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He insists on writing all his speeches himself (about 150 a year), in his own fine hand. He has a research and secretarial staff and a personal theologian, an Irish priest named Michael Browne, but, as in the days when he was a "library mouse," the Pope loves to do his own research. He will not trust a secretary to verify a quotation. Unlike his predecessor (who locked it in a closet), Pius XII uses his telephone constantly; he has a one-way line—no one can dial the Pope.
The Bark of St. Peter. The Pope is chief executive of a unique organization. No secular government, no other church is comparable to it. It includes some 1,500 dioceses, 2,500 bishops, 500,000 priests, nuns and brothers in religious orders, with some 100,000 of them serving in the Church's missionary areas throughout the world. Into the brocaded offices of the Vatican Secretariat of State, cables carry news from its nunciatures around the world. To this organization, nothing can be unimportant, be it a new philosophical school in France or new playgrounds in an American diocese. It must deal with God and Caesar, with salvation and with society, with Freud and Marx, with hydraulic elevators and the levitation of saints.
This vast organization is administered by twelve sacred congregations (i.e.., departments), three tribunals and five offices at the Vatican. The Pope sees their cardinal prefects or secretariats according to a fixed schedule, in most cases at least once a week. He reviews, approves or rejects their decisions. The business of the day may include anything from the establishment of a new diocese (responsibility of the Consistorial Congregation) or plans for a seminary in Africa (Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith) to consideration of a new heresy (Holy Office) or creation of a new saint (Congregation of Rites).
The Pope obviously cannot steer the bark of St. Peter alone. It is false to assume that he only has to say something into a speaking tube to alter course or speed. The officers and the crew, while disciplined and obedient, have views of their own that the man on the bridge cannot ignore. The Pope's advisers reflect all shadings of opinion. Among notable men around the Pope:
MSGR. GIOVANNI BATTISTA MONTINI, 56, and MSGR. DOMENICO TARDINI. 65, pro-Secretaries of State, who run Vatican diplomacy under the Pope's direct supervision (since the death of Cardinal Maglione, in 1944, the Pope has not appointed a new Secretary of State, has since remarked: "The man would have to be my shadow, and I haven't found one"). Montini, in charge of day-to-day operations, is thin, suave, cool, precise, and politically a middle-of-the-roader. Tardini, in charge of long-range planning, is thickset, jovial, sharp-tongued, and further left.
ALFREDO CARDINAL OTTAVIANI, 63, a sturdy, placid expert in canon law, pro-Secretary of the Holy Office and one of the Vatican's leading reactionaries. He is an advocate of Vatican friendship with Franco.
RICCARDO LOMBARDI, 45, a brilliant Jesuit preacher and a vigorous progressive, who agitates for land reform, better working conditions for labor, curbing of Italian capitalists.