Michael Kelly
The Papacy in the Modern World
by Frank J. Coppa
(Reaktion Books, £20.00)
There was quiet satisfaction in early 2014 when the coalition announced a u-turn on Eamon Gilmore’s controversial decision to close Ireland’s Embassy to the Vatican.
It had been a little over two years since Mr Gilmore announced the downgrading of Ireland’s most-historic diplomatic engagement. It was widely seen as a snub to the Holy See and criticised in diplomatic circles as short-sighted.
Ireland now has a new resident ambassador to the Vatican in Emma Madigan and Mr Gilmore’s disastrous electoral performance has seen him unseated and banished to the backbenches by his Labour party colleagues.
The Fine Gael–Labour decision to close the Irish embassy for the Vatican, allegedly because Ireland had no trade relationship with the Holy See, underlined the fact that many people – including senior Government ministers – really don’t understand the Pope’s diplomatic role.
Russian dictator Joseph Stalin once sarcastically fumed: “The Pope! How many divisions has he got?” to Pierre Laval in 1935, in response to being asked whether he could do anything with Russian Catholics to help Laval win favour with the Pope.
Diplomacy
The Vatican has long disbanded the Pope’s armies; but the Pontiff’s army of formal and informal channels around the globe mean the Holy See is unrivalled when it comes to diplomacy. Some 200 states are represented at the Vatican, making it an ideal listening post on world affairs.
Frank J. Coppa is well-known in ecclesiastical history circles. His 2013 book The Life and Pontificate of Pope Pius XII: Between History and Controversy was a skilful move away from the polemics that normally surrounds debates about the wartime Pontiff.
Coppa’s meticulous examination of sources is the essence of good history that is too often lacking in populist writing about the past.
This new book is an examination of the political and diplomatic role of the papacy describing the triumphs, controversies and failures of Popes over the past 200 years. Inevitably, a lot of the book concentrates on the World War II period as the insanity of national socialism and fascism gripped much of Europe.
Prof. Coppa usefully situates the genesis of what has become the modern understanding of the papacy from the French Revolution onwards as Popes and the Church struggled to come to terms with modern Enlightenment ideals.
There is always what theologians sometimes describe as a ‘necessary tension’ in the Church between the need to preserve universal truths and the Church’s need for constant reform. Conclaves to elect Popes reflect these tensions. Often, but not always, the cardinals tend to support candidates for the papacy who share and reflect their own views of the policies to be pursued.
Since the French Revolution, there have been 17 Popes. Prof. Coppa examines how each has had to confront difficult social, diplomatic, economic and ideological situations.
Some advocated accommodations with state and society: Pius VII (1800-23), Pius XII (1939-58) and Blessed Paul VI (1963-78); others called for confrontation: Gregory XVI (1831-46), Pius IX (1846-78) and Pius XI (1922-39); while still others sought an aggiornamento or updating of Church programmes to deal with contemporary problems: Leo XIII (1878-1903) and St John XXIII (1958-63). Some were more pastoral than political, as with St Pius X (1903-14), while others more diplomatic: Benedict XV (1914-22).
The Papacy in the Modern World will be a thoroughly enlightening read for many modern Catholics largely unaware of the Pope’s political role or the fact that up to the latter part of the 19th Century he was also a rule of a secular state.
There are useful sections on the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and the efforts of Paul VI and St John Paul II to keep the Church united. However, these latter periods suffer from the fact that archive material is not yet readily available.
Evidently Prof. Coppa’s book was at an advanced state when Benedict XVI announced on February 11, 2013 that he would renounce the papacy leading to the election of Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis.
Understandably, the weakest part of the book is at the end where Prof. Coppa pays lip-service to the Argentine Pontiff by devoting two pages to Pope Francis. The fact that it is a last-minute addition is evident by the irritating errors like his assertion that Pope Francis only has one lung (this was shown to be false shortly after the election).
Nonetheless, The Papacy in the Modern World is a masterful and accessible account of how the papacy has moved – sometimes limped – from the trauma of the French Revolution to our own day. It is meticulously referenced allowing readers to easily expand their research.
Above all, Prof. Coppa’s value is in explaining how Popes have been transformed from Italian princes to universal pastors. He notes that the last three Popes have been neither Roman nor Italian, but Polish, German and Argentinian.
“Predictions of the papacy’s collapse, both past and present, have proven premature,” Prof. Coppa concludes. The enduring interest in Pope Francis and a new poll showing that his popularity is, in fact, increasing bears witness to this fact.
