In the Courts of Three Popes opens windows into how the Church works

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court was Mark Twain’s novel in which the main character found himself in a very different world: Hank Morgan was somehow carried back in time to the court of King Arthur. Think of Mary Ann Glendon’s In the Court of Three Popes as A Massachusetts Irish-American Laywoman in the Papal Court. The main protagonist’s fit is only somewhat more comfortable.

Mary Ann Glendon was George W. Bush’s last ambassador to the Holy See, holding that office when Pope Benedict XVI visited the United States in 2008. But the book is more than a diplomatic memoir. In fact, Glendon’s diplomatic career is only one of three main parts of the book. Remember that Glendon is also an accomplished scholar (Abortion and Divorce in the Western World remains a classic study of how U.S. policy in those areas is a massive outlier from the rest of the world) and lawyer (an emerita professor at Harvard Law School). Those sides of her background also figure into her papal adventures.

What most appealed to this reviewer—and most likely to attract Catholic readers—is the insight Glendon offers, from the perspective of three different pontificates, about what it’s like to work in and for the Vatican. Glendon did it under three popes in three different capacities: as an academic under John Paul II, as a diplomat during Benedict XVI, and as a legal consultant under Francis. The insights are fascinating.

Mary Ann Glendon’s path with the Vatican first crossed under St. John Paul II. The pontiff had recently established the Pontifical Academy of Social Science for the purpose of bringing the perspectives of Catholic thought to interact creatively with research and insights from those disciplines. Lots of contemporary problems involve both fields: human development, women’s position in society and how not just to talk about but maybe even advance human rights while searching for a common vocabulary to do that (like “dignity”—what goes around, comes around). The goals were ambitious, the subjects important, and at least some of the efforts truly dedicated.

But, as Glendon found out, such international studies also suffer certain systemic limits. When you assemble in Rome an international group of scholars whose facility in each other’s languages is sometimes limited (especially when it comes to subtle nuance, which is kind of important in academic research) and do that for only a few days per year, the output is going to be limited. That’s not to say the outcome’s not important, but it is going to be limited. It is going to be a snapshot that evaluates the lay of the land at a given moment, not an ongoing assessment of developments and needs. That’s especially true when the Academy lacks a permanent research staff that keeps projects moving along while the academicians are scattered around the world and when you don’t have the kind of budget to sustain an ongoing research project.

Having been part of Catholic academe, there’s a mentality that the Catholic intellectual project can be done on the cheap. It often is, thanks to the sacrifices scholars make. But while those sacrifices still often produce high quality work, there are two other sayings relevant to the question. “The laborer is worth his wage,” says the Lord. “You get what you pay for,” says the average economist.

Glendon returned to the Vatican as U.S. ambassador in the later Bush 43 Administration. Again, she offers valuable insights into behind-the-scene processes, both in Washington and the Vatican. Her nomination was held up for a time by a certain then-Senator from Delaware—Foreign Relations chairman Joseph R. Biden, Jr.—ostensibly over a staff misinterpretation of how to understand her previous work as a scholar in the “employ” of the Vatican. But, once confirmed, she gives us great looks into the unique diplomatic post that is Embassy Vatican.

“How many divisions does the Pope have?” Stalin was rumored to have asked FDR. Not a lot, but he’s got something no other country does: eyes and ears almost everywhere. Russia may have three consular sections in the United States, but the Vatican has “posts”—parishes, schools, hospitals, institutions—in cities, towns, and out-of-the-way places across the world. And, as the Vatican’s focus has shifted from temporal politics to matters spiritual, its “honest broker” stature has only increased, offering honest insights into what is happening in almost every corner of the world. A diplomat at the Vatican has unparalleled resources at her disposal.

Glendon’s tenure also coincided with Pope Benedict XVI’s pastoral visit to the United States and the United Nations, so she provides us with insight into the planning that goes into heads of state visits. That President Bush soon afterwards reciprocated a visit to Rome was also somewhat unprecedented, but Glendon explained it well: the two men genuinely liked each other and—his Protestantism notwithstanding—G.W. Bush knew how to “speak Catholic.” As she observed, that was a facility John McCain and Mitt Romney lacked—and their electoral results showed it.

