US embassy cable - 05VATICAN2323

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? 
-------------- 
 
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