Cablegate: Pope Benedict Xvi Pontificate Preview Part Three

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS VATICAN 002323

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

DEPT. FOR EUR/WE (LEVIN), EUR/PPD, INR

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINR VT

SUBJECT: POPE BENEDICT XVI PONTIFICATE PREVIEW PART THREE

REF: A) VATICAN 0467; B) VATICAN 0468; C) VATICAN 0475; D)
VATICAN 0479; E) VATICAN 0480

1.(U) This cable is the third in a series previewing the
pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI. The first cable (ref c)
examined Benedict's election and initial impressions of the
focus of his papacy. The second installment (ref d)
examined approaches he is likely to take on major policy
issues within the Church and internationally. This third
cable examines the way that Pope Benedict XVI is likely to
govern the Church and the dynamics of his management of the
Curia.

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Summary
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2. (SBU) Benedict XVI's closest collaborators have told us
he is a humble, attentive listener who is open to arguments
before making a judgment. According to his former
colleagues in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, his formidable mind and desire for seeking the
""truth"" make him more open to discussion and debate than
has usually been portrayed. A naturally quiet, shy,
scholarly person, the pope has decided not to seek the
spotlight as much as his predecessor, opting for less
fanfare. He uses public occasions to speak more about the
essentials of church life, offering headline-making
comments on geo-political issues less often. The 78-year-
old former stroke victim may also be trying to pace himself
somewhat for health reasons, having seen how hard Pope John
Paul II drove himself. German churchmen will likely be
appointed to important positions in place of the Poles who
held high places in John Paul II's pontificate, but there
will be no ""Deutsche mafia"" in Benedict's pontificate. The
pope will work on his first encyclical and further
personnel moves this summer, likely affirming his desire
for a pontificate with limited fanfare, focused on ""faith
and truth."" End summary.

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Willingness to Listen
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3. (SBU) Discussions with the new pope's colleagues on his
management style have brought out an image in stark
contrast to the media's depiction of Ratzinger as stern,
imperious, and eager to squelch voices of dissent. Those
who have worked with him have told us without exception
that Benedict XVI is a humble, attentive listener, who is
open to arguments before making a judgment. An American
contact who worked in Ratzinger's dicastery for many years
told us that when an issue came before the office in a
staff meeting, the cardinal would ask for the opinion of
the most junior person first, working his way up to his
deputy. Ratzinger did not just want the group to hear what
a senior prelate said and then parrot the response (a
tactic, our contact admitted ruefully, not uncommon in the
Vatican hierarchy). In fact, Ratzinger typically listened
quietly to all opinions and then gave his decision - which
was on not a few occasions in agreement with that of the
junior member of the staff.

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Formidable Intellect
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4. (SBU) Our contacts also remarked on Benedict's
intellect, insisting that his formidable mind made him more
open to discussion and debate than some might think. ""He's
not afraid to face tough questions, because he genuinely
feels that he has thought them through. He constantly seeks
the truth,"" one told us, ""and he's willing to reevaluate
judgments he had made that, upon later reflection, don't
seem to be borne out by the facts."" One example of this,
he said, was the sexual abuse scandal in the U.S. Though
Ratzinger said early in the crisis that the American media
was blowing the situation out of proportion, he eventually
concluded that, while the media may have been unfair to the
Church or acting with a certain agenda, the crisis was all
too real (ref d). Fr. Joseph ""Gus"" DiNoia, Ratzinger's
second deputy at CDF, told us he was impressed by the
cardinal's ability to digest multiple sources of

information on a certain subject during the course of a
meeting or conference, often in many languages. In the end,
he typically offered a distilled version of the subject,
focusing accurately on the key issues at stake.

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A New Papal Style
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5.(SBU) Benedict XVI has already brought his own style
to the papacy. He has decided not to seek the spotlight as
much as his predecessor, opting, for example, not to
preside at beatification liturgies (the last step before
canonization), ending a 34-year-old practice. Although the
pope's presence at beatifications had become routine,
Benedict (as Cardinal Ratzinger and head of the Holy See's
doctrinal office) and others thought that such high-level
participation had created misunderstandings among believers
about the sainthood process. In his public addresses, Pope
Benedict has opted to speak about the essentials of church
life and less often about world issues that would generate
headlines. Even his much-publicized address to Italian
bishops referring to Italy's assisted procreation
referendum avoided direct, simple formulations that would
have made good media copy.

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Limited Engagements
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6. (SBU) Benedict is meeting with fewer groups and giving
fewer photo ops than did his predecessor. A photo with
Pope John Paul had become for many a notch in the belt
showing that they had really made it to the Vatican. After
every Wednesday audience, a seemingly endless line of those
lucky enough to get ""prima fila"" (first row) tickets was
ushered up to shake the weary pope's hand or kiss his ring.
At Benedict's public audiences, the pope simply walks out
towards the faithful to greet them. The photos are kept to
a minimum.

