The Roman Curia looks likely to be reformed when the world’s cardinals meet in Rome tomorrow.
Vatican commentator Thomas Reece says after Pope Francis creates 17 new cardinals, he wants to discuss his plans for reforming the Curia.
The Curia is the bureaucracy the pope uses to help him exercise his pastoral office and universal mission in the world.
Saturday’s meeting will give the cardinals a chance to say what they like or dislike about the operations of the Curia and the recent reforms Francis has instituted.
His most dramatic reform is opening top positions in the Roman Curia to lay leadership. This means the secretary of state or heads of the Dicastery for Doctrine of the Faith could be laypeople. A layman or laywoman could be put in charge of the office for finding episcopal candidates.
Reece says while the changes won’t affect the current Vatican cardinals, Catholics may see a future in which the Vatican has more lay leadership and fewer clerics and bishops.
“Some have suggested that these lay officials be made cardinals, but I think the fewer cardinals in the Curia the better,” says Reece.
“It is difficult to fire curial cardinals who are incompetent or not in sync with the Pope.”
Reece thinks a compromise could see pro-tem cardinals (both lay and clerical) in the Curia. They would lose their titles on the death or resignation of the Pope who appointed them and could not attend the conclave to elect the next one.
The Secretariat of State and the Dicastery for Doctrine of the Faith may be downgraded in the curia reform, Reece says.
“The Secretariat of State has for centuries played a dominant role in the Vatican, especially on political topics. It also exercised a coordinating role within the Vatican bureaucracy,” he explains.
“The Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith, as the dicastery was previously known, was also very powerful when it came to doctrinal issues, having the final say, under the pope, on any document coming out of the Vatican,” he says.
“Prior to Francis, it also played doctrinal cop in policing the writings and teachings of theologians.”
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