ARTICLES
May 2000 ARTICLESLETTERS
Contents © 2000
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
I Was Impressed With The Papacy
Memories of America's First Ambassador to the Vatican
By George Neumayr
William Wilson, America's first ambassador to the Vatican, considers Cardinal Roger Mahony an "ego" largely indifferent to the Church's 2,000-year tradition. "I deplore what is happening," the long-time Los Angeles Catholic told me recently, noting with dismay Mahony's liturgical innovations.
At the height of the Cold War, Wilson served as Ronald Reagan's chief liaison to Pope John Paul II. "When I realized that I was the liaison between the most important man in the political realm and the most important man in the spiritual realm, it was sobering," he said.
Reagan had good reason to select Wilson for this vital task -- he is one of Reagan's most trusted friends. The two first met in the 1950s at a Hollywood producer's home. Sharing an interest in ranching and horses, they hit it off, as did their wives Betty and Nancy, who became like "sisters," says Wilson. Over the succeeding decades, Reagan frequently relied on his friend's good judgment. Wilson scouted out, for example, Reagan's Santa Barbara estate, Rancho Del Cielo, a fact Reagan notes appreciatively in his autobiography. Wilson also served as a trustee for Reagan's finances. Investment and business are Wilson's great strength. He found success first in the oil machinery business, then in real estate and ranching.
Reagan frequented Wilson's cattle ranch in Mexico, even during his presidency. Wilson recalls Reagan once falling off a horse there. "The secret service had the helicopters started up before he even hit the ground."
Wilson's business interests in Mexico and friendship with a powerful Mexican family prevented him from accepting Reagan's offer, in 1980, to assume the prestigious U.S. ambassadorship to Mexico. But Reagan called him twenty minutes later to ask him to be his envoy to the pope. Wilson's wife Betty, a devout Catholic and graduate of Marymount School in Beverly Hills, urged him to accept immediately.
It wasn't the first time Reagan awarded Wilson a coveted post. He had also made Wilson a member of the University of California Board of Regents.
Wilson calls his Vatican assignment the "highlight of his life." Presenting his credentials to the pope for the first time "was the most emotional experience you can have," says Wilson. The pope told Wilson that the U.S.-Vatican friendship "was an immense opportunity to exchange information."
The Cold War was then in deep freeze, with the Soviet Union spreading not only in the Eastern Bloc, but also in Africa, Central America and the Middle East. Reagan's administration was divided on the proper approach to the "Evil Empire." George Shultz, Reagan's secretary of state, subscribed to the East Coast establishment's strategy of détente; William Clark, Reagan's national security adviser and a Catholic, endorsed a peace-through-strength approach.
Wilson fell into the Clark camp, as did other Catholics like CIA chief William Casey. Shultz resented Wilson's position in the Reagan administration, as he makes very clear in his memoirs. Wilson recalls Shultz's opposition to the formalization of U.S. diplomatic ties to the Vatican. Why Shultz resisted this is still a mystery to Wilson, but he remembers an ugly run-in with Shultz about the matter at the Palm Desert estate of billionaire Walter Annenberg in 1983. "He was very angry," says Wilson, noting that Shultz had threatened him with a cryptic remark about "regretting" his advocacy of formal U.S.-Vatican ties.
Reagan supported Wilson in this dispute, however. "This matter is now in the White House," he told Wilson at Annenberg's house, indicating that Shultz no longer had the power to put the kibosh on Wilson's position.
Wilson remembers the Vatican's joy at the news of a permanent U.S. embassy in Rome. "They were so happy when we finally decided to have diplomatic relations. We had a Marine guard and the American flag flying out front."
Wilson believes Reagan took this unprecedented action to strengthen America's position in the Cold War. "He wanted to do it before the Russians did it," he says.
Did the pope like Reagan? "He sure did," says Wilson. "They were on the same wavelength, coming at Communism from two different angles. It was fun to watch that develop."
The pope often invited Wilson and his wife to his private Mass, both at the Vatican and at his retreat, Castel Gandolfo. Wilson says that the pope said Mass, not facing the people, but facing "God."
Wilson is a convert to Catholicism. His wife's Catholic devotion impressed him, as did the Church's orthodoxy: "I was impressed with the papacy." Only the Catholic Church can claim Christ as a real founder, he emphasizes.
Dissent in the Catholic Church upsets Wilson. "The dissenters can't be Catholic by definition," he says. The source of the dissent is, in part, the ambiguity of Vatican II, argues Wilson, which has allowed dissenters to hide behind "fuzzy words, fuzzy explanations, fuzzy concepts" -- "that's what got the Church in trouble."
"The Vatican ought to speak in more precise language," he says. Should the Vatican suppress dissent more aggressively? "Sure, why not? I don't understand why the Church doesn't."
Cardinal Mahony's presentation of Catholicism disturbs Wilson greatly. "It has to be an ego situation with that person's personality.... The cathedral downtown is a monument to him.... Ego is the opposite of humility without which faith is impossible. How can you teach the faith, if you don't have the faith? The Old and New Testaments have harsh words for those who mislead their flock." Abandoning dissent makes sense if only "to save their own souls," he says.