That many did not like Benedict XVI’s silent revolution is evident by looking at the (often unjust) attacks Benedict XVI’s pontificate had been subjected to. And that Benedict XVI’s revolution is being blocked and slowed down has been made evident in many instances during Pope Francis’ pontificate. Perhaps, the most important instance is the account of the book “The Great Reformer,” written by the London-based journalist Austen Ivereigh.

Formerly a spokesperson of Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor of Westminster and deputy editor of the progressive British Catholic magazine ‘The Tablet’, and currently manager of CatholicVoices, Ivereigh has reported that the so-called “Team Bergoglio” has worked behind the curtains to back the Archbishop of Buenos Aires’ election as Pope.

According to Ivereigh, the ‘team’ was composed by cardinals Murphy, Walter Kasper, Carl Lehman and Godfried Daneels. Ivereigh wrote,generating controversy, that the four cardinals “secured Bergoglio’s assent” (although this claim will be modified in the reprints of the book). The issue was raised of the validity of Bergoglio’s election, since ‘Universi Dominici Gregis’, the Constitution that regulates papal elections, forbids any ‘political’ agreement before a conclave.

On the other hand, the Constitution does not forbid the exchange of opinions, the informal dinners, and discussing possible candidates. And the cardinals of Team Bergoglio (Murphy could not even take part in the Conclave) did exactly this: dinners, exchange of opinions and so forth. Yet, the four asked Fr. Federico Lombardi, Director of the Holy See Press Office, to dispute the book’s account, which he did. To which Ivereigh responded by underscoring that they were only denying they had an agenda, not that they urged for Bergoglio’s election.

Ivereigh writes that the four had backed Jorge Mario Bergoglio during the 2005 conclave, and that Bergoglio himself dissuaded them from keep on voting for him –voting that served to block Ratzinger’s election. It seems just a minor detail, but in fact it is a revealing piece of information. After eight years of Benedict XVI, the cardinals chose to look back. It is even a symbolic choice, in a world where everything has a meaning. And the meaning is: we should have walked a different path.

Scandals and continuous attacks on Benedict XVI’s pontificate must be read against this backdrop: the attacks have provided an excuse for cardinals to switch the pre-conclave meetings’ themes from the universal problems of the Church and of announcing the Gospel, to the urgent problem to solve the practical controversies. And they have also backed the notion that the urgent problems may be solved with a reform of the reform. Id est, returning to the past, masking it as a great novelty.

Good part of the biased debate at the pre-conclave meetings is mirrored in the current debate. The so-much discussed Curia reform had been backed by many during the meetings. Yet, just a few cardinals knew in depth what the Roman Curia is, how it works. The financial issue was deemed crucial. But much of the information was that coming from newspapers, and it was not always accurate information.

This backdrop is probably the reason why Cardinal George Pell, Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy and member of the Council of Cardinals, wrote an article on the Catholic Herald.

The headline of the article – “The days of ripping off the Vatican are over” – was true: many have ripped off the Vatican during these years. And Cardinal Pell is moved by the sincere wish to clean the Vatican up. Some passages of the interview are however noteworthy.

Cardinal Pell underscored that the Vatican is not broke, since there are many millions in “sectional balance sheets.” Fr. Federico Lombardi clarified Pell’s assertions the day after the publication of the article, noting that the cardinal was not speaking about hidden funds, as his words may have suggested.

That of the “millions tucked away” is perhaps the most flamboyant assertion.

It is also noteworthy that Cardinal Pell’s text may suggested that Ettore Gotti Tedeschi was sacked from his post of President of the IOR Board of Superintendancy because he was in the middle of a struggle of power; and that Pontifical Councils and Congregation had at least a naive management of their finance – but in fact they were kept to present their balance sheet to the Prefecture of the Economic Affairs for oversight.

True, a rationalization of the organization of the Vatican financial structures might be in order. But it is also true that what Cardinal Pell described as “sectional funds” are more likely the funds of the Secretariat of State, the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the Congregation for the Eastern Churches: all of them have their own budgets, which are not reflected in the overall Holy See / Vatican City State budget.

All of these institutions have dedicated funds and budgets in order to defend the Church’s freedom. For instance, if in a country where priests cannot have a bank account and neither can their parishes, the Apostolic Nuncio accredited there asks for financial aid from the Secretariat of State, the latter must be able to give it to him quickly and possibly in cash. This is part of the mission of the Church, supporting the dioceses in mission.

In order to guarantee the Church’s freedom, a financial reform that would adhere to international standards and at the same time preserved the Vatican City State specificity had been drafted under Benedict XVI’s pontificate. And a reform of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs had been put into effect as well, thus giving this prefecture tasks similar to those of a Vatican ministry of finances. The Institute for Religious Works (IOR) had started reviewing all of its clients’ accounts, while Vatican finances as a whole underwent a third-party evaluation by the Council of Europe’s MONEYVAL committee. MONEYVAL’s report found Vatican finances largely compliant with international standards, while the MONEYVAL progress report that followed (issued Dec. 2013) confirmed the seriousness of the Vatican effort.

Pell’s article suggests the need for a complete overhaul. On the other hand, one should consider Benedict XVI’s reforms and their huge impact. Likewise it should be acknowledged that this path had already begun under John Paul II. The new project for finances seemingly aims at the total consolidation of budgets, under the sole control of the Secretariat for the Economy. Instead, Benedict XVI’s reform was based on collegiality, but nobody have really underscored it.

Benedict XVI’s pontificate has not been understood in its revolutionary potentiality. On the other hand, everything done by Pope Francis is (often wrongly) described as a rupture with the past.

