In appointing such a high-profile team the Vatican has shown it means business and wants to support Archbishop Martin writes John L. Allen Jr

Decoding the Vatican is a fine art, but here's one rule of thumb: Popes communicate in a variety of ways, and words alone rarely tell the full story. For example, personnel choices also say something. If the Pope taps a nobody for a given job, insiders grasp that it isn't really important, but if he turns to a heavyweight, it signals that the Pontiff means business.

In that light, how should one read Monday's announcement that to run the Apostolic Visitation of Ireland promised in March, Benedict XVI has named not one, but five heavyweights - in fact, five of the most prominent prelates anywhere in the English-speaking world? To invoke a bit of American slang, the message seems to be that when it comes to the Irish sexual abuse crisis, Benedict is as serious as a heart attack.

In effect, Benedict has fallen back on a time-honoured Vatican way of trying to signal that he understands the depth of the Irish crisis, as well as its emblematic significance for the rest of the Catholic world.

Indirectly, Monday's announcement also amounts to a vote of confidence for embattled Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin. Benedict named Cardinal Seán O'Malley of Boston as the visitor for Dublin, someone regarded as in symphony with Archbishop Martin on the need for an aggressive response to the crisis, both in public and behind the scenes.

Check-up

An ''apostolic visitation'' amounts to a Vatican-sponsored check-up of some part of the Church. Whether the Irish edition will persuade anyone that the Church has turned a corner remains to be seen, but certainly no one can complain that the Vatican didn't send its ''A-Team''.

In addition to Cardinal O'Malley, the line-up includes Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor of England, plus Canadian Archbishops Tom Collins of Toronto and Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa. Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York has been named to look at seminary life. All five are influential figures, with both Dr Collins and Dr Dolan candidates to become new cardinals in a consistory expected later this year.

In particular, Cardinal O'Malley's nomination cements his profile as the ''Mr Fix-It'' of the Catholic Church vis-à-vis the sexual abuse crisis. A 66-year-old Capuchin, Dr O'Malley has been the man the Vatican relied on during the last two decades whenever an American diocese has been in meltdown, from Fall River to Palm Beach, to the epicenter of the country's crisis in Boston.

Given that record, Cardinal O'Malley is taken seriously in Rome. He played the lead role in persuading Pope Benedict to meet with victims when he came to the United States in 2008. More recently, Cardinal O'Malley quietly warned the Pope that some commentary from Vatican officials, comparing criticism of the Church to anti-Semitism and ''petty gossip,'' had been damaging. In short order, Benedict dramatically changed the tone - using a session with reporters aboard the Papal plane to Portugal in mid-May to insist that the real problem is not attacks from the outside, but the ''terrifying'' reality of sin within the Church.

On the sex abuse crisis, Cardinal O'Malley seems a kindred spirit with Archbishop Martin. In a recent interview with the National Catholic Reporter, Cardinal O'Malley expressed admiration for Dr Martin's leadership - especially his frank acknowledgement of past mistakes.

Seminaries

For his part, Archbishop Dolan is regarded as a leading voice on seminary affairs. Five years ago, the Vatican asked Dr Dolan to lead an Apostolic Visitation of American seminaries motivated by the sexual abuse crisis, but he begged off, arguing that his responsibilities as Archbishop of Milwaukee took precedence. That Archbishop Dolan agreed this time, despite serving in the even more complex Archdiocese of New York, suggests the Irish situation is regarded as critical not only in Rome, but among bishops around the world.

In terms of religious orders, the Vatican seems to have learned something from the current Apostolic Visitation of American nuns. Announcement of that review triggered alarm, in part because the people leading it were not well-known. By way of contrast, the visitors for Ireland include Fr Joseph Tobin, longtime superior of the Redemptorists, and Sr Sharon Holland of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a twenty-year veteran of the Vatican's Congregation for Religious. Both Americans, they're regarded in men's and women's orders as defenders of the autonomy of religious life.

Reforms

Based on past experience, apostolic visitations rarely trigger earthquakes in Catholic life, and there's little reason in principle to believe the exercise in Ireland will be different. For example, most seminary rectors in the United States say the visitation five years ago didn't really transform the way they do business - in part because by the time it happened, reforms to weed out potential abusers had already been put in place.

Veterans say a visitation's real importance rarely lies in immediate changes. It's more akin, they say, to a university accreditation process, offering a chance to step back from business as usual and to ask deeper questions. Where that might lead becomes clear, if ever, only long after the visitors have gone home.

Yet if the visitation in Ireland accomplishes no more than reassuring the Irish that somebody's paying attention - and, perhaps, boosting Archbishop Martin's stock - it could mark an important new chapter in a story that's still far from over.

John L. Allen Jr is the Senior Correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter in the United States, and Senior Vatican Analyst for CNN.