The Conclave is Coming. What kind of pope do we need now?
When Jorge Mario Bergoglio emerged on the balcony as Pope Francis, I was among a handful of people with a bird’s eye view. The Apostolic Palace, where my office was located, is crowned with a terrace offering a stunning panorama of Saint Peter’s Square, the Basilica, and the Eternal City.
Five years earlier, I had watched a motorcade make its way to the Vatican Gardens where George W. Bush would extend one last greeting to Benedict XVI before ending his presidential term. No one imagined then the German Pontiff would also exit the world stage just a few years later.
When the 43rd U.S. President visited on June 13th, 2008, not a soul was in sight as sharpshooters took position along Bernini’s Colonnade. When Francis was elected on March 13th, 2013, throngs of people abandoned their cars and rushed to the piazza to catch a glimpse of the newly elected Pontiff. “Habemus papam!” Cardinal Jean-Louis Pierre Tauran rang out (“We have a pope!”). To my relief and that of my colleagues, the French prelate ended the formula correctly in the accusative case: “… qui sibi nomen imposuit Franciscum.”
My decade of service to the Holy See as a Latin and English secretary spanned two popes more similar than most imagine. They prayed, wrote, taught, and carried out the mundane tasks of signing bulls and decrees to govern the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. They were both men of deep faith with a genuine desire to serve God’s people. Both were rather shy and reserved, though Francis preferred being surrounded by people in the Domus Sanctae Marthae while Benedict preferred the solitary peace of the Apostolic Palace.
There were differences. If it had been his choice, Benedict would have spent every day in the library. Francis would have spent every day in the barrios. Despite gripping performances by Anthony Hopkins (Benedict XVI) and Jonathan Pryce (Francis) in The Two Popes, neither actor portrays his respective character accurately (indeed, that is what makes the film so good).
Benedict, in fact, was the milder of the two, while Francis was quick-tempered and judgmental. That’s not to say that either was unaware of his weaknesses or less suited to the papacy, but simply that the public, for the most part, was not privy to private moments that manifested the humble humanity of each.
Benedict had a wonderful sense of humor and an infectious laugh. His closest friends recall tarrying at the dinner table long after the meal was finished, listening to a string of dry German jokes. Francis, too, cherished friendly company and good-natured banter, often not knowing whom he might sit with in the cafeteria of the Domus Sanctae Marthae.
Neither Benedict nor Francis was attracted to the mundane tasks of administration. Few are. Out of love for the Church, they assumed their responsibilities nonetheless, but a lack of vigilance over day-to-day affairs within the Roman Curia caused serious problems, and Francis’s successor will have to deal with them.
Each pope brings a different set of talents to the Petrine ministry. Not all are expected to exercise it in the same way. John Paul II was a brilliant communicator who spent as much time on the road as at home. Benedict XVI was a brilliant scholar who loved writing books and let others pull the strings. On Holy Thursday, Francis preferred to wash the feet of prison inmates on the peripheries rather than those of his priests in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran.
The next pope might never show his face while he painstakingly cleans up and streamlines the Roman Curia. I, for one, would not object.
The key is that he must have the right people around him. This is where Francis and his pontificate went off the rails. Without mentioning names (a time will come for that), I can say that an insidious clan of curial bureaucrats had his ear from the get-go, and that, for some reason or another, he was suspicious of those few who tried to warn him. The specific mechanisms of how this worked are complicated. Suffice it to say that Vatican institutional structures are in some cases inhibitory and in others untapped for their potential to do good.
During the interregnum period between Benedict XVI and Francis, I gravitated toward a small group of fellow staffers informally referred to as “the Sixtus-the-Sixthers.”
Cardinal Montalto, elected Pope Sixtus V in 1585, vigorously rooted out corruption and launched the most ambitious reconstruction of Rome before Mussolini wrecked havoc in the twentieth century. Sixtus was in the habit of walking daily from the Vatican to Piazza del Popolo to personally inspect progress on its construction. The taxes he levied on the city to fund that and other architectural projects were burdensome, but if nothing else, he was a man who got things done. For better or worse, he didn’t think twice before demolishing antiquities in the city to give both natives and tourists the streets, fountains, and obelisks they know and enjoy today. The Sixtus-the-Sixthers were of the persuasion that that was the type of man we needed in 2013, and Sixtus VI (the word sixtus means “the sixth”) is a very cool name to boot.
In giving us Francis, the Holy Spirit had other plans, and we may never figure out precisely what those plans were. It may also be that the Church really doesn’t need another Sixtus, but rather a number two who can do the dirty work on the pope’s behalf. Pietro Gasparri was such a figure, serving as Secretary of State under Benedict XV and Pius XI. A workaholic, Cardinal Gasparri spent his time codifying Canon Law and laying the groundwork to sign with the Kingdom of Italy the historic Lateran Treaty that gave Vatican City State its current boarders and sovereign status.
The unwieldy labyrinth of the Roman Curia needs a Sixtus, a Gasparri, or both. If he doesn’t come soon, the same insidious band of bureaucrats that grabbed Francis’s ear will continue to cause mayhem. As the Cardinals get to know one another and prepare to elect a successor, someone has to intervene.
Thank God the Holy Spirit’s action is not confined to the choir stalls of the Sistine Chapel.
