That visit, the way it had been managed, can help us uncover the path the Holy See diplomacy has taken under Pope Francis. United States has a considerable weight within the Vatican Walls. The major donors of Peter’s Pence are American. Some of the most generous patrons of the Vatican museum hail from the United States. The donations of the big U.S. Catholic organizations are reportedly used to even cover some of the (very high) Vatican bills for advisors and external consultants.

At the same time, U.S. bishops have proved over the years to be among the best organized in the world. The struggles for religious freedom, against abortion, protecting conscientious objecting and traditional marriage have been examples of how bishops in the U.S. are among the few bishops anywhere who can still have an impact on public views in their countries.

Generally, U.S. bishops are portrayed as traditionalist and entrenched on neo-conservative positions and the defense of life against abortion, to the detriment of social issues. This is only partially true, and it is an outcome of the polarization of public discourse in the United States. There is not a major political party taking «middle ground» positions, so issues are always considered from a political left or right perspective. Only a few remember the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops documents in the 1980s criticizing Reaganomics and calling for a stop to nuclear proliferation (this latter, followed by many other stances on the same issue). And few recall that, in more recent times, U.S. bishops have strongly advocated for immigration reform.

Pope Francis’ emphasis on social issues has been mistaken as being in opposition to the positions of U.S. bishops.  Francis has attracted the sympathy of the «American left». Obama likes him so much that he quoted the Apostolic exhortation «Evangelii Gaudium» in a speech. The preservers of values, who have so publicly committed to them, are so concerned by the broad support that has emerged for the Pope that now they feel displaced.

To the latter, the Holy See press release on Obama’s visit was barely comforting. It makes reference to religious freedom, defense of life and objection of conscience among the topics discussed during the bilateral encounter, i.e. during the meeting between the U.S. delegation and the Vatican Secretariat of State officials led by Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

That there were just two lukewarm lines dedicated to these topics is ultimately indicative of this agenda not being firmly supported. In fact, the Vatican Secretariat of State feels weakened, not knowing what its future will be following the Curia reform currently under discussion.

Cardinal Parolin is too prudent to take a clear stand, and the U.S. bishops are not willing to appear as being out of touch with the “soft” agenda marked by Pope Francis’ lines of argumentation.  The Pope believes it is not necessary to keep reiterating the doctrine of the Church at all times, as he explained in the press conference during the flight back from the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro last July.

While Pope Francis may not want to fight head-on the big issues, there are others by which he is touched and moved. Like human trafficking.

The issue of human trafficking is very linked to the discussion about the reform of U.S. immigration laws. This reform should also address the dramatic problems of the «indocumentados,» i.e. the people without proper documents who enter the U.S. from Mexico and who, if discovered, are deported back to their countries of origin, with no possibility to return.

The «indocumentados» arrive from Mexico, but are not all Mexican. There are tens of thousands of South Americans who reach Mexico to try to get to the U.S., especially from Ecuador, El Salvador and Guatemala. Those who are not able to cross the border remain in Mexico, extorted by human trafficking cartels. It is widely believed that about 400,000 immigrants are “desaparecidos”: a humanitarian emergency that is not being acknowledged.

More than the lengthy report issued by the U.S. Bishops, it was the warmth and frankness of Jersey Vargas that eventually moved the Pope to raise the situation of «indocumentados» during his meeting with Obama.

Jersey Vargas, age 10, met Pope Francis at the end of the March 26 general audience. She was chosen as the spokesperson from a delegation of seventeen people representing various associations advocating on behalf of undocumented immigrants. She is the third of five siblings. She was born in the United States, so she is U.S. citizen. But her father entered the U.S. undocumented. At the time he is in a prison in Indiana, and could be deported to Mexico soon. This is how U.S. immigration laws break up families.

According to a recent report issued by the U.S. bishops’ conference, among the “indocumentados” immigrants there are also 60,000 children. Other data reveal that the Obama administration deported about 31,000 people last year.

Jersey Vargas asked the Pope to get involved in the plight of all the “indocumentados”, and certainly Pope Francis had done so during the 50 minutes of private meeting with President Obama, interjected by translation by their two interpreters.

