God's Kremlin
Peter Hebbleth waite
Inside the Vatican George Bull (Hutchin- son pp. 293, £8.95) How important is the Vatican? News editors find it interesting when the Pope says something odd such that a man may rape his wife (Tope lashes lustful looks') or that there is no sex in the after- life. Publishers occasionally want books that purport to tell the 'inside story'. That is the claim made in George Bull's title. But the splendid cover rather gives the game away: a bespectacled Swiss Guard, in Michelangelesque uniform sits at the recep- tion desk at the foot of the staircase leading to the papal apartments. So we peep into this strange world from the outside, grateful for every little crumb that falls from the table of these great men who make up — pause for awe — the Roman Curia.
In fairness it must be said that few have sought interviews with Vatican personages so relentlessly and over such a long period as Mr Bull. Says the blurb: 'Rarely have Vatican officials spoken so frankly about their work for the papacy and the Catholic Church'. That is true. For the most part they are mute, resisting every attempt at journalistic or scholarly encroachment on their time. But now that Mr Bull has per- suaded them to speak, it seems that they have practically nothing, or nothing very in- teresting, to say.
An example. An Italian cardinal, once considered papabile, 'said to me em- phatically, resting his hand over his heart: "In a conclave you can feel the assistance of the Holy Spirit" '. I don't doubt that the presence of the Holy Spirit is found in a Spectator 16 January 1982 conclave, but I do doubt the Italian gesture of laying the hand on the heart as some kind of guarantee of sincerity. Another problem is that one is never quite sure what weight to give to certala anecdotes. Thus I am gratified that Car' dinal Giovanni Benelli should have given permission for one of the lay officals in the Vatican, against the rules, to keep a cat, but am not entirely convinced that it demonstrates the deep humanity of this ut- terly charming and super-efficient cardinal. The same kind of doubt extends to grave/ matters. Pope John Paul II, as you will recall, is due to visit us towards the end of May. He is Polish. According to Mr Bull' becoming Pope made the following dil ference to him: 'When Cardinal Wojtyla became Pope, he seemed instinctively to adopt a new gesture — and rapid, outward and upwards movement of the arms, is powerful and authoritative — that he had never used before'. Never? The author s surely not claiming to have observed Car- dinal Wojtyla in all his pre-papal public 0' pearances. And on the meaning of the gesture, one would have to consult Des- mond Morris. • Another thing one misses is the rest of the Church, the 700 million or so who are the object of the solicitude of these Vatican of; ficials. The Vatican appears as an island where only the most privileged are allowed to set foot. The author is among this bless- ed group. After lunching with a cardinal (`preprandial drinks from a solid decaliter' the crisp white wine accompanying the meal, the brandy'), he muses: 'He and his way of life represent some of the gentler features of a unique kind of civilised society which the Vatican City State helps to sus' tam. I am glad that it still exists'. So there is a distinct touch of The Vatican Revisited about this urbane' agreeable, information-packed, nostalgic vade-mecum. Pontifical gongs, defunct orders of this or that, purposeless . academies, gentlemen of the bed-chamber all are lovingly listed. But this world is threatened. Our own local aposnallc delegate, Archbishop Bruno Heim, Is described as follows: `A vigorous defender of the Vatican's role in the modern world,' but not uncritical of its bureaucracY amateurism in public communications, an0 a lover of ceremonial splendours, which has shed too blunderingly under the pressure of fashion'. So the cat is out of the bag at last. What seems strange is that the translator of Machiavelli should take these gentlemen so trustingly at their own evaluation. So it 15 another instance of the bland leading the, bland. One of his most 'out-spoke!' witnesses, Fr Henri de Riedmatten, a SWiss Dominican, now dead, says to him: 'W;e, don't lie in the Vatican — but we don.' always tell the truth'. I knew this man. HI brother Dominicans in Geneva nicknalner him Henri le Navigateur because of his SO' in negotiating the choppy waters of Vatican politics. But there are no storms in Inside the Vatican.
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