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November 11, 2005
Vol. 5, No. 11
The Word From Rome
The Vatican's new American ambassador
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
A no-nonsense Oklahoma businessman, a self-described "conservative but
pragmatic" Republican, a committed Roman Catholic with ties to both
Georgetown and Notre Dame, and a staunch George W. Bush loyalist is set to
become the new American Ambassador to the Holy See tomorrow at 11 a.m.,
when he presents his credentials to Pope Benedict XVI.
Francis Rooney, 52, becomes the seventh American ambassador to the Holy
See since the establishment of full diplomatic relations between the
United States and the Vatican in 1984. He sat down for an exclusive
interview with NCR Nov. 9, his first since arriving in Rome Oct. 23.
In that NCR interview, Rooney spoke about his Catholic upbringing, his
business success (acknowledging, among other things, that he's likely
taking a pay-cut of several million dollars to represent America to the
Vatican), his initial perceptions on policy concerns such as China and
Iraq, and the origins of his close friendship with his new boss, President
Bush.
On the policy front, Rooney said he believes it would be in China's
interest to establish diplomatic relations with the Vatican, assuming that
doing so reflects movement towards greater religious freedom.
"It would reflect favorably on China, it would seem to me, for the church
to come to the conclusion that it can operate freely there, without some
of the baggage that's been attached," he said.
"How China deals with the church has implications for how China is going
to deal with other religious groups, and in general how free the people of
China will be," Rooney said. "The extent to which we can work with a
country depends in some ways on the freedom of its people."
"We're watching," he said.
On Iraq, Rooney said the Bush administration and the Vatican had their
differences over the war, but today they're largely on the same page.
"We're trying to build a nation there, and the Holy See is supportive of
our efforts," he said. "I know the Holy See has some concerns about the
new constitution, because its language on religious freedom is not exactly
what they might have liked. There were some practical realities there. Now
we have to work together to see that the spirit of tolerance and democracy
take root."
He said he does not expect any major policy clash with the Vatican on his
watch like the one his predecessor, James Nicholson, experienced over the
Iraq war. Rooney said, however, that he would like to bring new
"intellectual resources" to bear in dialogue with the Holy See about the
nature of terrorism and the moral dimension of how to prosecute a war on
terror.
"Terrorism is like fighting a metastasized tumor," he said. "It's just not
that clear."
Finally, Rooney expressed enthusiasm for Pope Benedict's "exciting,
important and clear" language on terrorism in his meeting with Muslims
during his August trip to Cologne, Germany.
"Terrorism of any kind is a perverse and cruel choice which shows contempt
for the sacred right to life and undermines the very foundations of all
civil coexistence," Benedict said on that occasion, calling Muslim leaders
to be sure that this message is communicated to the young.
"That's exciting, because there are tough issues out there, and clarity
from the pope will help us figure out how we can work together to address
them," Rooney said.
* * *
Rooney is in many ways a prototypical American Catholic success story.
His family came over to the United States from Ireland in the 19th
century, but unlike many Irish immigrants of the day, didn't remain on the
East Coast. His great-grandfather ended up as a bricklayer in Oklahoma,
which really meant he was a sort of general contractor, since in that era
bricklayers ran entire projects. Construction developed into the family
business; the Manhattan Construction Company founded by L.H. Rooney in
1896 secured the first corporate charter in the State of Oklahoma, and
built both the original Oklahoma state Capitol in Guthrie in 1907 and the
relocated Capitol in Oklahoma City in 1919.
Among Manhattan Construction's most famous projects would be the Prayer
Tower on the campus of Oral Roberts University in Tulsa -- ironically,
this quintessential Irish-Catholic family built the signature structure on
a campus long a bastion of conservative Protestant hostility to Roman
Catholicism.
Francis Rooney, however, did not originally see himself moving into the
family business. He attended Georgetown Prep in Washington, D.C., for high
school, then received an undergraduate and a law degree from Georgetown
University in the early 1970s. At the time, he was flirting with a career
in either politics or law.
Rooney laughingly told NCR that he remembers his Georgetown years as a
time when "anything went, and anything did go."
"It was a crazy time in Washington, D.C.," he said. "I can remember my
senior year in high school seeing tanks right outside Georgetown. The dean
of the college actually got tear-gassed once in his office when they were
chasing away a bunch of people."
When his father died of cancer in 1980, Rooney took over the family
company, and seemed immediately cut out for the task. Under his
leadership, the company secured bids to erect several major structures
around the country -- including, as fate would have it, a new baseball
stadium in Arlington, Texas, for the Texas Rangers, whose managing partner
at the time was an up-and-coming George W. Bush.