In fact, Pope Francis has often resort to prayer, more than high level meetings, as a diplomatic tool. But he had fierce words against human trafficking during his first year of pontificate.

He spoke of human trafficking in a speech to a new group of ambassadors accredited to the Holy See last December 12. «It’s a disgrace» that people are treated «as objects, deceived, assaulted, often sold many times for different purposes and, in the end, killed or, in any case, physically and mentally harmed, ending up discarded and abandoned,» he said.

The Pope told the ambassadors that human trafficking is «an issue that worries me very much and today is threatening people’s dignity.» Every country in the world is touched in some way by this new form of slavery, which often targets the most vulnerable members of society: women, children, the disabled, the poor and people from broken homes or other difficult situations, he said. Even those who have no religious beliefs should be concerned about victims of human trafficking out of pure «compassion for their suffering» and should help work to free them and heal their wounds, he added.

Pope Francis, furthermore, acknowledged the many efforts underway around the world to prevent trafficking and protect victims. Even though countries have been addressing the problem, he said, «we can’t deny that sometimes even public officials and members of peacekeeping forces have been contaminated» by the corrupting forces of trafficking.

(The account by a former peacekeeper denouncing her colleagues’ complicity in trafficking in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the late 1990s was the basis for the 2011 film The Whistleblower).

Last March 5, Pope Francis sent a message to the faithful in Brazil on the occasion of the annual Lenten «Fraternity Campaign», which this year takes on the theme of «Brotherhood and human trafficking,» and whose slogan is «For freedom Christ has set us free.»

«It is not possible to remain indifferent before the knowledge that human beings are bought and sold like goods! I think of the adoption of children for the extraction of their organs, of women deceived and forced to prostitute themselves, of workers exploited and denied their rights or a voice, and so on. This is human trafficking!»

Later, on March 18, Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin Welby signed an agreement by which the to Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion will support an anti-slavery, anti-human trafficking initiative, the Global Freedom Network. Signed at Vatican City, the Global Freedom Network was also underwritten by a Sunni Muslim scholar on behalf of the Grand Imam of the prominent al-Azhar University in Cairo.

Pope Francis also backed a workshop on «Trafficking in Human Beings: Modern Slavery,» organized by the Pontifical Academy for Sciences and held last November 2 and 3.

Upon the close of the seminar, conference organizers issued a «joint statement based on the suggestions presented by the participants,» which included proposals for media, religious institutions, civil organizations and business sectors to work together in order to combat human trafficking.

All of these initiatives prove that Pope Francis’ diplomatic effort is mostly focused on human trafficking. This is the core of Pope Francis’ diplomacy. It is the only really important and urgent issue addressed by Pope Francis and President Obama. The rest was mostly a broad diplomatic conversation, based on a very general agenda. 

Was Pope Francis’ election the end result of a campaign that had been on the works for a long time? While standing by for the announcement of his first appointments some in Vatican circles have started to think that, indeed, Bergoglio’s election was the outcome of a campaign dating back some time.

Beyond striking a great rapport with the crowds, and beyond his undeniable charisma, there is something that still looms in the air about Pope Francis’ preaching. The prominent Italian vaticanista Sandro Magister has underscored that, ultimately, everybody likes Pope Francis because he remains vague on the big issues. The first question one could pose is: when will the magisterium of this pontificate address, in earnest, the big issues of the day?

It seems that this pontificate was already on the works in 2005. In that year’s conclave, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was the second most-voted cardinal.

About that conclave, almost everything has been told. Even a diary of the conclave, written by a cardinal who took part in it, has been published. The cardinal reported the votes each candidate got.

From those tallies, it was evident that opposition to Joseph Ratzinger was strong, even if the German cardinal had from the very first round a large number of votes. Someone also recounts that Ratzinger already had the votes required to be elected by the third ballot, but that he asked for the fourth to achieve a wider majority. A wider majority he did not get in the terms he hoped.

On the other hand, not so much is known about the conclave that brought about the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. It became immediately clear that the U.S. cardinals played a major role in Bergoglio’s election. Right after Pope Francis’ first appearance on the Lodge of the Blessings, U.S. cardinals, some even anonymously, released to newspapers several statements explaining how Bergoglio’s candidacy came about. It is also understandable that, once it had been launched, Latin American cardinals converged on Bergoglio’s candidacy.