Among cardinals, bishops, Curia workers many are feeling a little disappointed, since this new approach – fostered by media – seemingly maintains that nothing had been done in the past. For example, the stress on a new pastoral commitment may  suggest that Church have lacked of pastoral care in the past; the continual mentions to the malfunctioning of the Curia may let understand that in the Curia there are no goodwill men, or that everything has been badly managed until now. Obviously,  Pope Francis do not wish to let things look so. He simply wanted to address problems.

True, things may be improved – and they are going to be. On the other hand, media  should avoid the temptation to portrait Curia as a nest of non professional people, or a place for illicit dealings.

That Benedict’s reform is valid and ongoing can be inferred from the resistance of many bishops and cardinals to its overhaul. The Synod of Bishops – – during which prelates have voiced their concern, in an open debate – has been an important testing ground. Another testing ground was the Pope’s meeting with the heads of Vatican dicasteries on Nov. 24.

Discussing the Council of Cardinals’ proposals for reform, the heads of Vatican dicasteries raised many objections, according to Vatican sources. No problem with the proposal to consolidate two big congregations (Justice and Peace, and Laity and Family) that include five secretariats each (i.e., offices). The issue was – critics stressed – that the reform should only be carried forward according to institutional criteria, taking into account the responsibilities of each dicastery and their valuable contributions. The heads of dicasteries also raised pragmatic issues. For instance: where would employees of the assimilated dicasteries go? All of these issues were reportedly missing from the information presented to the heads of dicasteries.

Not by chance Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, coordinator of the Council of Cardinals, had granted an interview to reiterate their willingness to carry out reforms. But the real issue is that the reforms may not change anything substantial, just the way each dicastery is managed. In the Nov. 24 report, there were many “gaps” and the heads of dicasteries noticed it. This is the reason why the expected, major announcement of the reform going forward did not take place.

The same happened during the synod of bishops. Pressures toward hasty changes – and carried out as if the Church had never known pastoral care – led to a first draft (the mid-term report) that was not favored by the majority of bishops. The final report had to take into account many of the issues raised, especially the absence language quoted from the scriptures. The final report is not however completely liked, but it is an almost accepted compromise.

The way the synod itself had been managed gave the impression that changes were going to be secretly imposed, without taking into account differences of opinion – as proved by the secrecy of the discussions (the General Secretariat of the Synod did not want to make them public) as well as the lively discussion about making public the observations to the mid-term report.

This is something for the Council of Cardinals to keep their eyes on, as they gather on the 9th, for their sixth meeting. Many of their reforms are presented as a real overturn of the previous status quo. One can assume that Benedict XVI’s reforms, based on collegiality and personal responsibility, scared people. They pushed the Church forward, and had a major impact in the international arena. But at the same time, those reforms obliged everyone to be transparent and clear. The big reform of charity; the big reform of Vatican finances; the reform of the Code of Canon Law (which Pope Francis had  promulgated)… all initiatives introduced under Benedict XVI. Who saw very clearly the need for a new kind of leadership, and this is why he started his reforms by changes to the criteria of admission to seminaries. Quite ironic that one of his last speeches (and a prophetic one, in light of what happened later) was that delivered to seminarians in Rome.

If the Holy See’s commitment to turn the Vatican into a modern state,while keeping its own specificity, has not been understood, it is because on the opposite side stands a model for a pop, company-like Church aiming to stir consciences with simple words people like to hear.

But the Church is not only pop. The Church is also history, mission and sovereignty. And the sovereignty of the small territory of Vatican City State is crucial for the Holy See to exercise its mission. In times when Europe itself had turned its back to Christian values, sovereignty becomes a main tool to fully act as a moral authority.

Pope Francis’ big challenge is now that of completing Benedict XVI’s reforms. The media’s big challenge, on the other hand, is to go beyond the paradigm of discontinuity.

Media need to understand that between one Pope and another there is a series of reforms that need to be carried out to ber effective, and that Francis cannot carry anything forward without appreciating and valuing the work of his predecessor. For instance, as Francis, Benedict XVI had spoken of a poor Church for poor. He did during his 2011 trip to Germany, when he outlined a Church that had to be less worldy, less appeased on its own structure.

It was a slap on the face, for the wealthy German Church. Benedict XVI revoked the latae sententiae commination of excommunication for those who do not pay the “Kirchensteuer,” the Church tax. The excommunication was an outcome of the fact that when one declared he was not going to pay the tax because he was not Catholic anymore, this declaration was considered the equivalent of an act of apostasy. The German bishops responded with a document which stated that not paying the Kirchensteuer was equivalent to a “grave public sin,” which bore in the end the same consequences of an excommunication. Until now, this is the only “grave public sin” German bishops have listed, while for every other “grave public sin,” included that of being divorced and civilly remarried (which also has a social impact), German bishops (including reformer Cardinals Marx, Kasper and Lehmann) ask to act with mercy.

These small contradictions are food for thought. We should go beyond the paradigm of Pope Francis’ discontinuity. But we should also acknowledge that many, among those who have elected him, have their own agenda – otherwise, why should they be so active? How much will Pope Francis follow this agenda, is yet to be known. But their activism indicates that the Pope, in the end, will not back their every move.

The announcement of a consistory was expected. So it was that of the membership in the Cardinals’ Commission for the Oversight of the Institute for Religious Works (Istituto per le Opere di Religione, IOR), also known as the Vatican bank (misleadingly). Pope Francis, however, surprised everybody, almost accelerating timeframes.

