With the Pope or with Bush? "Studi Cattolici" Stands with Both
A special issue of the Opus Dei-inspired magazine offers an in-depth critique of the anti-Americanism of a large part of the Church and of the Vatican itself
by Sandro Magister
ROMA - The "Studi Cattolici" ("Catholic Studies") monthly is directed by Cesare Cavalleri, an Opus Dei numerary, and is printed by Ares, the publishing house that has exclusive rights in Italy for the works of St. Josemaría Escrivá, founder of Opus Dei. While it doesn¿t officially represent the thinking of Opus, the journal was born of the group and moves in the same direction.
That¿s another reason why its latest issue is so striking. It opens with a special section titled "The American Experiment," containing contributions from people who are outside Opus Dei and from various cultural backgrounds. Not all are Catholic but all share in offering a robust eulogy of America - as well as the America that fought in Iraq.
Thus it¿s a position that intentionally goes against the current of Catholic and Church opinion, and not only in Italy. Cesare Cavalleri, in an introduction to the special issue, explains:
"Not all of the readers of ¿Studi Cattolici¿ will find themselves in agreement with the opinions gathered in this issue. This only makes sense, and in the future we also will host contrary opinions that are as equally supported with documents. The service we intended to provide was to overcome the anti-Americanism - often irrational and sometimes hysterical - that smolders in certain sectors of public opinion. These pages are an invitation to think in a larger, broader way."
The new world order described by the eight authors has nothing to do with the old bipolar framework. There¿s a single superpower: the United States. And antiquities historian Marta Sordi has no hesitation in comparing it to the Roman Empire: that empire "that the first-century Christians identified with the ¿katéchon,¿ that which holds back the invasion of barbarians."
Massimo De Angelis and Alberto Mingardi analyze the neo-conservative thought that is at the root of the new American geopolitics, with its conviction that the world is guided more by ideas than by interests.
And Paolo Sorbi sheds light on the religious framework underlying this thought and that is capable of elaborating a political theology with Messianic overtones - in complete contrast to what happens in secularized Europe.
Francesco D¿Onofrio and Ferdinando Adornato, political scientists who are active in politics, examine the impact of the American superpower on Europe, NATO and the United Nations.
Michael Novak directly analyzes the policies of President George W. Bush, including misunderstandings with the Holy See.
And on this latter question, "Studi Cattolici" hosts an essay by Sandro Magister, which is reprinted below. Here¿s how Cavalleri summarizes it:
"While the pope in his lofty magisterium implored for peace as a gift from God, without statements that were directly anti-American, some high-level Vatican officials expressed dissonant views that created divisions even within the Catholic world. At issue are opinions, legitimate in the plurality of debatable questions, that naturally do not imply judgment either on individuals or on the Holy See¿s entire foreign policy."
As well as appearing in "Studi Cattolici," the special will be published by Ares as a book (in the photo above).
Vatican Foreign Policy and the Bush Administration by Sandro Magister
"Studi Cattolici", July/August, 2003In the photo finish between George W. Bush and Al Gore in the 2000 U.S. presidential elections, the Vatican had no doubt about whom it preferred: the former. In the Vatican¿s eyes, Gore boasted very poor credentials. He was the vice president of Bill Clinton, the president who greatly displeased the Church not because of the "red light" aspects of his private life but for entirely political and public reasons, especially in international policy.
THE PRECEDENT OF CAIRO
Gore, of one mind with Clinton, headed the U.S. delegation to the 1994 U.N. conference in Cairo on population and development. The American platform at that conference could not have been more antithetical to the Church¿s position. The current Vatican foreign minister, Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, had already had a taste of it in Washington in November 1993 when he met the U.S. undersecretary of state for global affairs, Timothy Wirth, a staunch supporter of birth control and especially of guaranteeing the "right" to abortion through the force of law in every country in the world. Wirth used to keep a package of condoms in plain view in his office, but he removed it from his desk before Tauran¿s arrival: and this, it was later written, "was the only result reached from the meeting." The subsequent months saw a crescendo of harsh verbal clashes between the Holy See and the administration in Washington. On August 31, just a few days before the start of the Cairo conference, papal spokesman Joaquín Navarro-Valls even publicly called Gore a liar for having said that the United States did not support an abortion policy. "The documents speak for themselves, and they say the opposite," replied Navarro, holding up and shaking the conference¿s preparatory papers.
