In the Closet of the Vatican by Frédéric Martel

Author:Frédéric Martel [Martel, Frédéric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

14

The pope’s diplomacy

‘Ah, you’re a journalist?’ Mgr Battista Ricca looks at me with unease and a hint of envy. ‘I have problems with journalists,’ he adds, staring me in the eye.

‘He’s a French journalist,’ insists Archbishop François Bacqué, who has just introduced us.

‘Ah,’ Ricca sighs, with obvious relief. ‘My problem,’ he continues, ‘is with Italian journalists. They have nothing in their heads. Nothing! They have zero intelligence. But if you’re French, there might be a chance that you’re different! It bodes well!’

It was only in the middle of my investigation, when I had already started writing this book, that I was invited to stay at the Domus Internationalis Paulus VI. Prior to that, I had been living in Rome in apartments rented on Airbnb, most of them around Roma Termini.

Archbishop François Bacqué, a retired French apostolic nuncio, suggested one day that he should book me a room at the Domus Internationalis Paulus VI, and that was how things started. His recommendation was enough for me to end up living in the holy of holies of Vatican diplomacy.

The Domus is at 70 Via della Scrofa in Rome. This official residence of the holy see is an ‘extraterritorial’ place, outside of Italy: the police are not permitted to enter it, and if a theft, a rape or some other crime is committed there, it is the tiny Vatican police force, and the highly incompetent legal system of the holy see, that would be in charge.

Also known as Casa del Clero (house of the clergy), the diplomatic residence is ideally located between the Piazza Navona and the Pantheon: one of the most beautiful places in Rome; a pagan temple, if not a secular one; an extraordinary symbol of ‘civil’ religion dedicated to all faiths and all the gods, and one that was reimagined by the LGBT emperor Hadrian, before being made the object of aggressive ‘cultural appropriation’ by Italian Catholicism.

Domus Internationalis Paulus VI is a place of great importance in the holy see: to stay at the heart of the Vatican machinery was therefore a great opportunity for me. Here I’m treated as a friend, no longer as someone from outside. First of all, it’s a hotel for Vatican diplomats – the famous apostolic nuncios – when they stay in Rome. Sometimes foreign cardinals and bishops reside there too, rather than at Santa Marta. Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio stayed there when he passed through Rome: the pictures showing him in his white cassock, paying his own hotel bills, while travelling around the world.

Apart from cardinals and passing diplomats, the Casa del Clero is a permanent dwelling for several retired nuncios, unemployed bishops, or monsignori holding prestigious positions in the holy see. Many of them are on full board or half board. Over breakfast in the drawing rooms on the first floor or lunches taken communally in the huge restaurant, not to mention exchanges by coffee machines and long evenings in front of the television, I will get to know these nuncios, these apostolic diplomats, these assistants of the Secretariat of State or this secretary of the Congregation of Bishops.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.