Perhaps Pope Francis decided to play the surprise card: he never does what it is expected, also because – as he clearly wrote in the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium – he does not want to be beholden to a «it has always been like this» maxim. Traditions – full of meaning – are not as important as the signals Pope Francis wants to project. Regarding the choice for new cardinals, Francis wanted to elevate the profile of the peripheries of the world, and at the same time show that there are no “class A” and “class B” dioceses. Regarding the IOR cardinals’ commission, there is the feeling that Pope Francis is following the path of Benedict XVI.

Benedict XVI’s huge effort for financial transparency was also marked by a change in the Holy See’s strategy at the international level. Benedict XVI was conscious that the Vatican’s borders were no longer just with Italy, but at the very least also with Europe, and that the privileged relationship with the Italian neighbor should not be a double-edged sword for the Holy See. The multilateral approach – together with a specific striving toward the truth, the “guiding light” of Benedict XVI’s pontificate – had to be pursuit at every level. This multilateral approach was carried forward according to the logic of collegiality.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State until last September, had also called for more collegiality. Even before the Vatileaks scandal, as some leaks were already coming out from the Vatican corridors, Bertone underlined the need for more coordination in the drafting of documents, in the preparatory paper of one of the periodic meetings of heads of Vatican dicasteries. Bertone provided the example of the method used by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

This logic of collegiality was carried forward to every field, also to the financial area. For this reason, Benedict XVI appointed the president of the Administration for the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (also known by its Italian acronym, APSA) among the members of the IOR cardinals’ commission. When Benedict XVI had to renew the commission on February 16, just a few days before the end of his pontificate, he replaced the former president of the APSA Nicora with his successor Calcagno. On the other hand, Benedict XVI had to renew the commission to leave the house in good order, since its mandate was going to expire. But he also wanted to leave a free hand to his successor, and that is why he only replaced Nicora (who had become President of the Authority for Financial Information) and confirmed all the other members.

Pope Francis wanted to wait and study the issue. In the end, he opted for a radical change. Only Jean Louis Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, kept his post within the commission, the only bridge between the old and the new management. Pope Francis appointed as a member of the new board: Santos Avril y Castellò, Archpriest of the Roman Basilica of Saint Mary the Major and a good friend of the Pope; Cristoph Schoenborn, Archbishop of Wien, Austria; Thomas Christopher Collins, Archbishop of Toronto, Canada; and Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State.

Neither Calcagno, nor any other APSA representative, have been included in the ranks of the commission. More than a “discontinuity” choice, or as an end to Cardinal Bertone’s era, Pope Francis’ decision should be read as one of strong continuity with Benedict XVI’s policy on finances.

Multilateralism brought the Holy See to look at international standards when dealing with its own financial transparency. Undergoing the evaluation process of the Council of Europe’s MONEYVAL committee, as the Vatican did, means engaging in a multilateral dynamic and peer-to-peer relations with other States, on the basis of international standards.

This is the reason why the collegiality policy cannot be applied anymore to the Vatican financial intitutions, since there must be a clear distinction between a public authority (APSA) and a financial institution (IOR), and this is exactly the reason why Cardinal Calcagno can no longer be part of the IOR Cardinals’ Commission.

Nothing extraordinary, from this perspective. Pope Francis merely took Benedict XVI’s work and carried it on, until bringing to a conclusion the reform of the Vatican financial system. The new anti-money laundering law, and the establishment of the Committee for Financial Security, enhanced and surpassed the first anti-money laundering law, which was drafted by external consultants and then completely rewritten by Vatican experts in order to fully comply with international standards.

It would have been perhaps useful if someone would have explained what was going on, in terms of financial reform. For months, newspapers wrote about an “examination” of the Holy See finances by the European commissioners; about the Vatican need to be included in a “white list” which in fact does not exist; and about a report which purportedly represented either an upgrading or downgrading of the standing of Vatican finances by European authorities, while it was merely a “peer review.”

These sort of clarifications seemed to come late, and were also obscured by internal feuds that led to many flawed characterizations of the transparency process. Misinformation often leaked to newspapers by Vatican individuals with an agenda.

Left unanswered is the question about who in particular had wanted to undermine Benedict XVI’s pontificate. As is the question of whether Pope Francis’ pontificate is being rightly defended, by the Vatican institutions themselves.

Pope Francis loves to speak off-the-cuff, and his spontaneity has led to some misunderstandings and to more or less instrumentalized controversies regarding what he says. So, the Vatican felt obliged to deliver a note (posted Jan. 13 on the Facebook page for the Vatican’s “news.va”) in order to precisely enumerate every official websites where Pope Francis’ statements and comments can be read, in order to avoid any further misunderstandings.

It was a necessary measure. Today, many in the Vatican are profoundly aware that it is necessary to shed light on what the Church is really all about. These are Vatican officials that go beyond the business-like approach that consultants take.  Consultants like McKinsey, which has already begun its meetings in the Vatican in order to see how to rationalize the Holy See’s media operations (in fact, the debate about a reorganization of Vatican media goes back to 1983, when a commission confidentially met in the Vatican).

Those who look at the Vatican as if it were just a big company, with a need for a rationalization of its structures and a good press office to communicate innovations, can never fully grasp the issues. Many Vatican officials, on the other hand, have dedicated their whole life to the Holy See and are thus fully aware of the need to shed light on the Church’s reality.

It may be true that, regarding Vatican finances, clarifications had come late. However, Father Federico Lombardi, Director of the Holy See Press Office, was really timely in delivering a note explaining in detail why the Holy See was presenting a report on children’s rights to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on January 16.

In 1990, the Holy See signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Two optional protocols, on “the involvement of children in armed conflict” and on “sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography” complement the convention. Ratification of these kinds of conventions generally require its states parties to present periodic reports on their implementation.