In reality, Vatican polemics also were aimed at the United Nations, especially the office for demographic activities, the UNFPA, headed by Nafis Sadik, a Pakistani. She was the protagonist that year at an audience at the Vatican with John Paul II, which she later described as a clash of civilizations: modernity against papal obscurantism. At the time, the Vatican¿s observer to the United Nations was Archbishop Renato Martino, whose term is remembered for outspoken interventions against the immorality of the policies pursued by the U.N. bureaucracy.
THE EARLY BUSH
But with the election of Bush, Jr., to the White House, that stormy period seemed to come to an abrupt end. The new president is a typical Wasp - white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant. As an adult, he returned to dedicated religious practice and he reads the Bible every morning. He dubbed his program "compassionate conservatism." But more than this latter aspect, which those in the Vatican view coolly, what made a positive impression were his first decisions: in favor of school vouchers, in support of the social work of religious groups, and against abortion. In choosing a head for the new Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, Bush turned to a Catholic with broad experience in the field, John DiIulio. At the head of the Department of Justice, he named a Pentecostal from the Assemblies of God, John Ashcroft, who¿s decidedly pro-life. He eliminated the Clinton administration¿s funding of the program that under U.N. auspices promoted abortion and family planning in the world¿s poor countries, leaving only Europe to continue financing it.
In short, in just a few weeks, Bush seemed to breathe new life into the dream that had taken shape in the years of the presidency of Ronald Reagan and of the first John Paul II with the collapse of the Soviet empire and the peaceful Christian revolution in Eastern Europe: a providential and lasting alliance between the Catholic Church and America, founded on shared values like defense of human life and the family, and on common geopolitical objectives like human rights, economic liberty and democracy. The U.S. cardinals and the White House enjoyed warm relations. Bush met twice with the pope in one year. To serve as his ambassador to the Holy See, the president named Jim Nicholson, a fervent Catholic, a Knight of Malta, and one of the key organizers of his electoral victory.
THE SEPT. 11 TURNING POINT
Then came Sept. 11, 2001, to change the landscape. Two days after the destruction of the Twin Towers, Ambassador Nicholson met John Paul II at Castel Gandolfo. This is how he described the encounter in a book he wrote several months later: "After much discussion and even a prayer together, the pope said he believed that the events of Sept. 11 were indeed an attack not just on the United States, but on all of mankind, and we were justified in taking defensive action. He asked me only to appeal for him to President Bush that the United States adhere to the high standards of justice for which our country had become known."
The Holy See lent its support to the war in Afghanistan. But it gave it quietly: not in official public statements but only in remarks Navarro made to a Reuters correspondent during John Paul II¿s visit to Kazakhstan. In the United States, the understatement was interpreted as aimed at safeguarding interreligious dialogue between the Church and Islam and at averting a clash of civilizations. But the way events played out shows that top figures in the Holy See were mainly interested, even then, in disassociating themselves from the United States and particularly from the new geopolitical strategy of the Bush administration.
THE SCANDAL'S CALVINISTS
Helping to accelerate this separation was an unforeseen explosion in the United States: the scandal of priests guilty of sexual abuse and especially of bishops who were unable to handle it. The media campaign that highlighted the scandal for months struck at the core of the authoritativeness of the hierarchical Church, not only in the United States but also on a global scale. And this convinced many Vatican officials that the campaign was contrived: the latest product of anti-Catholic aversion by American Wasps and Jews, both very influential in the media. And that wasn¿t all. Those in Rome looked with annoyance at the way in which the U.S. bishops reacted to the disaster: mercilessly expelling priests who had been accused even of a single act committed decades ago, in accordance with a zero-tolerance policy that was judged in the Roman Curia to be "more Calvinist than evangelical."
