The Russians Are Coming???

Thus spake Lajolo....

Pope Benedict XVI could meet Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexis II "in the near future", according to the Vatican's secretary for relations with states, effectively the foreign minister of the Roman Catholic micro-state.

In an interview with the Romanian newspaper Ziua, published Thursday by the Holy See's press service, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo said he was confident that the Catholic Church's relations with Russian Orthodox leaders could improve.

A meeting between the pope and Alexis II would be "a significant gesture towards progress on the long and difficult path" of cooperation between these branches of Christianity, said the archbishop....

Lajolo stressed that relations between the Vatican and the Patriarchs were still difficult, citing differences of vision on doctrinal and historical matters and "misunderstandings... arising from different sensibilities and mentalities".

But he said these differences "should not be too hard to overcome, with a bit of goodwill on both sides."

Now, some of you smarter ones out there might be asking why Lajolo -- whose last assignment was the nunciature in Berlin -- was chosen to deliver this very important message....

And if, indeed, you are asking yourself that, you might just be onto something.

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Piu di Stato

On Settimo Cielo, Magister's floating a newfound buzz toward the name of Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo as a heavy contender to be the next Secretary of State.

Of course, basically everyone except your humble writer has been mentioned in the various shortlists floating around, but until now Lajolo's name has been conspicuous by its relative absence. Before his appointment as Secretary for Relations with States (head of Stato's second section) in 2003, he was nuncio to Germany, which would've effected a closeness with the German advocate on the Congregation for Bishops, Ratzinger. And Archbishop Angelo Sodano held the very same job Lajolo has when John Paul tapped him to succeed Casaroli as the Holy See's "prime minister" in 1990.

Magister's showcase of Lajolo comes from an address the diplomatic chief gave earlier in the week in Krakow, focusing on the topic of "The Role of the Catholic Church in the Process of European Integration."

"From the point of view... that counts," Magister says, "it was very, very Ratzingerian."

Something to mull over.....

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The English Desk Is Open

Another day, another dollar, another Philadelphian elevated to the episcopacy.

This morning, Pope Benedict named local boy Msgr James Green, head of the English-language desk at the Secretariat of State, as apostolic nuncio in South Africa and Namibia, and apostolic delegate to Botswana. The appointment comes with an elevation to the archiepiscopal rank, and Green has been assigned the titular see of Altino.

Coming but three weeks and a day after the Ordination of the Century, it seems the Holy Father wants to drown our town in celebration or something.

Archbishop-elect Green, 56, was ordained a priest of Philadelphia in 1976. From 1977-82, he served as private secretary to the late Cardinal John Krol, and shortly thereafter was sent to the Accademia.

In the diplomatic service of the Holy See, Green served in Papua New Guinea, Korea, the Netherlands, Spain, the nunciature in Scandinavia (based in Copenhagen), and spent a year in Taiwan as charges d'affaires before being brought to Rome as head of the English desk in late 2002. Green's appointment continues the longstanding trend of the post as launching pad for episcopal careers: his predecessor, Bishop Brian Farrell, LC, is the current secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and for a decade the desk was led by Msgr Justin Rigali of Los Angeles, who was made an archbishop and the first American president of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in 1985.

The archbishop-elect is the second Philadelphian among the current nuncios of the Diplomatic Corps; the nuncio in Zimbabwe, Archbishop Edward Adams, is the other. Adams received his first assignment as a mission chief a decade ago this month, when he was sent to Bangladesh. Six other Americans head up Vatican embassies, two of whom were not diplomats prior to their appointments.

The move of San Damaso's top English-language official comes less than a month before the 15 September audience at which the Pope will introduce his new Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. Bertone's lack of familiarity with English adds to the import of the English desk as a major strategic opening, and makes for the second key post in the dicastery's upper ranks which the incoming Cardinal-Secretary must fill. The other is the Secretariat for Relations with States, vacated by Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo's appointment as head of the Government of the Vatican City State, the Governatorato.

While Green's friends in Rome and the US had hoped he would end up succeeding Lajolo in light of his native language, this morning's appointment doesn't dim the priority of naming an English speaker to the post which directly oversees the Vatican's diplomatic relations. Several Anglophone prelates have been mentioned; notable among these are Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin (a former nuncio despite his lack of Accademia credentials) and Bishop Lawrence Brandt of Greensburg, a veteran of the Corps who left it in 1981 to return to his home diocese of Erie.

The Pope is said to remember Brandt distinctly from the latter's stint at the nunciature in Bonn, during which Joseph Ratzinger served as archbishop of Munich and Freising. If the Italians seek to keep it "della famiglia," a popular choice would be that of the nuncio in Brazil, 65 year-old Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri.

New apostolic nuncios are traditionally ordained to the episcopacy in Rome at the hands of the Secretary of State, unless some extraordinary reason (usually an elderly parent who can't make the trip) moves the venue to the nominee's home diocese.

That said, we here in Philly wouldn't mind another party.

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Could It Be?

The UN War Crimes Prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia makes a sensational claim:

The Vatican is helping Croatia's most wanted war crimes suspect evade capture, a top UN prosecutor alleges.

Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, has said she believes Gen Ante Gotovina is hiding in a monastery in Croatia.