Every state party must report about its implementation of the convention, but the media did not underline this. The media wanted to exploit a “juicy” target of opportunity. After a state submits its written report to the committee, the independent experts who comprise the committee may submit questions in writing to the state party, which also answers them in written form. These questions and answers in some ways guide the dialogue in Geneva. Among the questions, there was one about children sex abuse by the clergy.

The Holy See gave an articulated answer, explaining the differences between the Holy See, the Vatican City State, and the Catholic Church; and about Penal Canon Law and criminal domestic laws. The Holy See briefers stressed that the Vatican encouraged every local bishops’ conference to establish guidelines to address cases of abuse on the basis of their domestic law, emphasizing the commitment of popes to fight the abuses, from John Paul II on.

In his intervention, Silvano Maria Tomasi, the Holy See Permanent Observer to the UN Office at Geneva, listed the most recent Vatican initiatives, not included in the written answers because these initiatives had taken place after the written responses were delivered. Tomasi also stressed the Council of Cardinals’ decision to establish an international commission for the protection of children.

From all of the above, the only thing that the media focused on, yet with a superficial perspective, is the Holy See’s admission that «there are no excuses» for the abuse cases. This despite the fact that Father Lombardi issued a long note clearly explaining that the report is part of a continuous evaluation process, and how to read the Holy See’s answers. Father Lombardi wanted to clear up any possible doubts.

In the same days, Associated Press published a Holy See statistics proving that Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests for raping and molesting children. The report finally shed light on Benedict XVI effort in combating the clergy sex abuses. The Associated Press got the Vatican analysis statistics, and this was not presumably by chance. In 2010, when another milestone in the sex abuse saga came out with hundreds of cases reported in the media across Europe and beyond, Associated Press quoted a 1985 letter by the then prefect for the Congregation of the Faith Joseph Ratzinger in which he reportedly resisted pleas to defrock a California priest with a record of sexually molesting children, citing concerns including «the good of the universal Church.»

In fact, Vatican communications seem to be evolving around Pope Francis, sensitive to his particular approach and also giving a wider perspective to his comments, and at the same time it is also working to change the narrative for what concerns the Benedict XVI’s pontificate. There is also a clear message that there has not been a breach with the past. There is a continuity in pastoral action, even if there are, as could be expected, differences in style between Benedict XVI and Francis. The report presented in Geneva is a testament to that continuity in diplomatic action.

Ultimately, the statements of Vatican diplomats show that the Church is the largest “values agent” in the world. While keeping a consistent stance (that of the common good and of the defense of human dignity), Vatican diplomats know how to enshrine, in the best possible ways, every papal comment. The same is true of Vatican officials charged with drafting official documents. In this way, the Pope’s worldviews and concerns are preserved and his guiding principles are embraced by the people.

The Catholic Church is still alive precisely because of the completeness of its content. No professionalizing of her communications will ever be able to displace this expertise. The Church has been nurturing this expertise for several millenniums.

Greg Burke is an Opus Dei numerary. Even if his career was not carried out under the Opus Dei umbrella, it is also true that Opus Dei has always been very attentive to institutional communications. For a long time, the director of the Holy See Press Office was Joaquin Navarro Valls, an Opus Dei numerary. And, thanks to Navarro Valls’ presence and experience, Opus Dei soon realized that teaching institutional communications to the Church is a must nowadays. The only dissertation paper about the vaticanisti – the journalists specialized in covering the Vatican – came out from the Holy Cross Pontifical University, the Opus Dei University in Rome. And so it was almost logic – even given the good relationships between Georg Gaenswein, secretary of the Pope, and Opus Dei, whose university had Gaenswein as a teacher – to look to Opus Dei to find a solution for the «communication crisis» of the Holy See. It is not by lobbying, but by necessity that Greg Burke, who recently became an Italian citizen and whose native language is English – a much needed value added, since aggressive articles on the Church are often written in English – has been identified as the right person to become the media advisor of the Vatican Secretariat of State.

That something has changed in the Holy See communication strategy is evident. Often, Benedict XVI has personally taken the lead in addressing a situation. We just need to look at how the Vatileaks case was managed, the week following the arrest of Paolo Gabriele, the Pope’s Butler. The statements marking a clear change in the Holy See’s communication strategy followed each other in a crescendo: first, on Tuesday, May 29 morning, Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, asked journalists not to allow themselves to be manipulated, since many of the stories that had been published in the newspapers fell «outside reality»; on Tuesday, May 29 afternoon,  Angelo Becciu – substitute (deputy) to the Secretary of State – gave an interview to the Holy See  newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, asking journalists to reach «a higher moral standard», and criticizing partisan narratives of events; finally, on Wednesday, May 30 morning, for the first time, the Pope talked openly and clearly about the Vatileaks scandal, renewing his trust on his closest collaborators.

It was not the only change. After Paolo Gabriele’s arrest, Lombardi gave a press briefing almost daily, providing updates and setting the record straight on false stories circulating in the media. And there was more. After the IOR (the Vatican’s financial body) board of Superintendence’s no confidence vote on the board’s president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the memorandum of the meeting when the vote took place was “institutionally” leaked to the press. The IOR has maintained, for some time now, an open door policy, allowing an inside look of its work. Not long  ago, a group of ambassadors accredited to the Holy See were invited to a briefing in the Torrione Niccolò V – the IOR’s headquarters – where Paolo Cipriani, general manager, talked about transparency and the activities of the Institute. Last week, it was the turn for a selected group journalists. Standing before them, Cipriani not only outlined the activities of the Institute, but also gave an in-depth explanation about the seizure of 23 million euro transferred by the IOR from an IOR account to Credito Artigiano in 2009 and to the closing of an IOR account in a  JP Morgan branch in Milan in 2012. Cipriani also denied there was a lack of cooperation with the Italian authorities, showing a letter of the Italian police where they thanked the IOR for the speed and precision of responses to their questions – Mondayvatican had already reported about this letter some postings ago.

