All the Pope's Men Read Free Page A

of speaking the truth that they see. Their relations with the institutional Church, or at least with certain elements of it, can sometimes be painful. This is true even of someone like Bruskewitz, who is himself a member of the hierarchy, but who is willing to challenge ecclesiastical structures or personnel if he sees them as compromised.
    Yet there is a sometimes forgotten, but very powerful, compensation that comes with being a prophet: for those who share your point of view, you are a celebrity. I have attended conferences of the liberal Call to Action group, for example, at which popular reformers such as James Carroll and Eugene Kennedy are greeted with rapturous standing ovations. On the other side of the street, I have listened to young men at the North American College, where U.S. seminarians preparing for the priesthood in Rome live, swap stories about handshakes with papal biographer George Weigel like other young people might talk about meeting one of the Rolling Stones. Prophets may sometimes be struck down by the powerful, but they are also lifted up by their disciples. They have the opportunity, at least within a certain circle, to receive wide acclaim and affirmation.
    Most of the men and women of the Roman Curia I know will never have this experience. Fr. Frans Thoolen, a plucky Dutch priest who works in the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Refugees, will probably never walk into a crowded ballroom and hear a packed room explode in applause for him. Long lines of people will probably never cue up to have Fr. Donald Bolen, a soft-spoken Canadian who works the Anglican/Methodist desk in the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, sign a book. Catholics are not likely to tell their grand-children about the time they met Sr. Sharon Holland, a quietly effective American, in the Congregation for Religious. Those who work in the Roman Curia are generally not public figures, and the occasional media darling is a rarity. Vatican officials are involved in the art of the possible, making compromises rather than waves, trying to get things done. By definition and necessity, most of their work is in the shadows. In most cases, the documents into which they pour their blood, sweat, and tears will never bear their names. Their role in forging steps forward in Catholic tradition will likely be known only to a small circle of experts. Such is the cost of progress in a bureaucracy that can only move so far, so fast. The Roman Catholic Church, as I am fond of saying, is not built for speed.
    Any social institution needs both its prophets and its bureaucrats. It needs those who will create a clamor for reform from the outside, but it also needs those who will do the hard, patient work of making change happen from within. The person who chooses to labor on the inside, without adulation, exercises a different, but, to my way of thinking, equally real kind of courage. Many of these men and women have put their own desires on hold to do this work, because they think it’s important. Some have sacrificed careers as academics, or pastors, or missionaries in order to answer the Church’s call to serve at a desk in Rome. I have learned to respect their choice, and I hope this book bears the imprint of that respect.
    Much of the research for this book arose from the daily experience of covering the Vatican over four years. I also wanted to test my own perceptions, however, against those of the men and women who serve in and around the Holy See. I therefore conducted thirty-five interviews specifically for
All the Pope’s Men
, most with officials of the nine congregations, eleven councils, three tribunals, and other offices that make up the papal bureaucracy. I aimed for a representative sampling across different types of offices, as well as different nationalities and linguistic backgrounds. I also included a few heads of religious orders who have regular contact with the Vatican and a couple of diplomats accredited to