Vatican Diary / the New Cei Has a President: Bergoglio

Chiesa
February 4, 2014

http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350709?eng=y


The Italian bishops are leaving the selection of their leaders to the pope. And Francis has already done it all on his own, in appointing the new secretary. The first step of a general change of direction

VATICAN CITY, February 4, 2014 – The president and secretary general of the Italian episcopal conference may continue to be appointed by the pope. This is what the bishops of Italy themselves want, after Pope Francis asked them last May, in the name of greater collegiality, to review the statutes of the CEI and rethink the ways of appointing the president and secretary.

An extensive consultation of the Italian episcopate was carried out in recent months on this point. And the results were made public at the end of the winter session of the permanent council, the mini-parliament of the CEI made up of roughly thirty members, which was held at the end of January in Rome.

Contrary to what takes place in almost all the episcopal conferences of the world, in Italy the presidency is not elective, but of pontifical appointment. And not without reason. The pope is in fact the bishop of Rome and primate of Italy. And as bishop of Rome - a title that Jorge Mario Bergoglio prefers - he is a member of the CEI, even if he does not actually participate in its activities. And so if he did not have a say in appointing the leaders he would find himself in the paradoxical situation of one who, in spite of having authority superior to that of all the episcopal conferences, as far as his own diocese is concerned would have to submit to decisions and stances taken without his direct participation.

Apart from Italy, there are only two other cases in which the bishops do not vote for their own president: Belgium, where the office belongs to the archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, and the conference of Latin bishops in Arab countries, presided over ex officio by the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem.

The fact that in Italy the secretary general also is not elected but appointed by the pope is truly a unique case in the panorama of the episcopal conferences.
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There was nevertheless a moment, decades ago, in which the hypothesis that the Italian Church as well would put its own president and secretary general to the vote found very broad agreement among the bishops.

It happened during the 23rd general assembly of the CEI, celebrated in Rome from May 7-11 of 1983.

In the course of the work to approve the new statutes of the conference - which, among other things, would have raised from three to five years the duration of the higher offices - the bishops were invited “by higher disposition” to carry out a “consultative vote” concerning the manner of appointing the president and secretary general, “to be delivered to the Holy Father and left to the decision of the pope.”

Out of 226 bishops there were 185 with the right to vote on the proposal that the president of the CEI should be elected by the assembly of the bishops, so the two-thirds majority was 151. There were 145 votes of "placet," 36 of "non placet," and 4 ballots left blank.

While the proposal that the secretary general should be elected by the permanent Council at the proposal of the president of the CEI brought the following results: out of 185 voting, 158 placet, 20 non placet, 7 blank ballots.

So an absolute majority of the bishops sided in favor of an elected president, although the quorum of two-thirds required for the modification of the statutes fell short by only six votes. A quorum that was instead reached for the election of the secretary general.

On October 25, 1984, nonetheless, during the subsequent general assembly celebrated in Rome, the cardinal president at the time, archbishop of Turin Anastasio Ballestrero, made it known that John Paul II had wanted to reserve to himself the appointment of the president and secretary of the episcopal conference, “pointing out how this practice constitutes a further sign of attention and benevolence on the part of the Holy Father toward the bishops and the CEI.”
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Today instead the Italian bishops, in spite of having the possibility of opting for the direct election of their president and secretary general, have preferred that it should be the pope who continues to appoint them, even if - and this is the only innovation - it is on the basis of a previous list of names indicated by a private consultation of the whole episcopate, by means that will be defined in detail in the future statutes, which could be approved in the upcoming general assembly in May.

Currently, in fact, the norms stipulate that it should be the pope who selects the president of the CEI, and they say nothing concerning the consultation that might precede this selection.

There have been, however, two occasions - ten years apart from each other - on which the procedures of consultation adopted were officially made public.

The first time was on October 1, 1969, when a terse statement published by “L'Osservatore Romano" made it known that Paul VI had convened that morning “the cardinals occupying residential sees and the vice-president of the CEI” ( there was only one of these at the time, while now there are three) to “proceed with consultations concerning the appointment of the new president of the CEI, to replace the dearly departed cardinal Giovanni Urbani," who passed away on September 17 after having been confirmed for a three-year term the previous February.

So on October 3 Bologna archbishop Antonio Poma was appointed president, and after being confirmed for two more three-year terms on June 19, 1972 and May 21, 1975 was kept in office by John Paul I and then by John Paul II until May 16, 1979, when he left the position at the age of 69, the pope having appointed Ballestrero.

And just two days after this appointment, on May 18, addressing the assembly of the CEI meeting in Rome John Paul II explained that he had consulted with the presidents of the regional episcopal conferences and had chosen the archbishop of Turin, “he having been the one indicated by the majority of the prelates consulted.”

