Agostino Casaroli
Hehir, J. Bryan
historic importance. record, but also on how effectvely it attacks and solves the prob- I met with Lech Walesa in Sopot, a small town near Gdansk, lems of "anti-Semitism and chauvinism." Walesa...
...others must pro- vide strategy, tactics, and implementation...
...I can only wonder what lies ahead...
...For nearly a thousand years Polish he had met with American Jewish leaders in New York City in Jews struggled against anti-Semitism...
...By the end ofPius XII's papacy, how- ever, Casaroli was among those--led by Montini who saw the need for a different style in addressing this menace, even if basic principles remained constant...
...Montini's proposal in the mid-1950s to open a dialogue with the Communist regimes, as a way to gain a limited freedom for the church, earned him a premature exo- dus from the center of policy to the arch- bishopric of Milan...
...He used Bush has staked much of his policy in the been appointed by John Paul II in 1979...
...First as secretary for the Council of Public Affairs (the "for- eign ministry" of the Vatican) and then as secretary of state, he initiated the contacts with Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia...
...Stehle's extensive analysis records Casaroli's patient perse- verance, his substantial accomplishments, and his rare moments of discreet response to his critics...
...But it It is to shift the focus of the discussion It is precisely because the passing of is most unlikely that we will ever have from 88: Commonweal Casaroli a volume like Acheson's Present at the Creation or Kennan's Memoirs...
...Oh, mother," he says, "there's no 8 February 1991:89...
...A. JAMES RUDIN During our meeting I sensed Walesa's acute awareness that A. James Rudin, a rabbi, is the American Jewish Committee's both he and his country were under the world's critical micro- interreligious affairs director and a past chair of the International scope...
...so-called Iron Curtain...
...It feels like a depression...
...In the last decade, John Paul II has been the catalyst and the champion of change in Eastern Europe, some argue sec- ond only to Gorbachev...
...his diplo- has become standard discourse in the Agostino Casaroli as Vatican secretary of matic manner and his extensive historical media, in the academy, and in politics...
...John com- plemented his theoretical assertion with a series of initiatives to open the dialogue of Catholicism and communism...
...Casaroli entered the diplomatic serTHE VATICAN'S STRATEGIST OF DIALOGUE vice in 1938 and retired in 1990...
...By nature and structure, Vatican policy is principal- ly-overwhelmingly-determined by popes, not career diplomats...
...Today there are less than ten I am proud to be a Polish Catholic, just as I would be proud if thousand in a Polish population of 38 million which is over 90 I were a 100-percent Polish Jew...
...From all appearances Casaroli retired at a very young seventy-six...
...Both the ecclesiastical and the diplomat- ic world will be poorer on this account, so it is necessary to rely on the commentary of others like Hansjacob Stehle's The Eastern Politics of the Vatican 1917-1979 or Peter Nichols's The Politics of the Vatican...
...One of my friends went to her bank the other day and took out $500 in $100 bills, not to spend but to stash away...
...Precisely because a memoir is unlikely, it would be a double loss if the ecclesial community failed to make use of this much intelligence and experience...
...In a series of ceremonial events, from the Vatican to Poland to the United States, over the past year, Casaroli's contribution has been publicly acknowl- edged...
...The eleven years as secretary of state were only a piece of a priestly voca- tion spent entirely in the Vatican foreign AGOSTINO CASAROLI office...
...His theological training has characterized the tenure between the church and the world...
...Abigail McCarthy WHEN WE WERE POOR TOGETHER LESSONS WE MAY NEED AGAIN he economic analysts are still telling us that it isn't a real recession, that it will bottom out soon, that things will be on the upswing by the end of the year...
...As soon as possible...
...John XXIII went sub- stantially beyond anything proposed in the 1950s...
...Unlike most of his colleagues, he never served outside of Rome in a diplomatic ministry that began in the world of Mussolini, Hitler, and Roosevelt and ended in the world of ince the events of 1989 in from the world to the church, and to take Gorbachev, Bush, and Havel...
...The state...
...Her reason: "I want to have some money in the house in case the bank closes...
...describing the events and his role...
...For John XXIII the dis- tinction provided the reason for engaging the Communists in dialogue to achieve practical, concrete objectives like prevent- ing war and opening living space for the church in Communist countries...
...The dramatic contrast in the 1970s, of a Cardinal Mindzenty openly in resistance to any shift from his life-long defiance of communism, and Casaroli seeking to chip away the walls imprisoning the church in a series of arduously negotiated agreements represented the poles of the argument...
...as the"origin of the majority of Jews living in the world today...
...ful resistance to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait sonalizes policymaking, so Casaroli's The length of this tenure and the cata- is a lynchpin in creating the "new world retirement was quiet and quick...
...But Casaroli has continued to be an essential architect in a policy whose wisdom has been vindicated in the "new order...
...Wyzynski was not immune to making agreements himself with the Polish gov- ernment, but he feared that outsiders----even Vatican diplomats--would not weigh the OF SEVERAL MINDS costs and benefits wisely...