Even though many inside and outside the Vatican are contemptuous, Benedict XVI is moving on his path toward transparency. This Pope was not afraid to write an open letter to the bishops in the midst of the Williamson affair; to write a letter to the Catholics of Ireland in the midst of the pedophilia scandal; to personally meet the victims of priest abuses, whenever he went to visit a country where there were victims who asked for a meeting; and to start a purification process within the Church that is perhaps poorly explained, though it is true and alive.  Here, the contrast with the “Communication machine” of Joaquin Navarro Valls is most evident. In his more than twenty years as the head of the press office, Navarro proved himself to be much more than a simple means of communication. He was a spin doctor, an editor, a PR man, an investigator, an advisor, a diplomat and an ambassador for the pope.

Is yet to be seen if Greg Burke will be able to have Navarro Valls’ relation with, and influence over, the Papal apartment. Surely, working within the Secretariat of State, he will be closer to the power center, and he will should be in a good position to elaborate communication strategies. Will he be in charge of an information office of the Secretariat of State or will he just be an official inside the Apostolic Palace? And what will be the future of the Holy See Press Office? Will the appointment of Greg Burke change its role?

Some insiders predict that the Holy See Press Office will become a sort of “base”, to put into effect Burke’s strategies. The next step could be to link the Press Office to the Pontifical Council of Social Communication. This would lead to more strict accreditation norms and to a new role for the director of the Press Office: the role of a simple spokesperson.

Though his appointment has still not been officially announced (and it will probably not be, since it is just the hiring of an employee joining the Curia), Burke has already given some interviews about his new charge. Burke wants first of all to listen, think and understand what has failed in Vatican communications. From the Regensburg speech to the Vatileaks, passing through the Williamson affair and the annus horribilis (horrible year) of the pedophilia scandals (it was 2010), the institutional communications of the Holy See was always playing catch-up with the news. Now, they want to address the stories as they hit the news.

Lombardi did not succeed in keeping apace with the news, in part because he lacked the privileged relationship his predecessor had with the Papal apartment. It will surely be a hard challenge. Greg Burke loves to compare his post with that of the «media advisor» of the White House. The Holy See, however, is not the White House, and the Apostolic Palace is not the West Wing. There is a very different storyline to tell, deeply anchored in a Church that is 2000 years old. A Church that still seems unable to communicate everything that it stands for and does. For example, the most interesting part of the journalists’ visit to the IOR was when the general manager, Cipriani, spoke about his trips to personally see “the works of religion” all over the world: «I recently went to Peru – he said – and I found priests that were taking care of people in shanty towns made of mud. The Church does wonderful things all over the world, and to see what the Institute funds help to achieve gave me a better sense of my own job». This part of the story was not covered in the media. That is why Greg Burke’s has such a formidable challenge before him.

The release of the resolution is a milestone:. The era of charismatic and polarizing personalities has come to an end. A new era has taken its place. The era of a solid and clean Church. This is what the Pope wanted. One must not fool around with the institutions. One must serve the institutions. Joseph Ratzinger always followed this dictate, from the time he served as one of the expert theologians at the Second Vatican Council. Now, he is steering the Church in that direction.

There had been several signals that the charismatic personalities era had come to end. For example, the appointment of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone as Vatican Secretary of State. Bertone – a non-diplomat canonist – said from the very beginning that he aimed to be a «secretary of the Church» more than «a Secretary of State». And then, the replacement of Joaquin Navarro-Valls, director of the Holy See Press Office, better known as the «Pope’s spokesman», with Fr. Federico Lombardi, sj: Navarro-Valls allowed his job to be focused on himself as much as Lombardi has done the exact opposite.. Another “big” signal had been the appointment of cardinal Dias as prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of People. Dias’ low key style stands in contrast to that of his predecessor, Cardinal Sepe, who sought the spotlight constantly in the Osservatore Romano – the Holy See newspaper – and wherever he could get it.

Since the beginning of his Pontificate, Benedict XVI set forth several critiques against careerism. His speeches on these topics can be considered part of a long catechesis: on the one hand, the Pope explains the logic of serving the Church; on the other, time after time, Benedict XVI went on challenging and changing the Curial mindset. Less diplomacy, more gospel. Less diplomacy, more law – both Canon and international law. Because institutions are based on the law. And reflection is rooted in truth. Truth and law can be considered the pillars of Benedict XVI’s Pontificate.

There have been different interpretations of the loss of confidence in Gotti Tedeschi. Many observers –particularly the Italians– maintain that Mr. Gotti Tedeschi fell on the wrong side of the internal debate about Vatican Financial transparency. The Holy See recently amended law n. 127 for countering money laundering and the financing of terrorism, and Mr. Gotti Tedeschi had been one of the opponents of this reform. Law n. 127 calls on all the agencies to attain financial transparency. Under the former law, transparency was solely the purview of the Authority for Financial Information. With the new law, everything reverts to the Vatican Secretary of State, while making all the institutions that are under his umbrella accountable. The institutions have an incentive to respond positively, as a means to assert themselves.

