Vatican Notes & Quotes

Leader of Cairo and Beijing Teams to Be Made Bishop

IRISH TIMES, Dec. 12—The Irish Times’ “Saturday Profile” recently featured soon-to-be Bishop Diarmuid Martin, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and “the most senior Irish cleric in the Vatican.”

The report took great pride in an Irishman who it saw as a rising Vatican star. It said that since 1985, “Msgr. Martin has been a key, behind-the-scenes figure in what is one of the most dynamic departments in the Vatican, a department furthermore whose very raison d'Ítre takes it into daily dialogue, contact, and sometimes conflict with just about every socio-political power bloc in the modern world.”

Now, with an appointment as Titular Bishop of Glendalough and a January 6th ordination as bishop by the Pope in St. Peter's Basilica, Msgr. Martin is likely to take an even larger—and more visible—role.

Said the report, Msgr. Martin “has either led or been a senior figure on Vatican delegations at the [highest profile] United Nations conferences of the 1990s on Population (Cairo), Women (Beijing), Habitat (Istanbul), and the Environment (Rio de Janeiro).”

The report quoted Rome-based American reporter John Thavis sizing up Martin's work. “When the Vatican needs someone with political savvy, [Msgr.] Diarmuid Martin is the choice. He is very sharp, he knows his brief very, very well and [at the U.N. conferences] he was nothing less than a guiding light,” he told the paper.

It also quoted a Rome diplomat who called Msgr. Martin “a lucid, clear, and highly skillful Vatican representative with impressive knowledge of his subject matter.”

The paper said Msgr. Martin is noted for his theological orthodoxy and his commitment to projects such as the cancellation of Third World debt that the Pope has called for in celebration of the Jubilee Year 2000.

John Paul II Center Turns 20

THE DETROIT NEWS, Dec. 14—A few weeks after Karol Cardinal Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II in 1978, fellow Pole Al Jantz remembers jotting a note to Msgr. Stanley Milewski, chancellor of the Orchard Lake Schools—SS. Cyril and Methodius Seminary, St. Mary's College and St. Mary's Preparatory, all founded by a Polish immigrant priest and considered an academic and cultural center for Polish Americans.

“I think the Orchard Lake campus would be an ideal place to establish a national center for research on the life and teachings of Pope John Paul II,” he wrote, according to The Detroit News. The idea became a reality, and 1998 is the 20th anniversary of John Paul II Center, which is run by Jantz and his wife Dorothea, who have together collected some 4,000 donated items about the Pope, said the report.

“This is our main interest,” said Al Jantz. “We spend more thought, time, and attention to it than anything other than our families.”

With other Polish Americans, he recalls the pride he felt when Pope John Paul II was elected—particularly given the fact that Cardinal Wojtyla had visited the Orchard Lake campus in 1969 and 1976 .

Msgr. Milewski said the Jantzes are “the quietest, most unassuming, dedicated individuals I have ever known,” according to the paper. “Their fidelity is amazing. They are the parents of the John Paul II Center, although I'm tempted to call it the Jantz Papal Center.”

The center's archives include hundreds of articles written by Cardinal Wojtyla, said the report. Jantz recently completed work on a compilation of the social teaching of John Paul II.

“The Pope's message would do more to reconstruct this whole world than any other message or man,” Jantz, a retired business professor, told the paper.