" the Usual Nest of Vipers, but Today the Real Problem Is Rampant Mediocrity"
By Michele Brambilla
This is the opinion of Vittorio Messori, the most widely-read Catholic author in the world "I've spent my life studying the history of the Church and attending Church, though more sparingly. I'm hardly going to be shocked." Vittorio Messori is in the abbey of Maguzzano, a wonder nestled between the Moraine hills and Garda Lake, a place that the history of the Church has crisscrossed for 15 centuries, from St. Benedict to St John Calabria. Here, Messori has set up a study where he can take refuge when he is under pressure: like now, when he has only a few weeks before he has to deliver a book on Lourdes to Italian publisher Mondadori, a project that is very dear to his heart. Its title is Bernadette did not deceive us. Is someone in the Vatican deceiving us instead? I ask Messori what a practicing Catholic may feel when hearing of how cardinals fight each other tooth and nail, when hearing of files slipped to journalists, of letters stolen from the Pope, of bank intrigues, murderers buried with state honours. "The Roman Curia," he answers, "has always been a viper's nest. However, in the past at least, it was the most efficient state organisation in the world. It ran an empire the sun never set on and it had an unparalleled diplomatic corps. What is left of that today?" Strolling along the cloisters and then among the olive trees, this is how Messori describes the decadence: "The priests in the Roman Curia used to enlist the best people from all the dioceses in the world. Bishops had plenty of clergy around them and had no problem letting them go. Today seminaries have either closed or they're half empty. So if a bishop has a good priest to hand, he keeps hold of him. And the Pope is like Charles V, who had to run a vast empire and cried out in a depopulated Spain: 'Give me men'." But in Africa, I try to object... "The boom in vocations? I'm not kidding myself. In Africa men enter the seminary for the same reasons they did here when we were dying of hunger. It's a way of making a living. And apart from that, celibacy is incomprehensible for African culture so the Church – let's put it this way – turns a blind eye. Many priests have wives and children. What are you going to do, send them to Rome? To be bishops?" He adds: "The decline in quality is obvious. There aren't even any Latin speakers that are up to the job any more. When Luciani was elected Pope, they were even forced to stop the press at L'Osservatore Romano, the Holy See's newspaper because there was a mistake in the Latin on the front page headline. Even John Paul II's last encyclicals had Latin mistakes, imagine that." In short, the man who wrote two books with the last two popes feels that "the way the Church is limping along is down to the mediocrity of its personnel." However, is it simply a question of ineptitude? We seem to be faced with resentment, rivalry, greed, maliciousness and infidelity. "Malicious pettiness is often a characteristic of mediocre personalities. Talented people don't need to stab others in the back." The scandal remains and Jesus said beware of those who sow discord. Could one lose one's faith over it? "No, Christians know well the distinction that Maritain used to make between the Person of the Church, which is sacred, and the people of the Church who, as in any human institution, are bounded by limits, by the sin that is in each of us. The important thing is that the Church must announce the Gospel. If the person then announcing it is holy, then thank God Almighty. If he is a rogue, never mind: he is nevertheless a keeper of Grace." However aren't the rogues too many and too powerful today? "The clergy of the Dark Ages, the Renaissance or that of the powdered bishops of the eighteenth century were much worse. And let us not forget one thing: today the clergy is second-rate, however the quality at the top has never been so high. From the Napoleonic era on, every pontiff has either been canonised or was worthy of it. That hasn't always been the case." He leaves me with these words to explain his calm: "Jesus had predicted that the Son of Man would be handed over to men who would do what they wanted with him. He said this at the Last Supper, but many Bible commentators and many mystics see these words as a prophecy not only of the Passion, but of what was to happen later. That's why scandals don't surprise me. The Christian God wished to need Mankind, with all the consequences that come with this."
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