This is what the IOR’s board did, when it decided to release the two- page harsh resolution on the loss of confidence in Mr.  Gotti Tedeschi. Any innuendo is swept away by the resolution. Before, the Holy See would whisper, and everybody tried to interpret the whispers. Now, Holy See sheds a spotlight on how things really went. And there is not much to add after that.

«Each of us – Carl A. Anderson, Supreme Knight of Columbus Knights, member of IOR’s board and secretary of the meeting where the decision to remove Mr. Tedeschi was taken, said – has a solid reputation, but it is difficult to project an image of transparency if there is no real transparency behind it. Gotti was not committed to the Institute, he was not focused on his job, he was not properly informed about the activities of the institution and often he did not attend meetings. We had to make a decision, and we voted to withdraw our confidence in him. We had no choice.. The image of the Institute had suffered.. Our objective is to promote transparency and to revamp the Institute’s work, something that Gotti always talked about, but never did».

There are nine stated reasons for the Board’s decision: failure to carry out basic duties incumbent upon the President; failure to remain informed of the activities of the Institute and to keep the Board informed; leaving and failing to attend meetings of the Board; lack of prudence in making comments about the Institute; failure to provide any formal explanation for the distribution of documents held by the President; dissemination of inaccurate information regarding the Institute; failure to counter  flawed media reports about the Institute; polarizing the Institute and alienating personnel; increasingly erratic personal behavior. Two of these stated reasons call into question Gotti Tedeschi reliability, in particular the one about the the distribution of documents that only he held. And so Mr. Gotti Tedeschi goes out of the scene, after only two years as president of the Board of Superintendance of the IOR.

The ecumenism of Benedict XVI is not one of negotiation, of reciprocal concessions of sovereignty, of the watering down of doctrine, for the sake of creating a structure acceptable to all. It is simply meant to revive fidelity to the roots of the mission of Christians in the world, as intended by Jesus Christ. It is meant to create unity on the basis of this fidelity.

Already as a theologian and a cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger worked very hard to ensure that the ecumenical dialogue made headway and enriched it with useful theological reflections. His ecumenical action is expressed more clearly and deeply in his interpretation of the priestly prayer of Jesus, that all may be one, of which the Pope speaks in part two of his book on Jesus of Nazareth.

Even the new evangelization which the Pope has wanted in a particular way must have an ecumenical dimension. Benedict XVI made an explicit reference to this ecumenical dimension in announcing the establishment of the New Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization at the celebration of First Vespers of the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul in 2010: «The challenge of the new evangelization calls into question the universal Church and asks us to continue with commitment our search  for full Christian unity».

With his ecumenical commitment, Pope Benedict XVI witnesses in an exemplary way to what the ecumenical responsibility of every bishop in the Catholic Church consists of, described by the Code of Canon law: the diocesan bishop «is to act with kindness and charity toward those who are not in full communion with the Catholic Church, fostering ecumenism as it is understood by the Church» (Can. 383 § 3). So, the promotion of the cause of ecumenism is implicit in the bishop’s pastoral ministry itself, which is essentially a service to unity.

Unreal criticism on Papal ecumenism

Among the many criticisms aimed at Benedict XVI, the one of ditching ecumenism no longer holds up, especially after his celebration of Vespers together with the archbishop of Canterbury and primate of the Anglican Communion, Rowan Williams, on the evening of March 10 in the Roman monastery of San Gregorio al Celio.

With the Anglican Communion, the rapprochement that has been seen since Joseph Ratzinger became Pope is in some ways incredible. In the autumn of 2009, Benedict XVI promulgated an apostolic constitution, Anglicanorum Cœtibus to normalize the entrance into the Catholic Church of entire communities of faithful coming from Anglicanism, with their bishops and priests.

Some progressive Catholic currents condemned the initiative as a gravely anti-ecumenical act: that is, as a restoration of the ideology of the «great return» and as the intention of the Catholic Church to «expand its empire» by ripping away portions of rival Churches. But in the Anglican camp, the initiative did not provoke any rejection.
The announcement of Anglicanorum Cœtibus was made simultaneously from Rome and London, here through the initiative of Anglican primate Williams himself, although he had not been part of the preparation of the document.

This was followed by the entry into the Church of Rome of thousands of faithful and dozens of priests and bishops, accommodated in special «ordinariates», two of them so far, the first in Great Britain and the second in the United States.

When the Anglicanorum Coetibus was announced, cardinal Walter Kasper, then president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, was in Cyprus, because the island was hosting, from October 16-23, the second round (after the first in Ravenna in 2007) of theological dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox on how to understand Papal primacy. An ecumenical dialogue of great importance, in which Kasper led the delegation from Rome.

«In Cyprus – Kasper explained – in order to avoid misunderstandings, I immediately told our Orthodox counterparts that this is not a matter of proselytism or a new Uniatism. [...] Uniatism is an historical phenomenon involving the Eastern Churches, while the Anglicans are from the Latin tradition. The Balamand document of 1993 is still valid, according to which this is a phenomenon of the past that took place in unrepeatable circumstances. It is not a method for the present or the future. The Orthodox were mainly interested in understanding the nature of the personal ordinariates for the Anglicans, and I clarified that this is not a matter of a Church ‘sui iuris’, and therefore there will not be the head of a Church, but an ordinary with delegated powers».

It means that while a «Uniate» Church has its own structured hierarchy, with a patriarch and territorial dioceses, none of this will apply to the former Anglican «personal ordinariates», which will provide pastoral care for the faithful but without their own ecclesiastical territory, a little bit like the military ordinariates.

