Excerpt from the National Catholic Reporter: A curial shake-up
by John L Allen Jr
On May 10, two key personnel moves were announced by Pope Benedict XVI.
Italian Archbishop Fernando Filoni was named Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, traditionally known as “Propaganda Fide.” Since June 2007, Filoni had been the “substitute” in the Secretariat of State, which is the Vatican’s key position for internal church affairs -- something like the White House Chief of Staff. Meanwhile, Archbishop Giovanni Becciu, also an Italian, was named to take over as “substitute.” Becciu is a veteran of the Vatican’s diplomatic service, most recently in Angola from 2001 to 2009 and then in Cuba. Two observations suggest themselves.
First, by consensus the role of the “substitute” is the most complex job in the Roman Curia. Whoever holds it has to keep a staggering range of details in resident memory, and the administrative success or failure of a papacy often rests on his shoulders. Those who have played it well over the years have been the stuff of legend: Giovanni Battista Montini, for instance, was the substitute under Pius XII from 1937 to 1953, and went on to become Pope Paul VI; Giovanni Benelli, who was Paul’s own substitute from 1967 to 1977, was widely understood to be the power behind the throne.
Given how difficult it is to master the role, many observers found it curious that Filoni would be shipped out after less than four years, to be replaced by someone in Becciu who has no previous experience at all working inside the Vatican. Those who know Becciu say he’s a genial and effective diplomat, loyal to his superiors at the Secretariat of State -- but that’s not quite the same thing as readiness to step into what is arguably the most demanding administrative position in the Catholic Church.
(It may be, of course, that Becciu rises to the occasion. Filoni too was never a creature of the Curia, having served in Vatican embassies around the world since 1982 -- including a memorable stretch as the nuncio to Iraq, when he was the only ambassador not to leave Baghdad during the U.S.-led invasion in April 2003.)
When the dust settles, the most obvious beneficiary of these moves would seem to be Italian Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Secretary of State, who will not have to be concerned about the new substitute forming a rival center of power. Becciu is said to stand well outside the normal curial power blocs. By virtue of being Sardinian, he’s also not part of the usual Italian regional networks focused on Lombardy, or Emilia-Romagna, and so on.
The question, however, is whether clarity about who’s in charge may be achieved at the expense of elevating someone who’s going to need a fair bit of on-the-job training -- compounding what critics, at least, have sometimes seen as a deficit of governance under Bertone.
Second, the appointment of Filoni to Propaganda Fide, replacing Indian Cardinal Ivan Dias, is the latest chapter of what one might call the “re-Italianization” of the Roman Curia under Pope Benedict XVI.
As of this writing, four of the Vatican’s nine congregations, one of its three tribunals, and six of its twelve pontifical councils are led by Italians. In the Secretariat of State, the top official, Bertone, and his most important deputy, now Becciu, are also both Italians.
To be sure, Benedict XVI tries to ensure that major Catholic cultures are represented in Rome. When he recently needed a new prefect of the Congregation for Religious, for instance, Benedict made it clear he wanted a Brazilian. Part of the reason Benedict may have felt comfortable sending Filoni to Propaganda Fide, in fact, is because he recently tapped Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai, of Hong Kong, as its number two official. Still, it’s striking that 13 of the 25 most senior decision-making positions in Benedict’s papacy are now held by Italians.
This preference for Italians is, in some ways, the most natural thing in the world. Benedict tends to assign senior positions to people he knows and trusts; as he told journalist Peter Seewald in Light of the World, he wants a family spirit among his top aides. By virtue of having served in Rome for a quarter-century, a disproportionate share of the people he knows to share that outlook will inevitably be Italians.
In the case of Propaganda Fide, there may also be a special logic for an Italian. From an administrative point of view, the department is a behemoth, controlling a complex network of financial assets and real estate holdings designed to generate support for overseas missions. For just this reason, the head of Propaganda Fide over the centuries has been known as the “Red Pope.”
One of Filoni’s immediate tasks will be to bring Propaganda Fide into compliance with a new financial reform decreed by Benedict XVI, which came on-line in April. One aim of that reform is to avoid the financial scandals that arose under Propaganda Fide’s former prefect, Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe of Naples, who has been accused of cutting sweetheart deals for Italian politicians on apartments in exchange for funneling millions of Euro in public funds to his office for restoration work that was never actually performed. The calculus may have been that because the financial sleight-of-hand to be reformed reflects Italian ways of doing business, it requires an Italian to get things under control.
Whatever the logic, it seems fair to say that for the foreseeable future, Italian sensibilities will loom awfully large in defining the outlook and priorities of the papacy of Benedict XVI. Whether that’s good or bad, helpful to the church’s fortunes or a hindrance, is almost beside the point -- it is what it is.
Sources includehttp://ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/triptych-benedict%E2%80%99s-papacy-and-hints-what-lies-beyond
http://ncronline.org/users/john-l-allen-jr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Filoni
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cevang/index.htm
http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bbecciu.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Curia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Paul_VI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_XII
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarcisio_Bertone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_Secretary_of_State
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilia-Romagna
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Dias
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccscrlife/documents/rc_con_ccscrlife_profile_en.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savio_Hon_Tai-Fai
http://www.ignatius.com/Products/LIWO-H/light-of-the-world.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescenzio_Sepe
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