Ms del Ponte's spokeswoman told the BBC News website that the Vatican had refused to help in the search for him, despite being in a position to do so....

Forces under Gen Gotovina's command are accused of killing scores of Serbs and expelling up to 200,000 from the Krajina region, now part of Croatia.

Many in Croatia regard him as a national hero....

Ms del Ponte earlier told British newspaper The Daily Telegraph she believed Gen Gotovina was "hiding in a Franciscan monastery and so the Catholic Church is protecting him".

"I have taken this up with the Vatican and the Vatican totally refuses to co-operate with us," she said.

She is quoted as saying the Vatican's Foreign Minister, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, told her it did not know of Gen Gotovina's whereabouts and was not obliged to help her.

The BBC News website contacted Archbishop Lajolo's private secretary, who refused to comment.

The Holy See is said to be prepping a statement.

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A Woman's Place: Atop the Curia

Over the summer of 2007, B16's second-in-command pledged a Roman Curia with more women in senior posts.

It took this long, but finally, they made a start earlier today.

With Cardinal Peter Turkson freshly arrived in Rome to take up his work as president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, this morning the Pope named Dr Flaminia Giovanelli, a longtime staffer at the dicastery, as its undersecretary, the third-ranking post.

As CNS notes, the slot had been open since April 2006, when then-Msgr Frank Dewane was sent back to the States as coadjutor of Venice in Florida. (A Wisconsin native, Dewane became head of the Gulf Coast diocese in early 2007.)

An expert on "the politics of development and work" who's held advisory posts at a host of global bodies, the new undersecretary, 61, becomes one of just three non-ordained officials to hold "superior" rank in the current Curia: the other two are Sr Enrica Rosanna, who broke the glass ceiling of the top-level offices when John Paul II named her undersecretary of the "Congregation for Religious" in 2004, and Dr Angelo Scelzo, the longtime #3 at the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, who's held his post since 2000. An Australian laywoman, Rosemary Goldie, first broke the barrier, serving as undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity from 1966-76.

(It likewise bears noting that the head of the Holy See's Internet Office is an American-born religious, Long Island native Franciscan Sister of the Eucharist Judith Zoebelein.)

The nod adds to a lead lineup at Iustitia et Pax that was already worth watching; alongside Turkson -- the much-touted African papabile of the moment, who was named to head it in October, B16 tapped one of his lead advisers in the drafting of his social encyclical, now Bishop Mario Toso SDB, as its #2 in the late fall. (Significantly, Toso is a Salesian confrere of Benedict's all-powerful Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.)

As other Curial chairs go, reportedly tipped for the spring is the moment's most awaited shift: Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re's retirement from the helm of the Congregation for Bishops. Head of the "Thursday Table" that votes to recommend episcopal appointees to the pontiff since 2000, Re turns 76 at month's end.

Several other dicastery chiefs are likewise past the retirement age: Christian Unity czar Cardinal Walter Kasper turns 77 in March, and the lead overseer of Religious Cardinal Franc Rodé CM turned 75 last fall, as did Cardinals Claudio Hummes (Clergy), Paul Josef Cordes (Cor Unum), and Giovanni Lajolo (Governor of the Vatican City-State).

Oh, and Bertone turned 75 in early December, too... but the lack of chatter surrounding the milestone just served to reinforce the conventional wisdom -- that is, he ain't going anywhere, at least not anytime soon.

Speaking of matters Curial, Saturday will see the Vatican's traditional observance of the feast of St Francis deSales -- the patron of writers and journalists (and, indeed, of the deaf, too) -- and, with it, the annual release of the papal message for the church's World Communications Day, this year's dedicated to the pastoral ministry of priests "in a digital world."

PHOTO: Getty

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The list as formally announced... in real-time... filling in names....

Electors:

• Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches (Argentina)
  
• John Patrick FOLEY, Pro-Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem (USA)
  
• Giovanni Lajolo, Governor of the Vatican City-State (Italy)
  
• Paul-Josef Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum (Germany)
  
• Angelo Comastri, archpriest of St Peter's Basilica, Pope's vicar-general of the Vatican-City State (Italy)
  
• Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity (Poland)
  
• Raffaele Farina SDB, archivist of the Holy Roman Church (Italy)
  
• Agustin Garcia-Gasco y Vicente, archbishop of Valencia (Spain)
  
• Sean Brady, archbishop of Armagh, primate of All Ireland
  
• Lluis Martinez Sistach, archbishop of Barcelona (Spain)
  
• Andre Vingt-Trois, archbishop of Paris (France)
  
• Angelo Bagnasco, archbishop of Genoa (Italy)
  
• Theodore-Adrien Sarr, archbishop of Dakar (Senegal)
  
• Oswald Gracias, archbishop of Bombay (India)
  
• Francisco Lopez Ortega, archbishop of Monterrey (Mexico)
• Daniel Nicholas DINARDO, archbishop of Galveston-Houston (USA)
  
• Odilio Pedro Scherer, archbishop of Sao Paulo (Brazil)
  
• John Njue, archbishop of Nairobi (Kenya)
  

five "honoraries"/over-80s:

Emmanuel III Delly, Patriarch of Babylonia of the Chaldeans (Iraq)