The dialogue with Orthodox is living a splendid period. Here and then, the hypothesis of a meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch of Russian Orthodox Church comes out from the Vatican corridors. This meeting could have happened during the Papal trip to Croatia the last year, or could even happen in Bari, the Italian town dedicated to Saint Nicholas. Coming from Myra, Turkey, the bishop Nicholas has been considered an ideal «bridge» between Eastern and Western Christians (Orthodox and Christians) since his body had been translated to Bari. The friendship between Benedict XVI and the Patriarch of Moscow and all of Russia obviously aids the dialogue. Kyrill recently expressed «brotherly respect and affection» to the Pope. Everything seems to be easy on that side.

What kind of ecumenism is the Papal one? During his trip to Cologne in 2005, in his August 19 address to the representatives of the Protestant and Orthodox Churches, the Pope spoke several times off the cuff, and said that he did not believe in an ecumenism focused exclusively on institutions. For him, the serious question is how the Church should bear witness to the Word of God in the world: this is a problem Christianity has faced since the second century, and since then the question has been resolved through decisions which, according to Ratzinger, should still hold true for the Church of today.

Repairing divides

The criticism aimed at the Pope of ditching ecumenism, of putting the embrace with the Lefebvrists in front of dialogue with the other Christian confessions can no more hold up.  Even because the facts say the opposite. Those most unyielding in rejecting the pope’s offers of peace are precisely the followers of the schismatic archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. And they reject them precisely on account of the significant steps forward – for them, a concession to error – taken by Benedict XVI on the path of reconciliation with the Anglicans, with the Churches of the East, and even with the heirs of Martin Luther.

For the pope’s 85th birthday on Monday, his own brother showed up in Rome empty handed. But the brothers of the controversial Catholic splinter group Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) were more generous. They sent a letter – and its contents may be the greatest gift yet to the papacy of Benedict XVI. The Pope has long wanted to heal the schism with the SSPX and bring the conservative followers of the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre back into the fold.

The Catholic traditionalist Lefebvre founded the SSPX in 1969 in answer to the reforms pushed through by the Second Vatican Council. The group has grown to include tens of thousands of followers and hundreds of priests — a «painful wound in the body of the church» Benedict XVI  said.

Bernard Fellay, General Superior of the SSPX gave his answer to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, after a meeting that he held with the top officials of the Congregation on Monday, 16^th of April 2012. After their last meeting, one month ago, Holy See gave to the SSPX a one month deadline to give an answer to the Doctrinal Preamble they sketched out about six months ago. A sort of take-it-leave-it conditions for welcoming again SSPX within the Catholic Church. The text of the Preamble remained secret. But what requested – insiders of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith assured – was just the minimum to be in communion with Catholic Church. That is to adhere to the Catholic Doctrine, to acknowledge the authority of the Pope and – finally – to acknowledge the validity of the Second Vatican Council.

A traditionalist answer

Even the text of the Fellay’s answer remained secret. But Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, described the text of the letter as «substantially different from the other answers the Fraternity previously gave» to the Congregation, albeit there are still «requests for further clarifications». But – Fr. Lombardi added – «this is encouraging».

Maybe the Fellay’s «friendly letter» has already been analyzed during the feria quarta meeting of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. The feria quarta is a meeting to be held monthly on a Wednesday. During that meeting, the officials of the Congregation focuses on the current cases, and take decisions whether to condemn, admonish or not to take action toward books, doctrines, cases that they are called to study.

The conclusions of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will be delivered to Ecclesia Dei, the commission that is taking care of the dialogues of the Catholic Church with Lefevbrists and that – after the scandal followed to the revoke of the excommunication to four traditionalist bishops, one of those, Richard Williamson, publicly denied Holocaust and made anti-Semitic declarations – the Pope put under the guidance of William Levada, prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. Levada substituted card. Darìo Castrillòn Hoyos, who was very close to the Lefevbrist world and made several pressures to conclude the agreement before he would end his charge in Ecclesia Dei.

The Pope will make the final decision. And, after the Papal decision, a text issued by both Ecclesia Dei and SSPX will be published. This will be the only official text, and no mention – nor publishing – will be given to the original preamble. The preamble had been proposed the last September by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith as the primary condition to let the SSPX rejoin to the Catholic Church. After the preamble, the meetings had come one after another. The last meeting took place on March, 16^th. On one side of the table, William Levada. On the other side, Bernard Fellay. It was a two hours meeting to discuss what Fellay answered to the Commission Ecclesia Dei following the Doctrinal Preamble. Ecclesia Dei – as the official communiqué underlined –  did not deem satisfactory the Fellay’s answer, that «could not be sufficient to overtake the doctrinal problems which are on the basis of the breaching between Holy See and SSPX». In fact, what leaked out from the SSPX was that there had been a very intense debate. A debate in some way foxily leaded by Bernard Fellay.

Fellay, the story-teller

Bernard Fellay is a skillful story teller. In his speeches – delivered through a very efficient network – Fellay explains that Rome is the place where confusion and unfairness rule. More: the Roman Curia would not obey the Pope. Fellay acts as a divisive force, and he tries to allies with the ones that claim themselves «conservatives» within the Church. The reasons why SSPX and the «right-wing» of the Church should ally are not theological, but just formal. Sometimes, the revoke of the excommunication to four bishops ordained by Lefevbre in 1988 –Fellay was one of those bishops – is completely misrepresented. Once, the Pope opened his arms in order to give the chance to redeem to those who are wrong. Another time, Fellay insinuates that this opening is the first step to revise the Second Vatican Council. Or maybe it is not. Analyzing the Fellay’speeches means to find out that each issue oscillates from an extreme to another. The conclusion – ça va sans dire – is always the same: SSPX has the true faith, while inside the Vatican they had long time ago decided to be out of the rails.

