Edward Pentin at NCR(egister) on Cardinal Bertone and the Secretariat of State:

Edward Pentin at NCR(egister) on Cardinal Bertone and the Secretariat of State:

Cardinal Bertone, a jurist rather than a Vatican diplomat, is reportedly relying extensively on the expertise of his diplomatically trained assistants in framing diplomatic policy and is not expected to take a hands-on role with respect to day-to-day management of Vatican foreign policy.

Instead, the cardinal is delegating much of that oversight to others, including his secretary, Msgr. Nicholas Thevenin. A French priest who worked with the cardinal in Genoa , Msgr. Thevenin is known a “sharp and able” diplomat who, unlike his superior, speaks fluent English. He previously served as a Vatican diplomat in Venezuela and Cuba and was reported to have come away with few illusions about the negative aspects of the socialist regimes of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.

In recent months, a number of diplomats say that they have detected a pronounced shift away from formal diplomacy under Benedict XVI, with more Vatican attention directed instead to interreligious dialogue and ecclesial and structural reform issues.

But Cardinal Bertone’s Sept. 29 speech signaled that the Holy See has no intention of abandoning its traditional involvement with the affairs of states. And last month’s controversy over the Pope’s University of Regensburg address was a reminder of the importance of that area, in the view of some members of the Vatican ’s diplomatic corps. “It’s one thing for religious to deal with religious,” says one diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity, “but the consequences of the crisis over Islam shows that the Holy See’s relationships with states is of vital importance and sensitivity.”

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