Vatican Diary / the Reform of the Curia Has Already Begun
Chiesa
This can be understood from the first actions undertaken by Pope Francis. All of rupture, including his decision not to reside in the pontifical apartment VATICAN CITY, April 8, 2013 – In addition to the unprecedented selection of the name Francis, pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio is immediately impressing on the central government of the Church innovations that those in the curia are looking at with trepidation, if not with terror.
The decision not to live in the pontifical apartment on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace but to continue to reside in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, which had accommodated him as a cardinal during the conclave, is already in itself an act of rupture.
In practice, this allows the new pope to remove himself physically from the bureaucratic pressure that - if he were to move up there - would risk turning his life upside down and suffocating his effective capacity of governance.
It would be interesting to know if and to what extent there has already been a reduction in the volume and weight of the briefcases of documents that the secretariat of state customarily brings to the desk of the pope to submit to him texts for study, approval, endorsement, etc.
It is not fanciful to think that the sober and austere style of the first Jesuit pontiff in history would force the offices of the secretariat to reduce to a minimum the measures to be submitted to his attention.
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The innovative style of Pope Francis is also raising some questions about how this will be manifested in some specific sectors of the governance of the universal Church.
Because Bergoglio loves to call himself the bishop of Rome, but in the meantime he is acting and moving as a full-fledged pope.
This has been seen in the rapidity with which he chose his successor in Buenos Aires, acting precisely in the capacity of pastor of the universal Church.
The appointment certainly did not undergo the scrutiny of the congregation for bishops, and does not at all seem to have come after wide consultation among the bishops of the relative ecclesiastical province, nor among the clergy and Christian people of Buenos Aires.
After this precedent, it will be interesting to see what will be the praxis of the new pope in episcopal appointments in the world and in the creation of new cardinals.
Will he continue to feel bound by the upper limit of 120 cardinal electors established fifty years ago? Will he make more cardinals in the local Churches at the expense of the curia? Will he continue to reward the traditionally cardinalate sees, or will he focus more on persons than on dioceses? Will Italy continue to have nine cardinalate dioceses and a preponderant influence in the sacred college?
Also with regard to Italy it will be interesting to see if and how Pope Francis, who also has the title of primate of Italy, will continue to reserve for himself the power of appointing the president and secretary of the episcopal conference.
The Italian episcopate, in fact, is the only one in the world in which both of these positions are not elective, but of pontifical appointment.
In this regard it is well known that in 1983 John Paul II asked the Italian bishops if they wanted to elect the president and the secretary, and the majority in effect voted in favor of this possibility, but nothing came of this.
Who knows if now, in the name of collegiality, the question will be taken up again and in what way: with full freedom of choice given to the bishops, or by allowing the bishops to submit a list of names from among which the pope would decide.
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Another sea change could concern the congregation for the doctrine of the faith.
With Joseph Ratzinger, first as cardinal and then as pope, the congregation played a role of great influence in the governance of the universal Church:
- both with the elaboration of documents dedicated to “nonnegotiable” issues, like the instructions “Donum Vitae" of 1987 and "Dignitas Personae" of 2008, or the doctrinal notes on Catholics in political life of 2002 and on the legalization of homosexual unions of 2003;
- and with reprimands adopted for about twenty theological works, some of them written by Jesuits, specifically by Anthony de Mello in 1998, Jacques Dupuis in 2001, Roger Haight in 2004, and Jon Sobrino in 2006;
- and with decisive judicial action on the “delicta graviora," including pedophilia, with strict norms approved in 2001 and updated in 2010.
Now with Pope Francis what will happen?
In an unusual statement released on April 5, after the first scheduled meeting of Pope Francis with the prefect, Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller (in the photo), the congregation for the doctrine of the faith was careful to emphasize that in the fight against sexual abuse committed by clergy against minors, the unyielding guidelines of Joseph Ratzinger will be held firm.
But beyond the statement - probably issued to avoid all possible suspicion of discontinuity in the matter with respect to the previous pontificate - now in concrete terms with Pope Francis what will happen?
Will the congregation insist on working full-throttle as a centralized ecclesiastical tribunal, or go back to delegating this task to the local bishops?
Will it continue to intervene on the “nonnegotiable” questions of life and the family, or will it consider itself satisfied with the documents already published in the past?
Will it continue to censure the errors of theologians, or limit itself to an exhortative role?
And again, will the congregation continue to review the texts of Pope Francis as it did with the previous popes?
In short, will we witness - as some signals seem to imply - a significant re-dimensioning of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith?
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Also during the pontificate of Benedict XVI initiatives were undertaken in the liturgical camp that met with strong resistance. Like the motu proprio "Summorum Pontificum" that restored full dignity in the Latin Church to the pre-conciliar liturgical books. Or like the firmness in demanding translations more faithful to the original Latin in the missals in modern languages, with particular attention to the translation of “pro multis" in the words of consecration. Now what will happen?
And then what will happen with Pope Francis - the first pope from a religious order since the middle of the 19th century - with the apostolic visitation of the sisters in the United States organized in recent years by the Vatican congregation for religious?
In particular, what will be the “mission” of the new secretary of the congregation, the Spanish Franciscan José Rodríguez Carballo, appointed on April 6?
That of Rodríguez Carballo is the first appointment made in the curia by Pope Francis, who with it has filled the void left by the American Redemptorist Joseph William Tobin, sent back to the United States last October as archbishop of Indianapolis by Benedict XVI, who had also called him to the position, after he had shown himself too lenient toward his compatriot sisters.
The selection of Rodríguez Carballo seems to have been due not so much to his having been minister general of the Friars Minor as instead to the fact of having been elected last year as president of the Union of Superiors General, the highest collegial expression of the vast and variegated world of religious.
In appointing him, Pope Francis has therefore not followed through with the preparations made during the last months of the pontificate of Benedict XVI, according to which the “pole position” for the job of secretary of the congregation for religious was held by a Dominican from the United States.
And again, changing the subject, what will become of the conversations with the Society of St. Pius X of the followers of Archbishop Lefebvre? So far Pope Francis has cited Vatican Council II only sporadically: in his first message to the Jewish community of Rome and in the discourse to the delegations of the Churches and Christian communities that attended the Mass for the beginning of his pontificate. He did not participate in the Council, and he was ordained a priest after the Council. He does not seem particularly vexed by the problem of its hermeneutic, on which Benedict XVI instead exerted himself greatly. In his diocese of Buenos Aires he showed himself to be rather tolerant with regard to traditionalist priests. Now what will happen?
These are some of the questions raised by the style of governance impressed by Pope Francis at the beginning of his pontificate.
Still others concern the awaited appointments and curial reforms. When will they take shape? Before or after the summer? Will the extravagant production of papal and curial documents finally be reduced? In what way will the agencies with financial competencies be restructured, beginning with the notorious Vatican “bank,” the Institute for Works of Religion? Will the number of beatifications and canonizations be reduced? The cause concerning the martyrdom of Oscar Arnulfo Romero - blocked by the congregation for the doctrine of the faith when it was headed by Ratzinger - will it be unblocked?
The answers will come with time. And the surprises will not be lacking. It's a sure bet.
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