CARDINAL Maradiaga: the Reform of the Roman Curia Will Be a "Long Process"

By Gerard O'Connell
Vatican Insider
October 1, 2013

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/inquiries-and-interviews/detail/articolo/maradiaga-curia-28229/

Cardinal Maradiaga

The coordinator of the Group of 8 Cardinals set up by Pope Francis to advise him on the government of the Catholic Church and Reform of the Roman Curia, speaks about their task on the eve of their October 1-3 meeting

The Group of Eight Cardinals from all five continents chosen by Pope Francis to advise him on matters relating to the government of the Catholic Church and the reform of the Roman Curia will sit with him in the Vatican for their first plenary meeting from 1-3 October. They will also travel with him to Assisi on October 4, to pray at the tomb of St Francis.

It will be the Groups’ first meeting with the Pope since the Vatican announced its establishment on April 13. But there will be other meetings in the future, the Group’s coordinator, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, stated in Quebec last week, in interviews with Canada’s Catholic television channel -“Salt and Light TV”.

“There has to be a lot of discussion and a lot of discernment” about the reform of the Curia, he said; “it cannot be done in one month or two.” He predicted that “it will be a long process of discussion and discernment.”

He recalled that there have been several reforms of the Roman Curia – the papal civil service, starting way back in the 16th century. More recently, Pope Pius X carried out one at the beginning of the 20th century, and Paul VI conducted another one after the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). John Paul II carried out the last such reform in 1989 and this resulted in the Constitution “Pastor Bonus” (The Good Shepherd) which formalized and codified that reform, Cardinal Maradiaga stated.

He revealed that on March 17, four days after his election, Pope Francis invited him to lunch at Santa Marta, the Vatican guesthouse where he resides, and there told him that he was setting up the Group of 8 cardinals from all five continents and that he had chosen him to be the Group’s coordinator.

The eight cardinals are: Laurent Monswengo Pasinya ( Democratic Republic of the Congo), Oswald Gracias (India), Reinhard Marx (Germany), Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa (Chile), Sean Patrick O’Malley (USA), Giuseppe Bertello (Roman Curia, an Italian), Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga (Coordinator of the Group, from Honduras). An Italian bishop, Marcello Semeraro, is the secretary of the Group.

“He had everything in his mind then”, including “the name of the new Secretary of State”, Cardinal Maradiaga told Father Thomas Rosica, CEO of “Salt and Light TV” in a TV interview that was broadcast in Canada last evening, September 29.

Since Pope Francis set up the Group, he said its members have been active, “collecting suggestions from all round the world.” Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa from Chile, for example, “has put together 80 pages of beautiful suggestions” from Latin America. Other sources say Cardinal Sean O’Malley (USA) consulted English speaking cardinals, while Maradiaga met with the Canadian Bishops Conference last week.

As a result of these and other consultations, they “have put together” all the suggestions that they collected “around the main themes” and they discovered that “there is a convergence on many of the main subjects”. “One can say that this is the work of the Holy Spirit, not ours”, the cardinal said, given the convergence of so many suggestions from different parts of the world.

A Working Paper has been prepared for this week’s meeting, various sources report. It brings together the various proposals and suggestions that have been sent to the Group from different parts of the Catholic world as well as from officials of the Roman Curia, the papal civil service. The Group planned to meet informally in the Vatican on September 30, before joining Pope Francis on October 1-3 for their first plenary session.

“There has to be a long discussion and a long discernment.” Maradiaga said. He made very clear that “it’s not just a case of taking the Constitution ‘Pastor Bonus’, and trying to change that. NO! That Constitution is over”, he stated firmly. He made clear that they will not simply engage in a modification or adjustment of that basic 1989 text. “Now we need to write something new,” he said. He predicted that this process will take quite some time.

But the work of the Advisory Group does not end with the reform of the Roman Curia, Maradiada said. Their task is much more than that, even this week: it is to advise the Pope regarding the government of the universal Church.

In actual fact, though Maradiaga did not say this, Pope Francis has already indicated that he intends to solicit the cardinals’ views on other questions, including that of the Church’s pastoral approach to marriage (which includes the vexed question of divorced and re-married Catholics who are currently excluded from receiving communion). He will also ask them for advice - possibly in this meeting, but certainly in future ones, on the reform of the synod of bishops which is part of the wider question regarding the exercise of collegiality in the Church, and the relationship of the ministry of the Successor of Peter with that of the bishops worldwide in the government of the universal Catholic Church.