Giovanni Coppa, archbishop, (retired) apostolic nuncio (Italy)

Esteban Karlic, archbishop-emeritus of Parana (Argentina)

Fr Urbano Navarrete, SJ, rector-emeritus of the Pontifical Gregorian University

Fr Umberto Betti, OFM, rector-emeritus of the Pontifical Lateran University

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The VWS Forecast

OK, for those who think that the church is a gerontocracy, earlier today the Italian "grandi elettori" (comprised of Parliament and regional representatives) elected 80 year-old Giorgio Napolitano as the new president of the Republic, succeeding the retiring (and wildly popular) octogenarian, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

Napolitano (shown at left), a former Communist who served as interior minister in the last Romano Prodi government in the mid-90s, will be sworn in on Monday.

Turning to more pertinent matters, however, last week the Vatican Weather Service called a (Curial) Tsunami Watch slated to last until Benedict XVI leaves for Poland on the 25th of the month. (It might be elevated to Warning status in the interim....) These reports have gained further credence on a headline in today's edition of Il Messaggero: "Cardinal Sepe will be named archbishop of Naples."

Returning to speculation which had run rampant for months, the newspaper reported that the Naples appointment will be arriving "shortly." The current archbishop, Cardinal Michele Giordano -- who turned 75 last fall -- is said to have made it known that his successor "will [already] be a cardinal." While the brief also offers the name of the recently-elevated Cardinal Agostino Vallini, head of the Apostolic Signatura (the church's highest court) and a former auxiliary of the archdiocese, it's believed that Sepe is the safer bet, having concluded his quinquennium as prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

Il Messaggero goes on to say that, "as the year of study the Pope gave himself has passed," other chairs at the Curial table look to be changing quickly. Cardinal Angelo Sodano's succession as Secretary of State is said to be between two current cardinals: the San Damaso veteran Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, and Ratzinger's Salesian confidant Tarcisio Bertone, the archbishop of Genoa. To succeed the American Edmund Szoka as head of the Governatorato, the Vatican's civil government, the paper tips Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, the current Secretary for Relations with States, i.e. the Pope's foreign minister. A previous round of buzz had Sepe going to the Gov.

In the United States, last-minute preparations are being completed for Bishop Richard Lennon's installation in Cleveland on Monday afternoon. And, despite being a month off his 75th birthday, word is that the Holy See will soon announce Bishop Joseph Imesch's successor in Joliet. No ordination will be necessary for the designee.


PHOTO: AP/Pier Paolo Cito (Does he ever sleep?)

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Party in the Palace

It can't be said that the Romans -- for whom this time of year is, traditionally, the calm before the Christmas storm -- are terribly enthused about the disruption of the usual peace by the sudden influx of red-seeking pilgrims.

Then again, the natives do love Consistory Week -- because they get to raid the Pope's House.

(Considering that, not all that long ago, the Eternal Citizens made a centuries-long habit of looting the papal residence whenever its occupant died, keep in mind that "raid" ain't what it used to be.)

In the one element of the celebrations that the city's fulltime residents embrace whole-hog, the only time the pontifical pad ever opens to the public comes on Creation Night as the new cardinals take up spots throughout the building to receive anyone and everyone who wants to express congratulations -- and, of course, get a photo and the traditional prayer cards each has printed up to commemorate the event.

Recent classes of cardinals have been so large that more and more of the palace (and the rest of the city-state) has been used with each ensuing consistory. This time around, seven new red-hats took up places in the Paul VI Audience Hall (on the other side of the Basilica); Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo held court at his office in the Governatorato -- the Vatican's "City Hall" -- and one new cardinal was even cast away at the Vatican Library.

Together with this day's first creation, the veteran curialist Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, Cardinal John Foley shared the choice venue of the Sala Regia -- the "kingly hall" that is the palace's central room. Cardinal Dan DiNardo took up a spot alongside six others in the Hall of Blessings, the room for midsize audiences that stretches above the narthex of St Peter's.

Pushing through hundreds of people in the allotted two hours is a team effort, and so each cardinal found at his place a Swiss Guard and plainclothes officer alongside the customary table for his biretta, stocked with bottles of water, a sign with his name nearby, and a chair, which many of the older Porporati find welcome at the end of the long day.

One aide estimated that close to 800 lined up for his cardinal, including the various cardinals, bishops, diplomats and other high-fliers permitted to cut in front of the patient layfolk and rank-and-file clergy and religious who queue up. In another touch, each new cardinal was visited this year by B16's private secretary, Msgr Georg Ganswein.

Following tomorrow's Ring Mass, the Pope will host a lunch for the entire college of cardinals. The shared meal is an innovation on the part of Benedict, himself a former Cardinal-Dean who wants his successor's electors to know each other better.

PHOTO 1: AP/Andrew Medichini
PHOTOS 2, 3: AP/Alessandra Tarantino

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RED DAWN: The List... Already One Short

To put the icing on your Announcement Morning cake, the current holder of the "most reliable Italian vaticanista" crown, Il Giornale's Andrea Tornielli, has just reported that the revelation of the foreseen class of cardinals-designate will, indeed, take place at the General Audience later today.

