ROME
National Catholic Reporter
John L. Allen Jr. | Sep. 27, 2013 All Things Catholic
ROME
A pope plays many roles, one being the premier ambassador for Catholicism (and religion generally) on the global stage. In a sense, it requires the art of diplomacy: reaching across divides, finding ways to communicate with people who don’t speak your language, and emphasizing common ground rather than drawing lines in the sand.
Francis has shown himself to be awfully good at that part of the job, which may help explain why he seems increasingly inclined to turn to churchmen with a strong diplomatic background to fill his administration’s key slots.
Indeed, one surprising twist to his papacy is that it seems to be shaping up as a golden age for Vatican diplomats.
Not long ago, conventional wisdom had it that the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio was bad news for the Secretariat of State, the Vatican’s ultra-powerful coordinating department, which is typically led by veterans of the diplomatic corps. Frustration with perceived dysfunction in the Secretariat of State, symbolized by the Vatican leaks scandal, was a large part of the reason why the cardinals elected a Latin American outsider in the first place.
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