So, when the first Fellay’s answer arrived in Rome, insiders widely previewed that this would have been an unsatisfactory response. After one month, Fellay arrived in the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith with another answer. Press anticipated that the second answer «not substantially» amended the preamble, thus letting think about an opportunity to treat the contents of it. This seemed to diminish in some way the effort of Benedict XVI, that – notwithstanding the polemics within the Church of Rome because of Williamson’s denial of the Holocaust, because of the Good Friday prayers for the conversion of the Jewish contained in the liberalized ancient rite – made everything he could to avoid the endurance of the schism. At the same time, the Pope reaffirmed with determination that the Second Vatican Council is not part of the discussion, as it is not part of discussion the obedience to the Pope and to the Church.

The German Cardinal Josef Becker, an advisor to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and a participant in the talks with the SSPX, said recently that it is difficult to find common ground in the positions held by the Catholic Church and the Society of St. Pius X. But, he added, each side must «try to understand» the other. He also said that the Church must re-examine all Vatican II texts to understand them from today’s perspective.

Fellay, for his part, in light of the letter he recently sent to the Pope, asked his followers to «double their fervor and magnanimity in prayer and sacrifice in these holy days and during the weeks following Easter, so that God’s will be done».

The “traditionalist” inside divide

It is no secret that there are oppositions within the Society and in the episcopates of countries where the traditional wing of the Society is more present, but also in a small group within the Vatican. In the more radical Lefebvrian groups, which in truth hold positions close to sedevacantism, the agreement is seen as surrendering to Rome’s offers instead of keeping up the fight to «convert» the Holy See and go back in time, to the Church of fifty years ago. The other side believes that Benedict XVI has been too generous in the spirit of reconciliation and should not have tolerated that any Catholic believer felt able to criticize the Second Vatican Council.

This difficult climate and the tensions that will inevitably rise in the next few weeks are exemplified by the leak of a confidential letter that the secretary of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, Mgr. Guido Pozzo, recently sent to the abbot Philippe Laguerie, superior of the Institute of the Good Shepherd, society of apostolic life based on the pontifical right, which celebrates mass according to the Latin rite. Pozzo’s letter included some observations and suggestions for the Institute following a canonical visit some time ago. Its release, according to abbot Laguerie, means that someone wants to put a spanner in the works and disrupt the dialogue between the Holy See and the Lefebvrists.

In the letter, Pozzo addressed mainly two points. The first concerns the «exclusive» use awarded to the Institute of Pius V missal. Ecclesia Dei suggested that in the charters of the Institute of the Good Shepherd it would be better to avoid the word «exclusive» and simply highlight that it is the Institute’s «own rite». «The matter of practicing the extraordinary form, as formulated in the charters – Pozzo writes – must be defined in the spirit of Summorum Pontificum. It would be better to simply describe this form as the Institute’s ‘own rite’, without mentioning ‘exclusivity’». The second concerns the criticism of the Second Vatican Council. «Rather than criticize – Pozzo writes – however rightly and constructively, the Vatican II, educators should channel their efforts in conveying the whole of the Church teachings, focusing on the hermeneutics of renovation within continuity and starting, as a base, from the integrity of the Catholic doctrine as exposed in the catechism of the Catholic Church».

The secretary of Ecclesia Dei so basically asked the conservative group already in communion with Rome to make an effort in closely following the indications of Benedict XVI concerning the interpretation of conciliar documents. But this confidential letter might have been leaked because it includes points that might discourage the Lefebvrians who are about to follow their superior Bernard Fellay on the way to full communion with Rome. Abbot Philippe Laguerie pointed it out in a statement released on several websites that «there are people in Rome who are very opposed to any form of agreement».

Toward a rapprochement?

How would the «encouraging» Fellay’s answer be evaluated in the Vatican? Benedict XVI made of his pontificate a pontificate for unity, trying to repair the divides within the Catholic Church Still when he was Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger committed for unity and – in particular – strongly tried to avoid the Lefevbrist schism.

Ratzinger took care of Marcel Lefevbre and his followers since the 80s. In 1988, it seemed that the solution was up to come. After a cardinal Edouard Gagnon’s visit to Ecône  - where the headquarter of SSPX is – on April, 8^th 1988, in a letter addressed to the then cardinal Ratzinger designed a proposal to let the SSPX get a regular collocation in the Church. This proposal dealt with an agreement – to be signed in May 1988 – about the Liturgical Books approved in 1962 and with the constitution of SSPX in «Society of Apostolic Life». In exchange. Marcel Lefevbre assured his obedience to the Pope and his acceptance of Second Vatican Council, thus acknowledging the validity of the new rites of the Mass.

The breach anyway occurred. Lefevbre was not authorized for an episcopal ordination – he wanted to ordain a new bishop that was intended to be his successor in SSPX (and this one was Fellay) – and so he backtracked and decided to ordain four bishops without the permission of Rome. The ordination had been fixed for June, 29th 1988. To prevent the illicit ordination, in June, 24 1988 John Paul II gave his permission for the ordination. It was not sufficient. The 15th of August, Lefevbre wrote in a letter that he did not need just one, but three bishops. The breach was unavoidable.

From then on, an important debate took place, until the revoke of the excommunication to bishops ordained without the Papal permission. It was since June 2008 that Lefevbrist asked for the revoke of the excommunication. Lefevbrist said in exchange that they would respond to the proposals of Benedict XVI to bring the SSPX into a new communion with Rome. In 2007, Pope also gave the opportunity to celebrate the Holy Mass according to the rite of 1962. What will be the future of Benedict XVI’s effort for unity?