Finally, under Pope Francis Glendon came back to Rome as part of a team charged with reform of the Vatican Bank. While people like the late Cardinal Pell were examining the financial books, Glendon and others were grappling with the law books, the kinds of legal mechanisms (or their lack) to ensure financial transparency, whistleblower protection, and administrative/personnel security. Her recollections of that work seem the least satisfying of her Vatican encounters: while she talks up Francis’s efforts at curial reform, it’s clear that the readiness to clean up age-old Church approaches to “finances” and even “transparency” lags behind.

Part of the reason for that—and other aspects of her experiences—stem from three unique characteristics she brought with her: she’s a woman, a layperson, and an American. Those three characteristics, in inverse order, probably complicated her life. When one remembers that, although he lived in Rome since 1981, there were still those 35 years later referring to Joseph Ratzinger as il Tedesco (“the German”), a representative of the Anglo-American world was even more exotic. Laypersons—especially if they have some independent authority—do not fit well into a Church where even the most rhetorically “anti-clerical” cleric can still default when desired to clericalism. When that layperson is a woman, the matter can be even more difficult.

Finally, as Glendon noted in an interview and as the subtitle of her book points out, the Holy See is a court, and like any court, has its share of dedicated officials, committed churchmen, sycophants, ecclesiastical climbers, and hereditary holdovers. Things work out better when that court recognizes it works for the Pope rather than its self-preservation, a realization better achieved when a Pope keeps it on a short administrative leash.

But, as Glendon’s book also notes, the three popes under whom she served were not necessarily Harvard Business School models of managers. The top man can afford to be a leader rather than a manager if his trusted alter ego is that manager. That has arguably not been the case of these pontificates.

Reflecting on these points, it also struck this reviewer about how uneven the Church tends to be in its educational formation. We give priests lots of theology (which, as a theologian, I agree with). We send some for advanced studies, though primarily in canon law (after all, what God has joined together somebody has to try to put asunder). The Vatican trains papal diplomats in its own diplomatic school and has a reputation for skill in that field.

But does the Vatican—or, for that matter, your local diocese—send some priests to study business or management? When I was an associate dean, we pushed—unsuccessfully—for a required program to train upcoming pastors in fundamental management. A parish, after all, is also something like a small-to-medium-sized business. It often has a school that has to pay staff and bills. It has to raise capital to fix the roof. It has to protect against liability when falling down slippery marble steps. It has to treat personnel fairly—by norms of its own moral principles if not the civil law. So, why do we expect clergy with little-to-no exposure in these areas successfully to run a parish, a diocese, or even a dicastery? Diplomacy and theology have to be taught, but do we imagine management and business is infused knowledge?

All things considered, Glendon opens at least three windows to see how the Church works, not just on a principled or institutional level, but with the nuts-and-bolts by which she makes her way through day-to-day operations. Ronald Knox once observed, “He who travels in the Barque of Peter had better not look too closely into the engine room.” Happily, Mary Ann Glendon pokes around that Barque—including peering into the engine room—to show us the good, the bad, and the average. There are those who do great things and those who (quoting Dickens) “working kindly in [their] little sphere, whatever it may be, [finding] … mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness.” There are those who do nasty things, often hoping ecclesiastical cover shields them: think the Church’s sex abuse and bank scandals. And there are those who do a job, perhaps not yet discovering theirs is also a vocation.

Glendon provides a deft balance of detail that stays happily between too little and too much, keeping the story moving along, not bogging down. And she does her poking and peering with a light, highly readable style that keeps the reader engaged.

That Barque sails on, happily with the divine assurance that it should reach its eternal port, even if it gets there much rougher and battered for the voyage. It’s a faith that commits us to work for that Church, ever reforming yet still holy. How it looks today to the eyes of a faithful Catholic layperson is Mary Ann Glendon’s fine contribution. Recommended.

In the Courts of Three Popes: An American Lawyer and Diplomat in the Last Absolute Monarchy of the West
By Mary Ann Glendon
Image/Penguin Random House, 2024
Hardcover, 220 pages