Vatican City, Jul 11, 2018 / 01:15 pm (CNA).- A long-time priority of Pope Francis, curial reform – specifically the overhaul of Vatican finances and communications – has been hanging by a thread for the past few years, and some wonder about the pope’s ability to make any meaningful or lasting changes in the Vatican’s way of doing business.
Observers seem to be underwhelmed at the progress Francis has made on major governance issues, among them financial oversight and sexual abuse policy. Some insiders have noted a palpable sense of confusion about what the pope’s reforms are meant to be, and where exactly they are going.
Since June 2017, the man tasked with leading the Vatican’s financial reform, Australian Cardinal George Pell, has been on leave, and is now preparing to face a historic trial for accusations of sexual abuse in his homeland. Some observers have argued that even when Pell was working at full-strength, the financial oversight structures Francis put into place were so tangled by internal power grabs that pursuing meaningful progress had become a delayed goal.
The pope’s communications overhaul seemed to be in shambles after the man charged with overseeing the process, Msgr. Dario Edoardo Vigano, stepped down amid the fallout of March’s “Lettergate” fiasco.
In recent months Francis has also come under fire for inaction on the topic of clerical sexual abuse, specifically in Chile.
Accused of insulting victims and ignoring their complaints, the pope had a major turnaround on the situation in Chile after receiving fresh evidence against a leading abuser priest in the country and launching an investigation which yielded findings frightening enough to make the pope stop dead in his tracks and speed into reverse.
But one of Pope Francis’ closest aides over the past five years, newly-minted Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, who is leaving the Secretariat of State for a new position as head of the Vatican’s office for canonizations, said recently that the pope’s reform still lacks an overall vision.
In comments to the press ahead of the June 28 ceremony in which he was given his red biretta, Becciu said that while many steps had been taken, it is still “too early” to give a comprehensive judgment on the Curial reform, since it is not yet finished.
An overall unifying vision is still missing, he said, explaining that “so far we’ve had elements, but not a unified idea.” This vision, he said, will likely be provided in the new apostolic constitution drafted by the pope’s nine cardinal advisors, called “Predicate Evangelium,” or “Preach the Gospel,” which has reportedly been completed and is now awaiting approval from Pope Francis.
A gloomy-seeming outlook for curial reform is often pinned on poor personnel decision-making at the Vatican. But two recent appointments to major posts could mark a turning point for Francis, and provide a much-needed morale boost for Catholics looking for the pope to clean house in Vatican offices.
The first of these is the appointment of a close Francis ally, Archbishop Nunzio Galantino, to take the reigns at the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See (APSA), which oversees the Vatican’s real estate holdings and investments.
During pre-conclave meetings in 2013, APSA was a key point in discussions on curial reform, as many cardinals recognized it had been being plagued by corruption and was in serious need of greater oversight.
Until Galantino’s June 26 appointment, APSA was led by Cardinal Domenico Calcagno, who has been accused of corruption and was, at one point, under investigation for charges of embezzlement in a previous diocese.
It took Francis more than five years to take action on APSA, which has been a sore spot for many who were hoping to see the pope crack down on financial issues. In a recent interview with Reuters the pope admitted that “there is no transparency” at APSA.
“We have to move ahead on transparency, and that depends on APSA,” he said in the interview. Many Vatican watchers are hopeful that Galantino will be able to bring in the accountability and oversight the office has typically resisted.
The second important personnel change is the appointment of Italian layman Paolo Ruffini as head of the Vatican’s communications office, making him the first layperson to lead a Vatican department, also called a dicastery.
Though Ruffini’s nomination was highly celebrated among Italians, who are pleased to have one of their own moving to such an important post, the new prefect is also seen as highly competent, bringing with him professional experience in journalism dating back to 1979.
Until his appointment Ruffini worked as the director of TV2000, the network of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, and he brings with him extensive experience in television, radio, and print, making him a choice perceived as a competent, well-rounded pick for the job.
Ruffini is considered to be in line with key priorities of the current pontificate, and his appointment can be read as follow-through on Pope Francis’ commitment to eradicate a clericalist mentality in the curia and to add more laypeople to the mix.
Despite the fact that Msgr. Dario Vigano, who headed the office until the “Lettergate” scandal, is expected to stay in the dicastery in the advisory role the pope gave him, observers are hopeful that at least some of the pope’s stubbornness in decision-making is gone, and that the days of poor personnel choices will be a thing of the past.
And with several decisions made that seem to indicate reform is moving in the right – or at least a better – direction when it seemed to be on the brink of failure, a natural question comes to mind: what changed?
Some believe the turning point was the pope’s reaction to the Chilean abuse crisis. After initially defending the bishop at the center of the debate, calling accusations of cover-up on the part of the bishop “calumny” and claiming that no evidence of the prelate’s guilt had been brought forward, Francis had a major turnaround when news came out that evidence had been presented years prior which he either never got, or potentially ignored.
It was a serious blow to Francis’ credibility in the fight against sex-abuse in the Church, and to his public image. Soon after he sent his top investigator on abuse to Chile to look into the situation, and after receiving a 2,300 page report, the pope issued a letter to Chilean bishops saying he had made “serious errors” in judging the situation due to a lack of “truthful and balanced information.”
Many observers pinned the blame on 84-year-old Chilean Cardinal Javier Francisco Errazuriz, who is a member of the pope’s nine-member Council of Cardinals and who has come under heavy fire from victims for covering up abuse while archbishop of Santiago, and for trying to discredit victims’ testimonies.