«A new narrative:» this was what the Church needed. Jorge Mario Bergoglio would guarantee it to take place. His focus on a limited number of themes about which he spoke repeatedly, and a low profile that would compel the whole Vatican to adapt to it, would coalesced in the image of a humble pope longing for a Church poor and for the poor.

Probably, Pope Francis already had his own governance ideas in mind.

In Europe, few took note of an article first published on Cigüeña de la Torre, a blog on religious information hosted in the Spanish portal of information Intereconomía.

A long, anonymous e-mail sent to the blog’s editor maintained that Fabiàn Pedacchio Leaniz was Cardinal Bergoglio’s spy within the Congregation of Bishops. It provided so many details that it was clear that the informant was, at the very least, very well acquainted with the Vatican.

Pedacchio Leaniz is now second secretary of His Holiness.

In 2007, Bergoglio recommended him for a post as “2^nd class employee” in the ranks of the Congregation for Bishops. Attentive, reserved as needed, and a fan of opera and Almodovar’s films, Pedacchio Leaniz is above all a faithful collaborator of Bergoglio. According to the informant, Pedacchio Leaniz used to call Bergoglio in Buenos Aires once a week, keeping him informed of developments. When there was an important issue at stake, Pedacchio Leaniz also faxed confidential documents to Bergoglio. Pedacchio Leaniz is also reported to have received Bergoglio’s instructions on how to support or to block a career. Leaniz operated like a discreet, confidential informant.

Perhaps it was, simply put, hardly an orthodox way to proceed. At the time, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was not able to get appointments as bishops for the priests he proposed. The candidates he suggested were always dismissed by the then papal nuncio to Argentina, Adriano Bernardini.

Or perhaps the story that Pedacchio Leaniz was Bergoglio’s spy is a myth. Regardless, these details are important to understand how a pontificate that promises to be different mayevolve. The actual key elements to interpret it are yet to emerge.

To judge by the account rendered in the anonymous article, Bergoglio has already collected plenty of information to bring about change to the Roman Curia.

The appointment of a new Secretary of State will be among the very first to be announced. The new Secretary of State (in fact, he would be a pro-secretary, until he receives the red hat) would be Archbishop Pietro Parolin, now nuncio to Venezuela and for several years the Vatican’s Undersecretary for Relations with the States.

A new Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples will also be named, a choice that would fall on Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodriguez Maradiaga, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa and a very good friendof Pope Francis.

Also the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments will have a new head: Piero Marini, the Master of Ceremonies of John Paul II, would take the post. Ignacio Arrieta, number two at the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, could be the new Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, since the current prefect, card. Mauro Piacenza, is told to be outgoing because of a illness.

Arrieta himself was one of the writers of the chirograph through which Pope Francis established an advisory commission for the Institute for Religious Works, the so-called Vatican bank. Arrietaserves in this temporary commission as its secretary. The president of the IOR’s Pontifical Commission is Cardinal Raffaele Farina, who was formerly Prefect of the Vatican Library. Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran is also a member of the board: he will work as a link with the IOR, since he is also in the IOR’scardinals’ oversight commission. Other members are: Mary Ann Glendon, President of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences, and Peter Bryan Wells, assessor at the Vatican Secretariatof State.

The commission is tasked with advising the Pope about the IOR’s formal legal status, as the Pope is considering a possible reform of this Vatican financial institute to make it more adequate to the mission of the Holy See. The appointment of the commission, however, is certainly not an attempt to take over the running of the IOR. Rather, it represents the Pope’s will to show that he is engaged.

It is noteworthy that the first commission of eight cardinals, to advise on a reform of the Roman Curia, was formed by non curial members while this latter commission is all made up by Curia members. This change deserves further analysis.

A first reading would be that Francis has understood that he cannot change the Curia without the Curia. It may also indicate that the old guard of diplomats are regaining power, after the loss of influence that they so deeply resented under Benedict XVI’s pontificate. If the German Pope did not accept compromises, Pope Francis is comfortable in a context in which the art of compromise is applied everyday. He is very fond of everybody. In the end,commission after commission, he will always have the last word.