Among other seemingly-certain names cited by Tornielli and others, you can bet that the list will include the archbishops of Barcelona, Bombay, Brasilia, Genoa and Sao Paolo, alongside a boatload of curialists, including the prefect of Oriental Churches Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, the presidents of the Pontifical Councils for the Laity (Rylko), Cor Unum (Cordes), the head of the Governatorato Giovanni Lajolo, archpriest of St Peter's Angelo Comastri -- and, of course, at last, John Patrick Foley. (After 23 years and seven months, minus two days, thank you, God, for allowing Philadelphia to see this day. Thank you, Lord, thank you... it's been a long wait.)

Also tipped to be included among the reds-to-be is the new head of the Vatican archives Archbishop Raffaele Farina, 74. A veteran of the Vatican Library -- and, more pertinently, a Salesian confrere of the "Vice-Pope" Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone -- Farina was only ordained to the episcopacy last December and named to his current post in June.

The Turinese paper also reported that, included among the Pope's list of "honorary" cardinals -- those given the red hat over the retirement age of 80 -- was to be Polish Bishop Ignacy Ludwik Jez, who spent three years in the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. However, while in Rome with a pilgrimage from his home country, Jez fell ill yesterday and died in an ambulance en route to the "Vatican hospital," the Policlinico Gemelli.

Pictured above, the late designate was 93.

There is precedent even to this: in 1998, on the morning of John Paul II's announcement of the seventh red-hat batch of his reign, one of the intended nominees, Archbishop Giuseppe Uhac, the #2 official at the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, was found to have passed in the night.

At the moment when the late pontiff was to have revealed Uhac's elevation, he instead announced his homegoing.

More to come.

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Out of Africa

The name of Archbishop Christoph Pierre has acquired an elevated currency over the last year. After Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo was transferred from the Vatican's "foreign ministry" to the city-state's governor's house in September, Pierre was widely viewed among the more likely to get the nod as Benedict XVI placed the Secretariat of State's top ranks under new management.

The appointment as Secretary for Relations with States eventually fell to Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, a native Corsican serving as nuncio in Eritrea, but the buzz that Rome's eye was on the 61 year-old Frenchman proved itself right last month when Pierre, since 1999 the Holy See's point man in Uganda, was given one of the Vatican's highest-profile diplomatic postings as apostolic nuncio to Mexico.

In his farewell to Kampala, the departing nuncio took the unusual step of offering some parting advice:

THE outgoing Papal Nuncio to Uganda, has called for a more modernized and community networked Catholic Church, saying people can't continue living in a patriarchal system by listening to orders from above. He said the church must be interactive and community networked for the people to appreciate their faith...

[Pierre] has urged the Catholic church in Uganda to initiate diocesan pilgrims [sic] where ordinary people can interact and get to know their faith deeper.

According to a very positive local report, the archbishop -- who served for four years as nuncio in Haiti, and in New Zealand, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Brazil and the UN Mission in Geneva before becoming a mission chief -- he leaves with the credibility and goodwill to call for change:

He is known by virtually every Catholic in Uganda. From individual families; primary, secondary schools and universities; to hospitals and dioceses, Pierre has been to almost every one of them.

In the one month, short of eight years, he has represented the Pope at the Nunciature in Mbuya, Kampala, Archbishop Pierre has attended a church function in almost every parish. He has consecrated churches in the smallest sub-parishes; presided other funerals of the faithful departed and international events that have attracted millions of people.

Dignitary or commoner, Pierre has had ease interacting with people. This was echoed on April 15, 2007 at the thanksgiving/farewell event that the Kampala Archbishop, Cyprian Lwanga, organised for him at Lubaga.

The different speakers applauded Pierre's humility and readiness to help people regardless of their statuses. Representing government, second deputy premier Henry Kajura, said he met the outgoing nuncio at almost every church function that he (Kajura) was invited to.

Robert Ssempa, the head of the laity in Kampala Archdiocese, said Pierre has been more of a diocesan bishop than a papal representative. "He did not mind how low a function was or who had organised it. "If he had time, he would come to grace it. Pierre has had courtesy to eat with simple people in homes, schools, hospitals and even the internally displaced people, in the same way he has pleasured to dine with fellow VIPs."

When the announcement of his transfer to Mexico reached FM radios, Pierre was preparing to travel to northern Uganda and Karamoja to console the suffering people. Nonetheless, he promised to go there as soon as he returned to Kampala....

[W]hen on December 29, 2004 the nuncio in Burundi, Archbishop Michael Courtney, was assassinated, Rome chose Pierre to oversee the Nunciature. Pierre who would man the Fort till January 22, 2005, when a substantial nuncio was named, led the Courtney funeral Mass before thousands at the Regina Mundi Cathedral in Bujumbura, on December 30.

Also, a couple of years ago, when Bishop Joseph Zziwa left the country for treatment, Pierre readily accepted an appeal to stand in for him. During the month, he acted for the Ordinary of Kiyinda-Mityana Diocese, Kajura recalled," he ensured pastoral visits to parishes, confirmed children and ordained priests."

...and dreams of Sambi doing a "stand in" for a US diocese danced in the heads of many.

Anyone need a breather out there?

