INSIDE THE VATICAN: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church

#### INSIDE THE VATICAN: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church.

By Thomas J. Reese. Harvard University Press. 317 pp. $24.95

As you walk from Saint Peter’s Square along the Via di Porta Angelica toward the entrance to the Vatican Museum several blocks away, the massive Vatican City wall on your left rises higher and higher, until it is no longer possible to see over the top. In this, his third book on the government and politics of the Roman Catholic Church, Reese, the author of Archbishop (1989) and A Flock of Shepherds (1992), takes us behind that wall. Combining historical research, on-site observation, and interviews with more than 100 key players, Reese does a remarkable job of mapping the baffling, venerable, multilayered bureaucracy that serves the pope.

On the larger questions of church governance in the 21st century, Reese is less penetrating. For instance, he correctly points out that the Vatican has, like other large bureaucracies, developed a life of its own. But he does not explore whether the curia’s growing power has begun to eclipse that of the college of bishops—or whether the Vatican will allow local churches and episcopates greater control over their own affairs, including the appointment of bishops. The reluctance to address these thorny issues is regrettable, not least because of their relevance to the Vatican’s current troubled relationship with the Catholic Church in America.

On the prospects for change, Reese offers little in the way of realistic prediction. In passages studded with phrases such as "there is a need" and "it might be better," he makes his own wishes clear: more collegiality, more lay involvement, more openness in the Vatican’s way of proceeding (not to mention larger doses of faith, hope, and love). But despite his careful reportage, he does not give a sense of how many in the Vatican share his sentiments, and how many continue to regard the church as a fortress against a threatening world.

—Thomas M. Gannon, S.J.