Housekeeping at the Vatican

For Pope Paul VI, it was a busy week of ecclesiastical housekeeping. In addition to formally elevating 33 prelates to the rank of cardinal, he named a new international theological commission to study the relationship between heresy and permissible dissent within the church. The Pope also approved a new Roman missal, the book of prayers used by the priest at Mass; the new rubrics flatly forbid any fur ther unauthorized experimentation but approve such tested innovations as the use of jazz and folk music in the liturgy and end the centuries-old requirement that women cover their heads in church.

At the cardinals' investiture ceremonies -- which included a Solemn Pontifical Mass concelebrated by the Pope and the new members of the Sacred College -- Paul announced what may prove to be his most significant piece of news: the appointment of a new Secretary of State. The man that he chose was France's Jean Cardinal Villot, 63. He succeeds the ailing, 86-year-old Amleto Cardinal Cicognani, at one time the apostolic delegate to the U.S.

Personal Requirements. The Secretary of State is, in effect, the Vatican's Prime Minister. Villot is the first non-Italian to serve in this capacity since Spain's Cardinal Merry del Val held the office under Pius X from 1903 to 1914. While there was some surprise that this sensitive job would go to a non-Italian, the appointment was in keeping with Paul's long-declared intention of internationalizing the Curia. Two years ago, 20 of the 24 highest posts in the Vatican bureaucracy were held by Italian prelates; now, only eight top posts are held by Italians. "This is what we have been demanding," said John Cardinal Wright of Pittsburgh, one of four Americans who received their red birettas last week. "The Pope is meeting us more than halfway." Cardinal Wright was appointed to succeed Villot as Prefect of the Congregation of the Clergy, a job that grows more sensitive as the clergy grow more restive.

In elevating Villot, the Pope is also meeting his own personal requirements, since Villot is in accord with Paul's middle-of-the-road style. During the Second Vatican Council, he was the chief diplomatic intermediary between the often hostile progressive and conservative camps. Like the Pope, he tends to be conservative theologically, but he is far less rigid than the reactionary Cicognani. Although the son of a wealthy landowner, Villot was known as a champion of "the church of the poor" while Archbishop of Lyon and had frequent and cordial contacts with many dissident groups, including the French worker-priest movement.

Since being called back to Rome in 1967 to join the Curia, Villot has been even more actively involved in grappling with religious, racial and other forms of ferment in the priesthood throughout the world. Easily approachable, he generally wears a plain black cassock to work, frequently answers his own telephone, and sometimes, in order to keep an appointment, will hop a bus rather than use a Vatican limousine.

Curial Dismay. Villot will also have to face a certain amount of ferment within the Vatican itself. Some Italian curialists were openly dismayed that the Pope had chosen a foreigner for the job, and the energetic Villot will certainly crimp the style of Archbishop Giovanni Benelli, the aggressive young sostituto (deputy) to Cicognani, who had been more or less running the Secretariat by himself (TIME, March 14). The significance of the job is such that Villot is now automatically considered papabile--the Italian term used to describe potential candidates for the papacy. Since there has not been a non-Italian Pope since Hadrian VI (1522-23), even such speculation gives him unusually powerful clout as the Vatican's new Secretary of State.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.