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The Red Roster, '08 Edition

After the longest "honeymoon" in recent memory, last November's intake of new cardinals finally got their dicastery assignments from Pope Benedict this morning.

As the entire college of cardinals is charged aiding the pontiff in overseeing the global church, each member of the papal "senate" is, regardless of home-base, traditionally given a slate of Curial memberships to bring their respective strengths and expertise to the service of the Holy See's universal mission, both within and outside the church's walls.

Among other highlights of the list:

• Not a single soul was added to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Don't ask why.
  

• Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa -- the president of the Italian bishops' conference -- emerged as the slate's closest thing to a "big winner," picking up memberships on three influential congregations: Oriental Churches, Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and the all-powerful Congregation for Bishops, to which B16 also named Cardinals Andre Vingt-Trois of Paris, Vatican City's governor Giovanni Lajolo and the Laity Czar Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko.

• Already mentioned as a potential successor to Cardinal Agostino Vallini after the expected transfer of the church's "chief justice" later this month to the vicariate of Rome, Cardinal Lluis Martinez Sistach of Barcelona was named to sit alongside Vallini as a member of the church's highest tribunal, the Apostolic Signatura. (A noted canonist, Martinez was named to the other legal dicastery -- the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts -- last month, along with US Archbishops John Myers of Newark and Raymond Burke of St Louis.) The Barcelona cardinal, 70, was also named to the Pontifical Councils for the Laity and the Family, heading to the latter with Vingt-Trois.

• Celebrated for his excellent relations with Ulster's Protestant community, the primate of All Ireland Cardinal Sean Brady of Armagh nabbed a slot on the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, while the church's highly-regarded leader in Muslim-dominant Senegal, Cardinal Theodore Adrien Sarr of Dakar, was left off the list for the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, being named instead to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the office overseeing the church's mission efforts.

• With the positio recently completed and amid swirling rumors that the beatification of Pope John Paul II could come as early as next spring, two of the late Great's inner sanctum were given seats on the body tasked with green-lighting the Polish Pope's movement toward sainthood, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Alongside Rylko -- Cardinal Karol Wojtyla's backup secretary during the two conclaves of 1978 -- Saints sees the arrival of Cardinal Angelo Comastri, the archpriest of St Peter's who, so it's said, John Paul's Polish circle would've favored as his successor... had he been a member of the college at the time of his death. A staunch advocate of the JP cause who recently floated the possibility of moving his remains from the subterranean grottoes to the Vatican basilica's main floor, Comastri was the lone red-hat to join Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow -- Wojtyla's secretary of four decades -- for the tomb-side vigil to mark this year's anniversary of the pontiff's 2005 death. "People are convinced that John Paul II is already a saint and that therefore he can intercede for them to God," Comastri said in a late 2005 interview with the Italian bishops' daily paper, Avvenire.
  

• At its essence, liturgy's all about communication, so it's appropriate that Philadelphia's own Cardinal John Foley -- long the Vatican's "great communicator" and now grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem -- was named to Divine Worship. A missionary in his own right given his life's work of improving the church's accessibility and openness to the press, the Columbia J grad was likewise named to the Propaganda Fide.
  

• And, lastly, the church in Texas' longstanding advocacy in defense of immigrants got an even firmer stamp of papal approval with the appointment of Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston to the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerants. Having reportedly hoped for a light Roman docket given the time he's already spending away from home, the South's first red-hat got his wish -- he was the class' only member given a single assignment, and the only one of the new intake named to Migrants. Three other Stateside prelates (namely, Cardinals Adam Maida of Detroit, Theodore McCarrick of Washington and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn) might already sit on the council, but the combination of the Houstonian's location at ground zero of the national debate over immigration reform and a seat on the Vatican body that handles the church's response to the movement of peoples could just mean that Benedict's tapped his designated hitter on the issue for the American audience.
  

And lastly, a related stat that's been floating around of late... possibly not without reason.

Under usual circumstances, the US appointment docket will likely see a bit of movement between the days following this weekend's USCCB meeting in Orlando and mid-July's effective suspension of Vatican business for the summer. (For the record, as of this writing, eight American dioceses stand vacant, with another ten whose ordinaries are serving past the retirement age of 75 and holding on for successors.)

But more than these, the potential of another milestone of note looms across the water.

Since 1984, when then-Msgr Foley was named an archbishop and president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, at least two US prelates have concurrently led dicasteries of the Roman Curia. The figure first hit a peak of four in 1996, when the then archbishop of Denver, James Francis Stafford, was named president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity (the others: Cardinals William Baum at the Penitentiary, Edmund Szoka at the Holy See's "budget office," and Foley), and again following then-Archbishop William Levada's appointment to the CDF in 2005 until Szoka's retirement a year later.

In the two years since, adding in Foley's 2007 appointment to the Holy Sepulchre post, the figure's been cut in half. And now, with Stafford's 76th birthday approaching late next month, the prospect of a lone Stateside dicastery-head for the first time in a quarter-century has become a topic of interest in some rather keen chattering circles... which can't help but muse that some reinforcement's in the offing.

As always, stay tuned.