WAR IN IRAQ
But then what really set the United States and the Vatican on different paths was the war in Iraq. A strong precedent had already been set in 1991. The Vatican, in virtual isolation and counter to the U.N. position, came out against the first Iraqi war. What decided the matter more than anything else for the Holy See was the desire to maintain the status quo to protect the fragile Christian communities in Muslim countries. And this interest was also determinative in the Vatican¿s "No" to the second Iraqi war.
This time, however, there are more elements involved. In the view of various Vatican leaders, America is the one that¿s causing problems - even more than the threat of Islamic terrorism - because of the Bush administration¿s imperial ambitions. Against these ambitions, the top curial figures launched a hammering, continuous opposition, many months before the embattled war began. And the pope served as the charismatic leader of this battle of civilizations against the hubris of the one superpower: This, at least, was how it was perceived on the world stage.
WHAT THE POPE REALLY SAID
But the perception was inaccurate and misleading. Before, during and after the conflict, John Paul II never pronounced the anathemas that his various collaborators were offering to the media. The pope opposed the war in Iraq but he never condemned it as immoral and contrary to the Christian faith. He never affirmed that it was a "crime against humanity," as Tauran and Martino, on the other hand, repeatedly did. There is a qualitative leap between the pope¿s pronouncements on peace as the ultimate imperative of political activity and those of some of his top aides.
The pope¿s words distinguish themselves for their religious character. The peace that he preaches essentially "comes from God." The passages he dedicates to concrete ways of building peace in the Gulf are rare and extremely measured - and they take the form of a discourse on method, not of precept. One example of his focus on method came Jan. 13, 2003, in a speech to ambassadors from around the world: "War cannot be decided upon, even when it is a matter of ensuring the common good, except as the very last option and in accordance with very strict conditions." Another appeal for responsible decision-making came in the Angelus address of March 16: "We know well that peace is not possible at any price. But we all know how great is this responsibility." In these as in other passages, the pope never excludes war in Iraq from the array of practicable and just decisions.
But it was another story when it was top Vatican diplomats who were doing the talking. The only one who was careful to ensure his statements paralleled those of the pope and to avoid a collision course with Washington was the new Holy See observer to the United Nations, Celestino Migliore. Outside the curia, another authoritative prelate who sought carefully to strengthen and not weaken solidarity among the Church, the West and America was Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the pope¿s vicar for the Diocese of Rome and the president of the Italian bishops¿ conference, whose positions are well-reflected by the Italian Catholic daily "Avvenire."
THE FRENCH FACTION
But the statements of Migliore and Ruini hardly earned a mention in the media, starting with the Vatican¿s daily "L¿Osservatore Romano." Media interest focused exclusively on those who competed with each other in expressing anti-Americanism in its various shapes and sizes. Martino was the most loquacious and rash, to the point that the Vatican induced him to temper his remarks. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, secretary of state, described himself as a realist, but his realism was reduced to public pronouncements of simple fear: of a new Vietnam with massive numbers of dead, of a billion Muslims unleashed for decades against those who provoke them today. Cardinal Pio Laghi, sent to Washington to deliver a papal message into Bush¿s hands, took away from that meeting more ammunition with which to rebuke the American spirit: individualism, consumerism, Calvinist ethics, pursuit of earthly success as a confirmation of celestial blessing, self-appointment as the bulwark of good against the empire of evil.
Then there¿s the French faction in the curia, that of Tauran and Cardinal Roger Etchegaray. The latter, sent to Baghdad with a papal letter for Saddam Hussein, later sketched an almost-idyllic portrait of the Iraqi dictator. As far as Tauran goes, he¿s got greater responsibilities as foreign minister. His exaltation of the United Nations as the supreme source of international legitimacy contrasts crudely with the criticism the Vatican hurled for years against the same institution for promoting a "culture of death," with arguments that were diametrically opposed to the United Nations and were aimed at invalidating its authority. But even more embarrassing is Tauran¿s definition of the war in Iraq as a "crime against humanity." If these words have any meaning, they demand a radical "either-or" of every Christian conscience, and require the entire Church to affirm an absolute "No." Which the pope, on the other hand, neither said nor even intimated. Thus, the only possible interpretation left for Tauran¿s phrase is that of rhetorical redundancy.