Rooney and Bush spent a good deal of time together, going over plans for
the project and later walking through the site. Rooney said Bush impressed
him immediately.
"When he ran for governor of Texas, it was a no-brainer to support him,"
Rooney said. "He was a good client and a good person, someone that so many
people in our company walked around with on the job, and we really revered
him. We supported him big-time, and he was a great governor."
"It's the same with him as president. A lot of people attack him, but he's
my friend and our leader; I respect him every day that he's in there, and
I'm grateful he has the confidence in me to represent him," Rooney said.
Rooney certainly has put his money where his mouth was.
Rooney Holdings, one of his companies, donated more than $500,000 to the
president's re-election campaign in 2004. Data released by the Federal
Election Commission on Feb. 7, 2005, also listed Rooney and his wife
Kathleen in fifth place on the list of largest individual donors in the
2004 elections, distributing $341,396 to various candidates. According to
the FEC data, 99 percent of that money went to Republicans. In 2004,
Rooney Holdings likewise contributed $100,000 to "Progress for America," a
group promoting the president's Social Security proposals.
Some suspect that largesse had something to do with his new assignment.
Rooney's appointment as Vatican ambassador was recently cited by the
Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group, as part of
what it called a pattern in Bush's second term of naming big-money
"cronies" to ambassadorial posts.
"I imagine that most of the people holding positions like this were
supporters of the president in some fashion," Rooney told NCR. "He's said
from day one that he's going to pick people he knows, who he's got
confidence in and trusts."
"But if you look at all the appointments the president has made, there are
a lot of people who did not give money. It runs the gamut. Probably the
common nexus is the track record of competence, the ability in some
respect to add value. I think he takes a very business-like approach," he
said.
* * *
Although Rooney said he had never been a Republican activist prior to his
support of Bush, he nevertheless is firmly on the "Red State" side of
America's cultural wars.
"I do truly believe in the free enterprise system," he said. "On
non-business issues, it's critical to support people who believe in the
life issues, the cultural issues, the issues of the church."
He said he considers himself a "conservative but pragmatic" Republican.
Rooney has traveled widely in Latin America and Eastern Europe for his
business ventures, and has developed a wide set of contacts, many of them
in Catholic circles. His first conversation with Archbishop Leonardo
Sandri, the number two official in the Vatican's Secretary of State and an
Argentinean, was in Spanish, with the two men talking about mutual
friends.
At the same time, Rooney concedes that he's not had much experience
navigating the thickets of ecclesiastical politics. The only cardinal he
really knows, he said, is Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C.,
and only then because McCarrick is involved with the Knights of Malta, a
group to which Rooney belongs.
Applying the same hard-charging approach that has served him well in
business, he plans to get up to speed soon.
"I'm used to being extremely busy," Rooney said.
He and his wife have taken an immersion course in Italian, for example,
and he's already begun making phone calls from his office in the language,
something few previous American ambassadors to the Holy See felt up to.
Rooney also has old friends he can call on for advice, including the
former governor of Oklahoma, Frank Keating, who had a stormy tenure as
head of the National Review Board, a body created by the U.S. bishops to
oversee the church's response to the sexual abuse crisis.
Rooney said that while his new role is focused on foreign policy rather
than matters such as the sexual abuse crisis, Keating was nevertheless
able to offer some perspectives that might come in handy.
"He shared some of his concerns about different attitudes and
understandings of America within the church," Rooney said. "These are
perceptions that I know have frustrated a lot of American Catholics."
* * *
At bottom, Rooney expressed great enthusiasm about his new assignment.
"I get to do so many things at once," he said. "I represent the President
of the United States and the government of the United States. It's a way
to give back through public service for the good fortune I've had in
business. And I get to do it right here, in the middle of our church,
where the legacy of St. Peter lives.
I can't believe I'm here," he said.
All three of Rooney's children either have attended, or are attending, the
University of Notre Dame, and Rooney serves as a member of the
university's School of Architecture Council. (One of his last acts before
leaving the United States for Rome was to attend the Oct. 16 Notre
Dame-USC football game, which the Irish dropped in a nail-biter, 34-31).
He said President Jack DeGioia of Georgetown and President Fr. John
Jenkins of Notre Dame have told him the resources of both universities are
at his disposal for any programming he wants to do at the embassy.
In his efforts to build relationships, Rooney's deep pockets afford him at
least one advantage most ambassadors lack -- his own large sailboat, with
its own crew, currently anchored off the island of Elba, which Rooney said
he would like to use occasionally to entertain cardinals and other
dignitaries.
"I don't play golf, but I could take them boating or scuba-diving," he laughed.
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