PHOTO: Reuters

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The Revolution Begins

Minutes ago, at the end of the just-concluded audience with the Secretariat of State marking the handover of its top job from Cardinal Angelo Sodano to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Benedict XVI personally announced the appointment of Archbishop Dominique Francois Joseph Mamberti, the nuncio in the Sudan and Eritrea, as the new Secretary for Relations with States, the Vatican's top foreign relations post.

The name of Mamberti, 54, had surfaced in imminent pre-appointment speculation in the Italian press. He was ordained a bishop in 2002, when he was assigned to the nunciature in Khartoum. The Holy See's new "foreign minister" previously served at the nunciatures in Algeria and Chile, the UN mission in New York, then returned as a staffer to San Damaso's Second Section; he speaks French, English, Spanish and, of course, Italian.

Though born in Marrakesh, Mamberti was ordained for the French diocese of Ajaccio. He succeeds Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, who today formally takes the reins of the Governatorato -- the government of the Vatican City-State -- on the official retirement of Cardinal Edmund Szoka, the onetime archbishop of Detroit.

As a parting gift, the Pope gave his now-former top lieutenant a replica of the state of Our Lady of Altoetting, where he was by Benedict's side on Monday.

More soon.

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Below is the translation of this morning's announcement from the Holy See Press Office, made minutes ago:

The Holy Father has accepted, according to Canon 354 of the Code of Canon Law, the resignation of Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State, asking him, however, to remain in office until 15 September 2006, with all the faculties belonging to that office.

On the same date -- next 15 September -- the Holy Father will appoint Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Archbishop of Genoa, as the new Secretary of State.

On that occasion, His Holiness will receive in audience the Superiors and Officials of the Secretariat of State, to publicly thank Cardinal Angelo Sodano for his long and generous service to the Holy See and to present to them the new Secretary of State.

And there's more:

The Holy Father has accepted, according to Canon 354 of the Code of Canon Law, the resignation of His Eminence Cardinal Edmund Casimir Szoka, President of the Pontifical Commission for the State of the Vatican City and President of the Governatorato of the same State, asking him, however, to remain in office until 15 September 2006, with all the faculties belonging to that office.

On the said same date -- next 15 September -- the Holy Father will appoint H.E. Mons. Giovanni Lajolo, Titular Archbishop of Cesariana and Secretary of the Section for the Rapport with States of the Secretariat of State, as the new President of the Pontifical Commission for the State of the Vatican City and President of the Governatorato of the same State.

Boom.

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Tough Talk from Stato and Rino

Speaking of our friends in San Damaso, they've been coming out strong on the cartoon question.... Much stronger than the Pope....

Whether they're doing this with the blessing of the Apartment remains to be seen.

Vatican prelates have been concerned by recent killings of two Catholic priests in Turkey and Nigeria. Turkish media linked the death there to the cartoons row. At least 146 Christians and Muslims have died in five days of religious riots in Nigeria.

"If we tell our people they have no right to offend, we have to tell the others they have no right to destroy us," Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's Secretary of State (prime minister), told journalists in Rome.

"We must always stress our demand for reciprocity in political contacts with authorities in Islamic countries and, even more, in cultural contacts," Foreign Minister Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo told the daily Corriere della Sera.

Reciprocity -- allowing Christian minorities the same rights as Muslims generally have in Western countries, such as building houses of worship or practicing religion freely -- is at the heart of Vatican diplomacy toward Muslim states.

Vatican diplomats argue that limits on Christians in some Islamic countries are far harsher than restrictions in the West that Muslims decry, such as France's ban on headscarves in state schools....

Pope Benedict signaled his concern on Monday when he told the new Moroccan ambassador to the Vatican that peace can only be assured by "respect for the religious convictions and practices of others, in a reciprocal way in all societies."

He mentioned no countries by name. Morocco is tolerant of other religions, but like all Muslim countries frowns on conversion from Islam to another faith.

Iraqi Christians say they were well treated under Saddam Hussein's secular policies, but believers have been killed, churches burned and women forced to wear Muslim garb since Islamic groups gained sway after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003....

"Enough now with this turning the other cheek! It's our duty to protect ourselves," Monsignor Velasio De Paolis, secretary of the Vatican's supreme court [the Apostolic Signatura], thundered in the daily La Stampa. Jesus told his followers to "turn the other cheek" when struck.

"The West has had relations with the Arab countries for half a century, mostly for oil, and has not been able to get the slightest concession on human rights," he said.

Bishop Rino Fisichella, head of one of the Roman universities that train young priests from around the world, told Corriere della Sera the Vatican should speak out more.

"Let's drop this diplomatic silence," said the rector of the Pontifical Lateran University. "We should put pressure on international organizations to make the societies and states in majority Muslim countries face up to their responsibilities."

So is this a case of "Boss sends the underlings out to voice the message he can't say" or "Underlings speak out, pressuring Boss to do so"?

We will see.... Remember, after all, that the Pope is going to Turkey in November.

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Nicora to.... Assisi?

The Pope is toying with our heads.

Minutes ago, Benedict XVI effectively quashed voluminous Roman speculation (reported in English here and by Alejandro Bermudez) that Cardinal Attilio Nicora, head of the Holy See's investment office, was in pole-position to become the next Secretary of State by naming Nicora as the permanent papal legate to the Patriarchal Basilicas of St. Francis and S. Maria degli Angeli at Assisi.

