Maybe Hilaire Belloc had a point. In 1934, when the Vatican granted him a knighthood in the Pontifical Order of St Gregory the Great, Belloc – so the story goes – refused to open the letter. After his secretary badgered him, the great author sighed: “Why should I accept an ‘honour’ from some greasy monsignor?”
Without meaning any comment on Vatican officials past or present, Belloc’s apathetic response might be a healthy corrective. However obsessed the world is with honours and titles, they are often given out for trivial reasons. (“They have to go to somebody, you know,” as Philip Larkin observed of his poetry prizes.)
But all that said, the latest Vatican award to hit the headlines is quite extraordinary: the Dutch politician and pro-abortion campaigner Lilianne Ploumen has been made a Dame Commander in the very same Order of St Gregory that Belloc scorned.
Her response was more grateful. “I received a high award from the Pope,” she told the Dutch radio station BRN (in words translated by the Lepanto Institute). “It is in itself interesting that it says it is for service/merits for society.” Asked whether she considered the award “confirmation” of her work, Ploumen said yes.
Given Ploumen’s work – she runs the abortion-funding behemoth She Decides – this is quite a claim. The outrage prompted a rare Vatican clarification. The award was a mere formality, a spokeswoman said: Ploumen, then the Dutch trade minister, had accompanied the King and Queen on a visit to the Vatican.
The award, according to the statement, was “in keeping with the diplomatic practice of exchanging honours between delegations during official visits by heads of state or government to the Vatican.” It certainly wasn’t “an endorsement of the political views in favour of abortion or birth control that Ms Ploumen promotes”.
In itself, this makes sense. Sir Ivor Roberts, one of our most distinguished diplomats and the editor of Satow’s Diplomatic Practice, tells me that it is not normal to do “due diligence” on every recipient of an honour. “The British government has given honorary knighthoods to a fair number of unsavoury autocratic and oppressive senior figures during state visits. President Ceausescu was an egregious example.” A knighthood doesn’t mean approval.
But it’s still not clear just how routine this award was. “Exchanges of honours/decorations are usually reserved for full-blown state visits not official visits,” Sir Ivor observes. And the Dutch visit was not a full state visit.
It would help to know who else received a medal. Ploumen told the Catholic Herald that she doesn’t know if any of her colleagues were honoured. The Holy See press office has not responded to a request for comment.
Nor has the Vatican explained whether it checks the record of each potential knight and dame. The journalist Riccardo Cascioli claimed last week that the Secretariat of State adopted a safety-first policy after the Jimmy Savile scandal broke in 2012. Savile would never have received an honour, the Vatican said, if his crimes had been known. According to Cascioli, everyone is now vetted on a policy of “No easy honours.”
Ploumen is well known in Rome. “In the last couple of years,” she told BRN, “I have invested a lot of time in establishing contacts with the Vatican… lobbying.”
She says she has had fruitful exchanges with the Vatican on child marriage and the protection of gay people against unjust discrimination. In 2015, after a 15-minute audience with Pope Francis, she praised his leadership on the environment. So it is possible that her name was scrutinised and approved.
But it is also possible that her name was put on a list of members of the Dutch delegation, and the honours were handed out without checking. That is the charitable explanation.
Nevertheless, the current system is confusing even to those who receive the awards – not least because the same awards are given for merit and for merely turning up.
This week an anonymous Twitter user, “Chateaubriand”, suggested that routine honours should be marked out from the rest: “Create a medal engraved with St Francis of Assisi and a puppy. Call it the Pontifical Peace Medal. Include a certificate stating it is bestowed in recognition of peaceful relations between the Holy See and X country.”
It might not have impressed Hilaire Belloc. But it could prevent a great deal of confusion.
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