In his recent interview with Reuters, Pope Francis said his council of cardinal advisors, called the “C9” and whose mandate will be up in October, would be refreshed with new members.
Though such a decision is natural after term limits end, some observers have pondered whether the Chilean crisis and the accusations against Errazuriz, the absence of Cardinal Pell and separate accusations of financial misdealing on the part of Honduran Cardinal Oscar Maradiaga, also a member of the advisory team, have, to a certain degree, awakened Francis to the need to be more selective with his inner circle.
The answers to these questions, of course, are pure speculation, but if one thing can be said about the pope’s latest round of appointments, it’s that while his track record on reform efforts has not been the best, and while there are still loose ends to tie up, he is at least aware of the problems and he seems intent on making good on his promises, even if that does not happen immediately.
And if the first five years of Pope Francis’ curial reform have largely been seen as ineffective, the appointment of Ruffini and Galantino just might give the flicker of hope needed for Catholics to decide that the jury is still out on the long-term process. However, as with any reform, really only time will tell.
[…]
We read: “He also calls for avoiding the ‘merely chronological approach’ to the history of the Church, which ‘would transform the history of the Church into a mere buttress for the history of theology or spirituality of past centuries’.”
Yes, beware the linear periodization of history, as with Joachim de Fiore who proposed three eras (the Old Testament age of the Father, the next age of Jesus Christ, and the third age of the Holy Spirit, beginning in A.D. 1260. Beware the later periodization of August Comte, founder of sociology, who discerned a a theological age, displaced by an age of metaphysics, and then by an age of science and positivism. Or, maybe the specifically periodized history of the Church with an apostolic age, then the age of councils, and now the age of inclusive synodality…
In lesser hands, will Pope Francis’ valid message about non-ideological history be dished out by others as contextualizing the Council of Nicaea, and even the doctrinal Creed, as somewhat of a period piece? Now to be left behind by the finally pastoral age of (Joachim’s!) Holy Spirit, the laity, and permanent synodality? Will we be tutored that Arianism was not really rejected (non-inclusivity!), but just put on hold until a more enlightened and self-referentially non-ideological era…
C.S. Lewis’s “chronological snobbery” in a red hat?
I say: “Make the Papacy Catholic Again.”
When has the Orwellian mind of Francis not disparaged and trivialized anything authentically Catholic as “ideology” while not praising anti-religious secular ideologies as sources of wisdom?
“No one can truly know their deepest identity, or what they wish to be in the future, without attending to the bonds that link them to preceding generations,” suggests our essential identity is not inherent within our nature, rather it’s formed by history.
Sans ideology corresponds to time is greater than space ideology, that it’s not the theological value of decisions made during crises and councils called to correct and clarify dogma. He’s suggesting in effect that the present moment may cancel out previous decisions on doctrinal matters, to wit, that doctrinal permanence is a deficient ideology.
Historical and sociological determinism has long replaced philosophy and religion in academia. And a pope who is an ambassador of the world to the Church rather than a defender of the Church from the world is not about to even consider asking the right questions.
I pray it’s a translation issue, but most of the time I honestly don’t understand what the heck Francis is talking about. Word salads and church jargon.
Pope Francis calls for study of Church history free from ideologies. Umm 🤨 🧐
God’s Fool calls for commentary free from foolishness! 💋
Not sure if Pope Francis actually wrote this. More importantly, can’t tell to whom it is addressed. It seems to want to correct problems with historicism but itself involves historicist patterning.
It is about Church history but there is no mention of the Holy Spirit.
It can’t be considered universal; and yet while it is right to emphasize the importance of particulars, in any approach to history, it gives no proper foundational truths or leads about that.
Diachrony and synchrony relate with language and linguistics through times and in moments. They both have a valid place in analyzing and understanding what is communicated.
Both of these two contain a) things sustained, b) things left behind and and c) things ambivalent and the letter fails to bring out (among other things) these characteristics related to ecclesiology or just people and culture in general.
The letter is imbued with positivism: diachrony, whether thought of as “three dimensional” or “polyhedron”, does not automatically assure of being led into any truthful reality nor itself provide a measure or yardstick.
The word “fact” is deployed in purely negative and reflexive a-historical sense.
Members of the Lodge often assert their own interpretations of Scripture by rooting hard on factuals taken out of all context including Redemption; and the letter seems to uphold this or carry it forward as authentic.
The 20th Century is marked by Modernist positivism, determinism and relativism and what seems to be morphing in our time is Modernist neutralism and syncretism. But no mention!
I have pinpointed at least a further 13 other objectionable standpoints in the letter adding to those here and what is mentioned by Fr. and Beaulieu.
I am sorry to criticize the Holy Father. I have no way to reach him in person about that so as to avoid the situation of Ham. THIS is a problem and it is not solved by allowing parrhesia!
Who is advising him? In the past 8 days or so he is lamenting war while entertaining children and Czech survivors “neutrally” and signing Burbon bottles, as Parolin avers “openly confess China ad experimentum!”
The letter seems to stake out a separation from wrongs already done yet still repeating wrong.
This prolific pontificate seems to fulfill the wish of the nineteenth century William George Ward to have a new papal Bull for breakfast every morning. While this “Letter” rightly addresses the sad ignorance of history in contemporary culture, classical Formgeschichte might detect in its opaque inferences and rhetoric, the influence of Hegel and Derrida and Kamala Harris.