The appointment was announced in this morning's Bollettino of the Holy See Press Office. Cardinal Nicora, 68, a management guru also serving as chief planner of the Pope's impending reorganization of the Roman Curia, will remain head of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, which handles the Vatican's stock portfolio.

The position of legate to the Assisi basilicas was created by the Pope in the November motu proprio which imposed a new jurisdictional structure over the churches, severely curtailing the respective Franciscan communities which had previously been granted autonomy over them. This tightening of the reins was done in light of controversial initiatives of ecumenism and other events through which the Assisi Franciscans were seen as baptizing the agenda of the Italian Left.

As a result of the papal decree, all plans for the churches must now be approved by the bishop of Assisi-Nocera Umbra-Gualdo Tadino (currently Archbishop Domenico Sorrentino, the former secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship) and, where applicable, the presidents of the regional Umbrian Episcopal Conference or even the president of the Italian Episcopal Conference. While lacking jurisdiction of his own, the document charges the Assisi cardinal-legate with "perpetuating by his moral authority the lengthy bonds between the sacred places to the memory of the Poverello [St. Francis] and the Apostolic See." He is also deputized to "impart the Papal Blessing during the celebrations over which he will preside on the major liturgical solemnities."

In recent weeks, anxiety has gripped the Secretariat of State as the question of the succession to 78 year-old Cardinal Angelo Sodano has edged ever closer to center stage. Many of Benedict's major diplomatic moves to date have involved apponting non-diplomats as apostolic nuncios, nominations which have been seen as a systematic curtailing of the Accademia culture from which the Holy See's Diplomatic Corps has been culled for centuries.

The most prominent of these moves was, of course, last week's appointment of Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald from the presidency of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue to the nuncio's post in Cairo. Besides being the first head of a Roman dicastery in memory to be moved to a position outside Rome, Fitzgerald -- a theologian -- had never been a member of the Diplomatic Corps, so dispatching him to one of the world's diplomatic hotspots was an indicator that, indeed, a Stato pedigree is not necessary in this pontificate's concept of how Vatican diplomacy is best served.

Given that background, the appointment of Nicora -- who had spent his priesthood in formation work and much of his episcopate in administrative posts in the Italian church -- would have signalled a "Doomsday moment" with the advent of a new culture in San Damaso: a top superior who was not one of their own, with none of the established loyalties or understandings which come with said experience.

While the prospect of Nicora's appointment to the helm of State has seemingly been dodged, several non-diplomatic possibilities remain, most prominently Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa, the former secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Joseph Ratzinger. Within the Corps and its alumni, names frequently mentioned are Cardinal Gianbattista Re, currently prefect of the Congregation for Bishops (a former Sostituto, head of the general affairs section); Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, currently in Stato as secretary for Relations with States (the Vatican's "foreign minister") and a former nuncio to Germany, and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, a veteran of the Corps who served both in the Curia as secretary for the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and as the Holy See's permanent observer to the United Nations outpost in Geneva.

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Nicora???

*ENGLISH-LANGUAGE EXCLUSIVE*

Now this is interesting....

ADN Kronos, the Italian news agency, is reporting that the new front-runner to succeed Cardinal Angelo Sodano as Vatican Secretary of State is none other than the Pope's stockbroker: Cardinal Attilio Nicora, president of the APSA, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, which handles the Holy See's investment portfolio.

The succession to Sodano, who turned 78 last month, was already a heated topic of discussion in the waning days of John Paul II before gaining further fervor in these first months of the papacy of Benedict XVI.

The latter uptick is particularly due to a foreseen adjustment of the role of the Secretariat of State in light of the presence of the first head of the Holy Office to be elected Pope in almost half a millennium. Stato has unofficially enjoyed a "superdicastery" status as the curial clearinghouse since the days of Pius XI and officially since Paul VI's curial reform, Regimini Ecclesiae Universae. Of course, of the 20th century Popes, Pius XII held the Secretary's post for nine years, John XXIII was a lifer in the diplomatic corps before going to Venice and Paul VI spent a decade as one of two pro-Secretaries of State when Pius decided to not fill his old job after the death of Cardinal Luigi Maglione in 1944. With the Grand Inquisitor now Pope, the pecking-order of precedence is seen to be in for a change.

Nicora, 69 in March, has been Benedict's point-man on a study looking into what has been called the "simplification" of the Roman Curia, which the Pope intends to undertake deep in the New Year. There have been flow-charts in B16's study over the last few months.

The entrance of Nicora's name into a speculation pool which has included, among many others, the seasoned papal diplomats Cardinals Jean-Louis Tauran and Crescenzio Sepe and Archbishops Diarmuid Martin, Leonardo Sandri and Giovanni Lajolo (the latter two currently serving as Sodano's chief aides) is surprising as the APSA chief has no experience whatsoever in the Holy See's diplomatic corps which, as master of San Damaso, he would head.