7. (SBU) For the time being - with rare exceptions - only
heads of government and religious leaders are being granted
private audiences with the new pope. On his first trip
outside of Rome to the Italian church's Eucharistic
Congress in Bari, Italy in late May, Benedict flew back to
the Vatican immediately after the main gathering, eschewing
the many meetings and photo ops with local Church
officials, Eucharistic Congress participants and other
dignitaries in which Pope John Paul would surely have taken
part.

8. (SBU) The message of these changes is that Benedict is
not seeking to be present to the public in the same way as
John Paul II. He is seeking to de-emphasis the ""rock star""
image of the pope and return the papacy to its role in
promoting the Catholic faith. He does not like to travel.
In fact, after his last trip to the United States in 1999,
he told an aid that it was the last time he would cross the
Atlantic. While his recent promotion may force him to go
back on this prediction, he will surely travel far less
than his predecessor did.

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Pacing Himself
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9. (SBU) The 78-year-old former stroke victim is also
trying to pace himself, recognizing the limits of his age
and having seen the negative effects of Pope John Paul's
hectic schedule on his health. As an archbishop who is a
close collaborator of the new pope put it to the Charge
recently, Benedict ""knows he's going to die on the job, but
he'd prefer it to be later, rather than sooner."" He has
had to honor scheduling obligations made by Pope John Paul
II, but has been careful not to make too many of his own.
""He knows he can add on to his schedule later if he wants
to,"" the archbishop said. ""But it's much harder to trim
back a schedule once its been made.""

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Good-bye Poles
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10. (SBU) As for the inner circle the pope will depend

upon for counsel and to shield him from the masses
demanding his time and attention, there will certainly be a
change from the pontificate of Pope John Paul II. It
didn't take long after John Paul's death for some in the
Italian press to express their happiness at the exodus of
the ""Polish mafia"" that they said had surrounded the first
Slavic pope. Of course, many Poles in Curial positions
will remain in place, but less official advisors and
confidants such as John Paul's longtime secretary,
Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz (the newly-named Archbishop of
Krakow), and his friend Cardinal Andrzej Deskur now find
themselves outside of the circle of power. Even well-
established Curial Poles such as Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko
(Pontifical Council for the Laity) and Cardinal Zenon
Grocholewski (Congregation for Catholic Education) are
likely to see their influence weaken. Still, we don't
expect to see the Poles discarded wholesale. Benedict XVI
has too much respect for John Paul to abandon all who were
closest to him. One example is Ukrainian-born (but
ethnically Polish -- from Lviv) papal secretary Monsignor
Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki, whom Benedict plans to keep on in a
top secretarial role.

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Hello Germans?
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11. (SBU) Although Ratzinger's secretary, Monsignor Georg
Ganswein, has joined his boss in the papal apartments, it
seems unlikely that a German mafia will move in to supplant
the exiting Poles. One German working in the Vatican
brought up the issue to us without being asked. ""Don't
worry,"" he said. ""There will be no 'German mafia.' We
just don't have it. It's not in our nature. We like rules
and order. These types of informal cliques and
relationships don't appeal to us."" It is also true that
the mindset of Poles coming into the Curia from a
persecuted Church in the late 1970s or 1980s is markedly
different from the mindset of Germans in 2005. And though
there hasn't been a German pope since 1057, there have been
several powerful Germans in the Curia in past decades.
Germans have already become used to having their own as
influential churchmen in Rome. They are unlikely to move
to consolidate their positions around a new pope as the
Poles did.

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Comment
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12. (SBU) When he appeared on the balcony of Saint Peter's
Basilica for the first time, Pope Benedict proclaimed
himself simply a ""humble worker in the vineyard of the
Lord."" It seemed a tall order for him to follow the
daunting legacy of Pope John Paul II. While historians
will make their judgment of Benedict's pontificate many
years from now, the new pope has taken to the papacy, as
DiNoia told us, ""like a fish to water,"" and seems to be
genuinely enjoying his new role. The key to his success
may well be his continued ability to ""be his own pope"" and
ignore the giant fisherman's shoes he has inherited.

13.(SBU) The pope will take advantage of his summer
holiday to prepare his first encyclical, giving a further
indication of the direction of his papacy. He will also
make some personnel decisions that will be announced in the
fall. The encyclical and personnel moves will likely
affirm Benedict's initial direction and his desire for a
pontificate with limited fanfare, focused on ""faith and
truth.""

HARDT

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2005VATICA02323 - Classification: UNCLASSIFIED

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