritual testament, written for her children, he kept reverently in his breviary, along with the letter she had sent him on the day of his ordination. Entering a diocesan seminary at the age of nineteen, he had soon moved to the Jesuits because of their position ‘in the front lines of the church, grounded in obedience and discipline’.55 Bergoglio’s deepest conviction was to be that the most authentic place of human and divine encounter was always at the margins, the periphery. Even as a young man he saw mission as the Church’s overwhelming priority. He hoped to be sent as a missionary to the Far East, till a devastating illness when he was twenty-one left him with only one lung and put paid to those hopes. Ordained priest in 1969, he was rapidly identified as a high flier, and was appointed Master of Novices and professor in the local Jesuit seminary. While still only thirty-nine he was appointed head of the Jesuit order (Provincial) in Argentina in 1976, only three years after his own final solemn profession as a Jesuit.