The cardinal spent most of his priesthood as a professor of canon law at the seminary in his native Milan, later rising to its rectorship. Ordained an auxiliary bishop of Milan shortly after he turned 40, most of his episcopate was spent in close collaboration with the Holy See, not as a curialist but as an officer of the CEI, the Italian bishops' conference. He became bishop of Verona in 1992, went back to the CEI in 1997, was elected its full-time vice-president in 2000, and was finally brought into the Curia to head APSA in 2002, succeeding Cardinal Agostino Cacciavillan, the well-regarded former nuncio to Washington (and widow of Benelli).

Although the impact of the Cardinal-Secretary in the area of internal church politics is negligible, given the expansive outward focus of his dicastery, it is worth noting that when he was made a cardinal in 2003, John Allen placed Nicora in a group which, in the correspondent's view, "embod[ies] a throwback form of traditionalism that seeks to translate church teaching quasi-automatically into social policy."

And in one of those quotes which tends to stick with those who know the subtext, an aquaintance of the potential Secretary's said of Nicora late 2002 in the pages of NCR that, "If I needed someone to baptize my son, he wouldn’t necessarily be the man I would call. But to balance my bank account, yes, sure."

Take that for what it's worth.

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Word's Out

The Friday favorite is posted, with a picture of Allen greeting B16 at the 7 July audience for the Irish Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern -- JLA was in the press pool.

John Allen gets Schonborn on the phone with more on evolution:

In that regard, some Catholic observers pointed to a 2004 document of the International Theological Commission, the main advisory body to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, titled "Communion and Stewardship." Paragraph 69 of the document treats the distinctions among different meanings of words such as "unguided" and "random."

Scientists debate, the paragraph said, whether life's development is best explained by explicit design or random mutation and natural selection. This is not an argument that theology can settle. Following Thomas Aquinas, however, the document says that divine providence is consistent with either hypothesis. God's causation can express itself through both necessity and contingency, so that even if the development of life seems random to empirical observation, it certainly doesn't to God.

I had hoped to speak to Schönborn about all this, but unfortunately he was in Poland as I wrote the piece. This week, however, I was able to reach him. My question was, what does he make of paragraph 69 of the ITC document? In the end, is his problem with evolutionary theory itself, or with its potential philosophical and theological abuse?

This is his response:

"I agree completely with what was formulated in number 69 of 'Stewardship and Communion.' And I feel confirmed in my convictions by this document. In any case I think it is necessary to cite the whole paragraph 69, when it states: 'In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science.'

"For Catholic thinking," Schönborn told me, "it was clear from Pius XII's encyclical, Humani generis, that evolutionary theory can be valid to understand certain mechanisms, but it can never be seen or accepted as a holistic model to explain the existence of life."

Schönborn's point thus seems to be that in "absolute" form, meaning as a "holistic model" that would exclude design as a metaphysical matter, "evolutionism" turns into a philosophy that parts company with Christianity.

Hmm... Again, I'm not a science guy, so this one's for the experts.

And, apparently, State shot itself in the foot again, this time being the alleged source of the defense on Israel:

A senior Vatican source told NCR on July 30, however, that Navarro was not the author of the documents. In fact, according to this source, the first time Navarro saw them was on the papal plane bringing Benedict XVI back to Rome on July 28 from his vacation in Val d'Aosta, after they had already been released.

According to this source, the documents were prepared by Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, the official in the Secretariat of State responsible for relations with governments -- in effect, the pope's foreign minister. They were then released under the aegis of the Vatican Press Office.

If so, this would be the third high-profile incident since the election of Benedict XVI in which the Secretariat of State has generated controversy. The first came with a May 20 declaration stating that there is no canonical case against the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, related to charges of sexual abuse, despite the fact that it is the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that has responsibility for these cases; the second with a draft version of Benedict's telegram of sympathy for the July 7 London bombings, which referred to the attacks as "anti-Christian."

Another -10 for State.

Check the link for a really succinct and solid synthesis of JP's leadership style John gave in Detroit earlier in the week. Twenty-seven years of papal governance in four points. Remarkable. Give it an intense read.

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The Roman Chessboard

Coronas, citronella torches, disco blasting on the radio and a long respite in the jacuzzi....

My friends, this is livin'. For once.

This morning, the Pope received Archbishop Paul-Josef Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum -- and the gentle hand behind Deus caritas est -- in private audience. Last Monday, Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, got face time with the Fluffiness.

If you're asking yourself "What's afoot?" you just might be onto something.

The names of Rylko and Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, have circulated at the front of the line among potential successors to Cardinal Jozef Glemp of Warsaw, who turned 75 in December 2004. One scenario being floated has Rylko -- an associate of Karol Wojtyla's long before the election of the Polish Pope -- returning home, with Benedict's countryman Cordes taking his place at the helm of the first-ranking Council.

Given the presence of another German, the Ratzinger uber-confidant Bishop Josef Clemens (lots of Josephs dancing around, no?) as secretary at Laity, that would signal a move for the cleric who served as private secretary to Cardinal Ratzinger for twenty years.

Throw in the persistent rumblings of the dispatching of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, to Genoa in succession to Secretary of State-designate Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, combine that with the Pope's intent to tighten the reins on the episcopal selection process and put it in trusted hands, and you have a highly potential... something.

Not to mention the discussions on who's going to succeed Lajolo.....

Stay tuned.

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