...Yet every morning we wake up to the ominous headlines: another bankruptcy, so many thousand laid off at a financial institution, another few hundred at a local business, advertised auctions of the homes of defaulting mortgagees or of a developer's unsold new houses...
...and under the even more expansive Eastern policy of Paul VI, he helped shape what others called "Vatican Ostpolitik...
...His retirement raises a final question...
...clean" and that he had the papers to prove it...
...For many people it has begun to feel like more than a recession...
...The Nazis carried him about this, he replied: "I really meant it in a positive way...
...The shift from the old to the new eccle- sial order initiated by John XXIII in 1959 included an acceptance of the Montini strat- egy toward the East...
...In all of this use of old and new, referred to him as "a wise and expert col- through, from World War II to the cold war there is more to be analyzed than will be laborator" who had made "significant to the collapse of communism, would attempted here, because I have a different advances to improve the church behind the ensure from a secular diplomat a memoir, purpose...
...The pope clysmic changes that Casaroli worked order...
...watch and wait...
...both of these in the service of five popes Persian Gulf on the concept that a success- The Vatican is not given to a style that per- from Pius XII through John Paul II...
...they are given platforms to share hard-earned wisdom and they are given assignments in critical situations...
...In Pacem in terris he provided a theoretical foundation for a shift in tactics by drawing the distinction between the false philosophical principles that often are the basis for historical movements, and the change the latter undergo because of events and circumstances...
...record, but also on how effectvely it attacks and solves the probI met with Lech Walesa in Sopot, a small town near Gdansk, lems of "anti-Semitism and chauvinism...
...out the mass murder of millions...
...At the level of principle, some saw "Ostpolitik" as simply a sellout...
...Popes establish a policy...
...Secular diplomatic figures are often used in different ways...
...His presidency will be judged not only on its economic Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultation...
...Walesa admitted that when percent Roman Catholic...
...On took shape in a perspective that would be of Mikhail Gorbachev until now, the con- December 1, 1990, Pope John Paul II profoundly revised and renewed by the trast between the old and new world order accepted the resignation of Cardinal teaching and spirit of Vatican II...
...one free of anti-Semitism, extreme nationalism, and chauvin- I am drawn to Poland in a strange and mystical way that I ism...a Poland that will be pluralistic and democratic...
...Here Casaroli became the key figure for the next twenty-five years...
...To visit Poland today is 1989, "it had not been a good meeting...
...When I questioned In 1939, 3.3 million Jews lived in Poland...
...During our the continued presence of anti-Semitism in Poland is morally private meeting he pledged a "new chapter in Polish history, and politically unacceptable...
...The policy, like its secular analogue of "drtente," had its critics both at the level of principle and tactics...
...Noting that Warsaw is one of the transfer points for Soviet Jews I am sure that the pope, President Walesa, Cardinal Glemp, and on their way to Israel, Walesa told me: "Get them out of the Bishop Muszynski must be wondering as well...
...The story they and others record is that of a man shaped in the old order ~ho did not remain its captive...
...During can only accept, but not explain...
...Given this decade-long debate about the policy with which Casaroli was so iden- tified, many questioned whether a Polish pope would retain him...
...he represented the Holy See in signing the Nonproliferation Treaty (in Moscow) in 1968...
...His first twenty years were in the service of Pius XII's mortal combat with totali- tarianism, particularly in opposition to Soviet attempts to repress and eradicate the role of religion in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe...
...Walesa knows that three days after his election as president of Poland...
...At the level of tactics, Casaroli had to defend the policy of dialogue and negotiation against the formidable skepticism of Cardinal Wyzynski of Poland, who feared that too much would be traded away...
...Casaroli respond- ed to both criticisms, maintaining that no principle was being sacrificed and that a review of the negotiations would illustrate their utility...
...Cardinal Casaroli held the position knowledge marked him from the school theme has intensified as President George of secretary of state for eleven years,having of classical European diplomacy...
...I was misunderstood, like taking a crash course in medieval and modem history and and I made some mistakes, and I do not want to repeat them...
...Casaroli from the official policymaking WORLD WATCH process will not be a noticed event outside a small circle of diplomatic and ecclesial Vatican observers, that a comment on his role in a more popular forum might be J. Bryan Hehir worthwhile...
...in Catholic-Jewish relations...
...Eastern Europe and the note of a person who might be described He was by training, style, and age a man larger and longer evolution as a man of the old order who has been of the "old order," the old order in both in U.S.-Soviet relations that strategically crucial in creating a new order church and state...
...And another bank in trouble...
...Poland was once the world his campaign, Walesa had made a widely reported speech in center of Jewish life, a land the bishops' letter correctly describes which he declared that he was a "100-percent Polish Catholic...
...But Casaroli's role in serving popes of different diplomatic visions is the fascinating story of his life...
...Her son, a broker of the yuppie generation, laughs...
...We can only Soviet Union now...
...It was a symbolic vote of confidence for the strategy of dia- logue when John Paul II named him sec- retary of state within days of the pontiff's election...
Vol. 118 • February 1991 • No. 3
