According to Bishop Kevin Farrell, who is the first prefect of the newly created Vatican Department for the Laity, the Family and Life, the Roman Curia, Francis would like to see lay people in more prominent positions and has laid out Farrell's role for his new position, which he begins in October.

Farrell also said that Francis wants him to open up channels of communication and consultation with Catholic laity.

"I hear from all these consultative bodies I have here in the Vatican, but I'd like to hear from the lay people too!" he quoted the pope as saying.

Farrell spoke last Monday on "The Crux of the Matter," a radio show based on Crux's reporting carried by the Catholic Channel, Sirius XM 129, every Monday. The following are excerpts from that interview.

Did you get any heads-up you were under consideration?

No, I had absolutely no idea. I go to Rome regularly, I have a brother who lives there [Bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity], and he's spent his whole life there. I would go, I would complain to him about the bureaucracy in the Vatican, and nobody ever suggested this, or even talked to me about it.

How did you learn this was going to happen?

One day in May, my secretary walked into my office, because I didn't answer the phone, and she said the pope is on the telephone. I said, ‘Yeah, sure … probably one of my bishop or priest friends just calling up imitating the pope.' It actually was the pope himself. I got onto the phone, and he talked to me …

Source

• Crux
• Image: www.youtube.com

Born in Ireland in 1947, Farrell has served as bishop of Dallas since 2007.

Starting Sept. 1, he'll become the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life.

Farrell's older brother, Bishop Brian Farrell, currently serves as Secretary of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

As a fun fact, the younger brother, created a bishop a year before his elder, has been quoted saying there's "still some of that sibling rivalry" between the two.

The statutes for the office now headed by Farrell were announced last June, and the office comes from the merger of two current Vatican departments: the Pontifical Council for the Laity and the Pontifical Council for the Family.

The Pontifical Academy for Life will also be connected to this new department.

The decision to put these three together has garnered the new office the label of "mega-dicastery."

The Vatican statement announcing Farrell's new position gave no indication as to where Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, currently head of the Council for the Laity, will go to next.

Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, until now head of the Council for the Family, was appointed new president of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington and a close Francis adviser, released a statement on Wednesday describing the appointment as "welcome news" given Farrell's "demonstrated pastoral skills and his recognized administrative abilities."

Farrell and Wuerl worked together in DC in 2006-2007, where the new Vatican official served as an auxiliary bishop before being transferred to Dallas.

Source

• Crux
• Image: cruxnow.com