Francis Makes Key New Appointments

By Marco Tosatti
Vatican Insider
September 20, 2013

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/curia-curia-curia-28005/


Francis has started building his team of trusted collaborators. Cardinal Mauro Piacenza is being transferred to the Apostolic Penitentiary

Tomorrow morning the Holy See will announce two important changes in the Curia. The Prefect of the Clergy, Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, is leaving the post to which he was appointed by Benedict XVI three years ago. Croatian archbishop Nikola Eterovic, who has been Secretary of the Synod of Bishops for more than nine years, is being replaced by Lorenzo Baldisseri, the Secretary of the College of Cardinals. Cardinal Piacenza will take over as Penitentiary Major of the Apostolic Penitentiary, currently held by Portuguese cardinal Manuel Monteiro de Castro. The cassocked diplomat Archbishop Beniamino Stella has been appointed Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy. He is currently President of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, the training school of the Holy See’s future Nuncios. Stella has been president of the Academy since 2007. Nikola Eterovic has been appointed as Nuncio to Germany. Mgr. Crociata, who is currently Secretary Generalo f the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI), is expected to be appointed Military Ordinary of Italy.

The changes are taking place a short time before Francis’ meeting with the international team of eight cardinals who are supposed to be advising the Pope on the reform of the Church’s structures. The meeting has been scheduled for the beginning of October. This the first big change the Pope has made to the system inherited from Benedict XVI, other than the appointment of Archbishop Pietro Parolin as Vatican Secretary of State, replacing Tarcisio Bertone.

The reasons for these changes are not given, as per protocol. They are a papal prerogative. Mauro Piacenza started working for the Congregation for the Clergy in 1990, before he was nominated President of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church and returned to the Congregation for the Clergy as Secretary, when the Brazilian Claudio Hummes was Prefect. Hummes drew in significant support for Francis in the Conclave that elected him Pope. Piacenza took over from Hummes in 2010 when Hummes reached the age limit for his position.

For a month or so now, the Congregation for the Clergy has also been overseeing the Seminaries, with visits to the institutions, particularly those in Rome, starting straight away. In recent years, the Congregation has published a new Directory for the ministry and life of priests, as well as texts to mark the 50^th anniversary of Vatican II, which aimed to correct distorted interpretations of the Council. The Congregation has also stressed the importance of the spiritual dimension of priesthood over the hierarchical and administrative aspects.

Genoan cardinal Mauro Piacenza was highly esteemed both by Benedict XVI and his Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, for his efficiency and in-depth knowledge of how the Congregation worked and its problems, as well as for his traditionalist ecclesiastical line of thought. His successor, Beniamino Stella, has a strong diplomatic background: Between 1987 and 2007 he served in various Nunciatures across the world, before being called to Rome to oversee the training of the Pope’s future ambassadors. So does the new Secretary of the Synod, Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri. These changes seem to indicate that Pope Francis has chosen to appoint two of “his own people” to the positions he considers crucial for the actions he plans to take in the future.