All the Pope's Men Read Online Free

Archbishop Charles Chaput, Bishop Howard Hubbard, Bishop William Skylstad, Cardinal Roger Mahony, Cardinal James Francis Stafford, and Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald.
    To Trace Murphy at Doubleday goes my thanks for his interest and support, especially as the concept for
All the Pope’s Men
took a few twists and turns along the way. To Tom Fox, Tom Roberts, and the rest of the team at the
National Catholic Reporter
go my thanks for their constant support, including allowing me to take three weeks in the summer of 2003 to work on this project. Cardinal James Francis Stafford, Archbishop Charles Chaput, Bishop Howard Hubbard, Gianni Cardinale, Sandro Magister, Fr. Tom Reese, Fr. Gerald O’Collins, Fr. Donald Cozzens, Phil Pullella, Greg Burke, Fr. John Huels, and Richard Gaillardetz were generous in reading portions of the manuscript and offering comments. Obviously, the book’s defects remain my own. The staff of the Park Hotel ai Cappuccini in Gubbio, Italy, was magnificent. I cannot recommend the facility or the people highly enough.
    Much of this book was written in Gubbio from July 10–31, 2003. Word reached us upon our arrival that on July 9, 2003, Gary MacEoin had died at the age of ninety-four. Gary was a reporter, author, editor, and human rights activist who specialized in the politics and poverty of the Third World, especially Latin America, and a longtime contributor to the
National Catholic Reporter
. He was also a friend. It was Gary who had suggested to Shannon and I years ago that we should visit Gubbio, saying it was his favorite spot in Italy. We filed the information away for a rainy day and finally got around to acting on it when I needed a place to write. I believe it’s not an accident that I sat down to work on this book just as the lights finally went out in those magnificent Irish eyes, and that some of Gary’s magic was meant to find me here. I hope at least a small part of his passion and his integrity finds an echo in these pages.

1
    VATICAN 101
    If you mill about St. Peter’s Square long enough, you will eventually see a black Mercedes sedan exiting from the Vatican, bearing a cardinal or a gentleman of His Holiness to some important engagement. (The “gentlemen" are Italian laymen, often from noble families linked to the papacy for centuries, who help the Pope greet visiting dignitaries and assist at other ceremonial occasions.) The passenger is usually seated in the rear, dressed to the nines, projecting an air of worldly power and importance. One can sometimes be forgiven for straining to see the connection between such affectation and the gospel of Jesus Christ. The world-weary Romans, who have seen it all over the centuries, have developed a kind of gallows humor for resolving the tension between the high ideals of the Church and its human realities. For example, those sedans from the Vatican bear license plates that read “SCV," which stands for
Stato della Città del Vaticano
, Vatican City State. The Romans, however, say that it really means
Se Cristo vedesse
. . . If only Christ could see.
    Similar jokes at the expense of the human side of the Vatican are legendary. Monsignor Ronald Knox, an Anglican who joined the Catholic Church, once famously quipped: “On the barque of Peter, those with queasy stomachs should keep clear of the engine room." (Barque is an antiquated word for boat. Thus “barque of Peter" is an old, but still venerable, metaphor for the Catholic Church.) Here’s another classic. Question: Why is Rome such a spiritual city? Answer: Because so many people have lost their faith in it. Even popes sometimes get in on the cynical act. Beloved roly-poly Pope John XXIII (1958–1963) was once asked how many people work in the Vatican, to which he is supposed to have replied: “About half."
    Yet the Catholic Church, like any social movement, needs an institution with which it can organize its common life. Without an institution, a social phenomenon dies. It’s not