Has Pope Francis Declared War on the Vatican?
While the outside world marvels at the humility and explosive soundbites of Time’s Person of the Year, the tubby monsignori who run the Church’s dicasteries, or departments, are spending three-hour lunches picking disconsolately at their Saltimbocca alla Romana. The Holy Father has wrought a miracle that defies the known laws of the universe: he has taken the edge off their appetites. ut simply, the Pope has declared war on the Vatican – or, at least, on the sclerotic Curia (bureaucracy) that he inherited, in which the only thing that moves beyond a snail’s pace is rumour.
One of Francis’s first acts was to appoint a “kitchen cabinet” of cardinals to advise him on reforms that will begin next year. What form these will take, no one knows. But every one of those cardinals is, to some extent, a Vatican outsider.
Only one senior official has had the nerve to stick his head above the parapet and protest. Cardinal Raymond Burke, who heads the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura – there’s a classic curial job title for you – has said that the Roman bureaucracy “has to be respected”. He lamented “a kind of unpredictability about life in Rome these days”.
Well, life has just got a little more unpredictable for Cardinal Burke. This week he was removed by Francis as a member of the influential Congregation for Bishops, which puts forward candidates for promotion. In fact, there was quite a shift in its membership: our own Archbishop Vincent Nichols joined it, which means his long-delayed red hat is in the bag and also squashes the chances of English traditionalist priests becoming bishops. “Don’t panic!” comes the cry from the more optimistic traditionalists. Actually, they should have panicked long before Francis was elected, when it was clear that even superficially loyal liberals (such as the English bishops) were ignoring any bits of Benedict XVI’s teaching that didn’t take their fancy.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100251601/has-pope-francis-declared-war-on-the-vatican/
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