ROME – Some years back, a couple of enterprising figures on the Roman scene, devoted Catholics with backgrounds in business, had the bright idea of trying to help the Vatican build a genuine professional development system for its workforce of roughly 5,000, divided between the Roman Curia and the Vatican City State.

Fueling the effort was the experience of getting to know lots of people who work in the Vatican, in different departments, at different levels, and from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Despite that variety, the pair realized most of these folks had something in common.

To put it bluntly, they’re often not a terribly happy bunch.

Many Vatican employees, when they’re off the record and being honest, will tell you that their work environment is a largely joyless place, where initiative is discouraged, collaboration unwelcome, and superior performance unrecognized. As a result, most just hunker down and try to get through the day, knowing all too well that whether they go the extra mile or simply phone it in, the rewards will be more or less the same.

That these are not merely anecdotal impressions is confirmed by a 2022 survey of employees conducted by the Associazione Dipendenti Laici Vaticani, or “Association of Lay Vatican Employees,” the closest thing the Vatican has to a union. Sixty-five percent of the 250 respondents had worked in the Vatican for at least ten years.

Despite the fact that more than two-thirds of workers said they actually like their jobs, the generally depressing results otherwise were summarized as follows.

• A majority of employees reported a worsening work environment in recent years.
• 64 percent said they were not adequately compensated, creating feelings of “stress, injustice and dissatisfaction.”
• Most said they received their last promotion in pay level at least ten years ago, and some had never received one.
• Most said they did not work in a “constructive atmosphere” and that their opinions and contributions didn’t matter to their superiors.
• Employees reported few opportunities for professional growth and formation.
• Employees complained of favoritism and disparities in treatment, along with “mobbing, abuses of power, and a repressive atmosphere.”
• They also reported little regard for personal and family needs.
• Employees said there are no internal mechanisms for reporting abuses without facing potential retribution.

Trying to break through all that, our two ecclesiastical entrepreneurs developed a cutting-edge professional development program and offered it, for free, to Vatican departments. By the way, they weren’t inspired solely by the 10 Minute Manager … they were also convinced that helping people flourish and reach their full potential is, well, the Catholic thing to do.

The initiative hosted training sessions at a location outside of Rome for mid-level employees, which began with an evening reception. Some personnel had worked in the Vatican for thirty years and said this was the first time, ever, that anyone had bothered to do something nice for them.

The sadly predictable result? Workers gave the project rave reviews, but the system was unmoved and allowed it to die on the vine.

That was five years ago, but if you need proof that not much has changed, consider the latest July 8 appeal from the association, triggered by a visit of Pope Francis to Trieste the day before for the annual Social Week of the Italian Catholic church, in which he praised democracy and dialogue.

The association claimed those ideals are honored more in the breach than the observance inside the Vatican itself, asserting that its efforts to raise concerns “have not been received, and even ignored … for a real dialogue, it takes at least two parties willing to talk.”

“We note that some [in leadership] consider employee representation and employees voices as a disturbance,” the statement said, while vowing to press on even if their efforts “are not seen positively by this or that superior.”

“What we’re trying to do is to start processes so that all workers feel valued, and that we really start from the bottom up in considering various needs,” the group said, asking among other things that the Labor Office of the Holy See, which theoretically exists to respond to worker concerns, become “more active and capable.”

The statement conceded that such efforts aren’t easy.

“We risk being overcome by discouragement, by the feeling that it pays more to mind ‘your own business,’” it said. “Instead, we continue on our path, convinced that a stimulated employee is more motivated.”

“We do not give up when we ask that regulations, periodically revised, govern working relationships in the Vatican,” the group said. “We don’t give up when we ask for provisions for families to be modified, which today essentially affect single-income earners almost exclusively.”

“We don’t give up when we ask for greater protection for families who have a disabled person in their household. Let’s not give up when we ask that salaries and pensions be protected from erosion [caused by increases] in the cost of living.”

“We don’t give up when we ask that a meritocracy, based on curricula and know-how, prevail. We therefore continue to do our job, undaunted, which is to mediate, to create a bridge between employees and superiors so they are always listened to and valued,” the statement said.

To be clear, none of this is a hobbyhorse simply of this one association. Similar laments, for instance, are behind a recent appeal filed by 49 employees of the Vatican Museums regarding allegedly unfair and poor working conditions, which could trigger an unprecedented labor lawsuit before a Vatican court.

Instead of responding in any meaningful way to these concerns, the Vatican has spent much of the past few days pushing the story of two women being hired, for the first time in 500 years, to join the sampietrini, meaning the maintenance and restoration staff of St. Peter’s Basilica. While that’s a nice human interest feature, it hardly counts as the sort of structural reform many personnel are seeking.

Why does all this matter?

Everyone knows that the Vatican is under tremendous financial pressure, especially due to unfunded pension obligations, and that in the future it’s going to have to make do with a reduced workforce. Employees who remain will have to be highly motivated, capable of multi-tasking, creativity and collaboration across departmental lines.

At the moment, it’s not just that those aptitudes aren’t rewarded; in reality, veteran employees say, they’re often actively discouraged.

In order to cope with the changing landscape, the Vatican will have to overhaul its personnel policies root and branch, a challenge for which it currently seems woefully underprepared. Yet the essentials are there, expressed in Catholic social teaching and the principles of dialogue and synodality sketched by Pope Francis, if only the system can summon the imagination to translate all that into practice.

An old joke about the statue of St. Peter outside the basilica that bears his name notes that in one hand, he’s holding a scroll with a finger pointing down to the ground, while in his other hand he’s holding the keys of office and pointing outward. The unspoken message, wags over the centuries have claimed, is that Peter is saying, “This is where laws are made, but out there is where they’re enforced.”

That double standard, alas, no longer seems sustainable.

If the upcoming Synod of Bishops wants something truly meaningful to talk about, maybe it can bracket off for a moment the headline-grabbing matters of women’s ordination and LGBTQ+ outreach, and focus on how the Vatican’s own workforce can benefit from the same empowerment and inclusion the synod seems to be offering everybody else.