THE JESUIT THINK-TANK
Finally, there¿s "La Civiltà Cattolica," the journal of the Jesuits in Rome that by its statutes is read and authorized by the Vatican Secretariat of State before being printed. On Jan. 18 and May 17 it published editorials that both are implacable indictments of Bush¿s America. The second editorial, published at the end of the war, was even more hostile than the first. There is not a single line in eight pages of text that offer approval for the slightest aspect of the American operation. Even the "rather positive" fact that the conflict lasted less than a month was in itself an accusatory retort: An Iraq that was so weak posed no danger to anybody and thus shouldn¿t have been attacked.
Why, then, did the United States want make war even at the cost of "upsetting world order, depriving the United Nations of all authority, wounding international law, creating an abyss between Europe and the United States, and stirring up desire for revenge in the Islamic world against the invading West?" The answer of "La Civiltà Cattolica," both in this and the preceding editorial, is: oil. That¿s the material motive of a more consolidated "dominion of an imperialist character."
The United States, in fact, follows the "law of the jungle," and thanks to it "the spirit of war, fighting and violence seem to have taken the upper hand at the start of the 21st century." What is striking is the huge disparity between these invectives and the treatment "La Civiltà Cattolica" reserves to the Islamic world, including its more aggressive elements. Here, the analysis is carried out with an imperturbable detachment, without offering any objection: "What the Islamic world will have difficulty accepting is that the United States set up some form of stable settlement in the Middle East. [É] For the Islamic world, it would be a new form of colonialism that they could not permit because the Koran (s. 3:110) tells believers in Allah: ¿You are the best of the nations raised up for men; you enjoin what is right and forbid the wrong and believe in Allah.¿ Thus it is impossible that Westerners, who according to them are unbelievers and corrupt, should make Islamic believers subject to their wicked interests. Allah doesn¿t want it and his will must be made respected through jihad, even unto ¿martyrdom¿ for the honor of Allah and the destruction of the infidels."
If these are the geopolitical views of the Vatican leadership, laid out in black and white by the Jesuits, their informal spokesmen, it¿s no surprise that Condoleezza Rice, Bush¿s national security adviser and a daughter of a Protestant pastor, should say, as she did: "I don¿t understand the position of the Church of Rome." The Vatican¿s diplomacy, on the other hand, has shown that it understands - in its own way - what the United States is and wants. And consequently it has set itself in motion - in inordinate opposition.
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The link to the home page of Ares and "Studi Cattolici":
> www.ares.mi.it__________
The book:
Cesare Cavalleri, Paolo Sorbi, Massimo De Angelis, Alberto Mingardi, Michael Novak, Francesco D¿Onofrio, Ferdinando Adornato, Sandro Magister, Marta Sordi, "L¿esperimento americano. Verso un nuovo ordine mondiale", Ares, Milano, 2003, pagine 128, euro 9,00.__________
For those interested in pursuing the topic, a book of great interest is the following, which charts the differing geopolitical visions of America and Europe. The author doesn¿t mention the Vatican but it is clear that in his framework the Holy See¿s vision is close to Europe¿s:
Robert Kagan, "Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order", Random House, 2003.__________
More on these themes at this site:
> The Vatican Against America: A War of Words (9.6.2003)
> "War Diary, January-April, 2003." Author: Pietro De Marco (18.4.2003)
> Bush & God: A Puzzle for the Church in Europe (8.4.2003)
> After - and Beyond - the Tide of Pacifism. An Essay by Pietro De Marco (24.2.2003)
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Go to the home page of
> www.chiesa.espressonline.it/english/, to access the latest 30 articles and links to other resources.
Sandro Magister¿s e-mail address is
[email protected]
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29.7.2003