Ballestrero was confirmed for another three-year term on July 19, 1982 and left the office in 1985 at the age of 72. On July 1 of that year, John Paul II appointed as the new president the cardinal vicar of Rome, Ugo Poletti, who remained in the position until the age of 77.

After him, on March 4, 1991 the presidency passed to Camillo Ruini, who had already replaced Poletti as pro-vicar of Rome on January 17 and who - the only case in the history of the CEI - came to the presidency after a five-year term as secretary general. Ruini remained in office until March 7, 2007.

With regard to the procedural steps that led to the appointments of Poletti, Ruini, and current president Angelo Bagnasco, nothing was ever said officially.

At the beginning of 2006, nonetheless, there was a great splash in the media over news of the “primaries” organized - complete with a confidential letter that ended up in the newspapers well before Vatileaks - by the apostolic nuncio to Italy at the time, Paolo Romeo, who in the name of the pope was asking the Italian residential bishops to suggest a name for Ruini's replacement. The initiative fell flat. But now there is the possibility that precisely that procedure will be formalized.
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When it comes to the selection of the secretary general of the episcopal conference, however, “the majority” of the Italian bishops ask that he continue to be a bishop and that he continue to be appointed by the pope from a list of names “proposed by the presidency, after consulting the permanent council.” The formula cited is exactly that of the current statutes, but the concrete manner of drafting the list to be presented to the pope will be decided by the assembly in May.

In this case it will be necessary to wait for the details in order to understand thoroughly what will happen. In the past, in fact, although the norms may have been respected formally, it could happen that it was the president of the CEI, in agreement with the pope, who selected in advance the name on which the agreement of the permanent council would then be secured. While last December it was Pope Francis who appointed "motu proprio" the new interim secretary general - Bishop Nunzio Galantino - without the permanent council having been "heard."
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In recent days, moreover, the Italian bishops have confirmed in toto the current procedure concerning the direct election by the assembly of the three vice-presidents, who by custom are selected to represent the three geographical areas of the country: north, center, and south.

The current vice-presidents are Cesare Nosiglia, archbishop of Turin, for the north; Gualtiero Bassetti, archbishop of Perugia, for the center; Angelo Spinillo, bishop of Aversa, for the south.

Bassetti's term is about to expire - he was elected in 2009 at the second round of voting with 102 votes out of 194, far outstripping two churchmen traditionally very much present in the media: the then-bishop of Terni Vincenzo Paglia, who took 46, and archbishop of Chieti-Vasto Bruno Forte, who scraped together 35.

Nosiglia was elected in 2010 when he outdistanced Como bishop Diego Coletti by a wide margin, with 137 to 76.

Spinillo was elected in 2013, when he beat by a whisker in the voting the archbishop of Bari, Francesco Cacucci, by 100 votes to 91.
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In practice, therefore, with respect to what one might have expected, the Italian bishops have not opted for big changes in the modalities of selecting their leaders. But that does not mean that the pontificate of Francis is not impressing a profound change of direction on the Italian episcopate.

In the meantime he himself has chosen the secretary general, whom he has begun to receive in audience with greater frequency than that reserved for the president.

It seems obvious that changing the statutes would also imply the selection of a new president in the place of Cardinal Bagnasco, in spite of the fact that his mandate, by virtue of the five-year confirmation received from Benedict XVI, expires in 2017. In this regard it will be interesting to see if there will emerge any alternative candidacies to that of Perugia archbishop Gualtiero Bassetti, who - beyond the esteem that he enjoys in the episcopate - fresh from his promotion as cardinal and member of the congregation for bishops seems to be the favorite of Francis and therefore also his president of the CEI "in pectore."
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On the whole, it seems that the Italian episcopate finds itself at a turning point that brings two precedents to mind. Both of papal initiative.

The first was with Paul VI during the 1960's, when that pope removed the powerful cardinal Giuseppe Siri from the leadership of the CEI in order to accelerate the conciliar shift in the Italian episcopate, with a new leadership of his own appointment.

And the second was seen with John Paul II in 1985, when at the ecclesial conference of Loreto he imposed on the CEI a change of pace toward a strong presence of the Church in the public sphere, there as well with a radical reshuffling of its leaders.

In this regard it will be interesting to see if and how the figure of Nunzio Galantino will take on with Francis the key role in the relationship between the pope and the Italian episcopate that Camillo Ruini - made secretary of the CEI the year after Loreto - initially had with pope Karol Wojtyla. In a very different direction, of course.

But this is another story. Which has only begun to be written.