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."

Source

• Religion News Service

He has had only limited success — not surprisingly, since every pope since the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s has also tried and made little headway.

That's not to say Francis' predecessors failed completely.

The curia is less Italian and more international today than before Vatican II. Heads of major offices must now submit their resignations when they turn 75, rather than staying until they die.

Pope Benedict XVI streamlined the expulsion of abusive priests, while Francis has begun holding bishops accountable for protecting children in their diocese.

Francis ended the persecution of progressive theologians and writers that was common under Popes John Paul II and Benedict. He has also strengthened the synod of bishops as a consultative body.

Francis has especially focused on the culture of the Vatican.

He understands that structural change will accomplish little if the people inhabiting those structures do not change. He frequently condemns clericalism and calls for a more listening church.

As a result, cardinals have put away their bejeweled crosses and silk. Diocesan bishops report that curia officials are more willing to listen to them than in previous papacies.

But Francis has still not issued the long-promised constitution for the reformed curia, provisionally titled "Praedicate Evangelium" ("Preach the Gospel"), despite Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican top official, saying that it is basically finished. The last constitution for the curia was "Pastor Bonus" (Good Pastor), promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1988.

What should we look for in this new constitution?

Financial reform

Since every organization needs money to operate, the first thing to look at is how the new constitution deals with finances.

The Vatican has a long and embarrassing history of financial scandals, but financial reforms begun under Benedict and continuing under Francis mean that the Vatican Bank is now run well. But other parts of the Vatican still experience scandal and are in need of reform.

Financial regulators need to have the authority to hold everyone, including cardinals, accountable for their actions or inactions.

Contracts, investments and budgets should also be properly reviewed according to contemporary accounting standards.

Other questions include how suspected financial crimes will be investigated and whether there is adequate transparency. Will the financial control offices be adequately staffed with competent people?

Worker flexibility

Besides finances, the most important part of any organization is its employees. How the new constitution deals with HR, human resources, will be critical.

The church traditionally does a very bad job with HR, not only in the Vatican but all the way down to parishes. HR is not just about hiring and firing.

It also includes recruiting, vetting, hiring, training, supervising, paying, retraining, promoting and retiring or firing employees.

The Vatican does none of this well.

The Vatican also needs to keep up with changing technologies.

For decades, Vatican communications operated through a newspaper, a publishing house for Vatican documents and a shortwave radio network. These forms of communication are not relevant today.

Today it needs websites, video, podcasts, apps and social media.

Workers with new skills are needed for these and future technologies.

The typesetters, printers, radio technicians and others whose skills have become obsolete would be let go or retrained in most industries. But firing someone in Italy, let alone the Vatican, is very difficult.

It is not that the Vatican has difficulty hiring and retaining employees. Vatican employees may complain, but practically no one ever quits for a job outside the Vatican. The problem is getting the most out of the employees it has.

Management team

An equally intractable staffing problem is the management team that works directly with the pope.

This includes all the cardinals and bishops working in the Vatican as well as some laypersons heading offices. The Vatican Curia will never be truly reformed as long as the top positions must be filled by cardinals and bishops.

Most of the top officials in the Vatican get no training in management in seminary.

In dealing with employees, they often fall into paternalistic or authoritarian practices. Their eyes glaze over when looking at a budget or a spreadsheet.

They need ongoing training to handle these issues.

Popes also need more freedom to pick their teams.

Officials appointed under a previous pope are not always flexible enough to get on board with the new pope's priorities.

All new CEOs need a management team that is loyal to them and their goals.

They also don't always get the right mix the first time and therefore need to replace people who don't work out.

All of this is very difficult to do when the management team is made up of cardinals and bishops, who are still treated like princes and nobles, no matter what Francis says.

To remove a cardinal or bishop from a curia job, you have to find him another job in the Vatican or make him head of an archdiocese in his home country.

For years after his election, Francis kept in the curia cardinals and others who are not fully committed to his policies.

A big mistake was keeping Cardinal Marc Ouellet appointed by Pope Benedict as head of the Congregation for Bishops, the office responsible for appointing bishops around the world.

He needed someone in that job who would more aggressively seek out episcopal candidates who would actively implement Francis' vision for the church.

Having bishops working in the Vatican is theologically problematic since a bishop without a diocese is like a shepherd without sheep.

Vatican officials need to see themselves as staff to the pope as head of the college of bishops and not as part of the hierarchy.

Only a beginning

Finally, it is important that the constitution not be seen as definitive. Everyone needs to recognize that the curia, like the church, is "semper reformanda" — always in need of reform.

Too much time and too many hopes have been placed on perfecting this new constitution as if it was going to guide the church for decades.

Bureaucracies must constantly change to reflect new environments and goals as well as the needs of the person at the top, and the new constitution should be treated as simply a photograph of a moment in time, not a statue for the Vatican Museum.

No single reform will magically improve the curia. Additional reforms will be needed in the future, and they should be easy to do.

• Thomas Reese SJ is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, and a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine America. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

According to his sources, the Rome-based editor for La Croix International, says that

• Pope Francis has signed off Praedicate Evangelium, the upcoming apostolic constitution that will reform the Roman Curia.
• Francis will receive the resignation of around 20 top Vatican officials, and
• several new cardinals are likely to be appointed.

Mickens' says that Praedicate Evangelium is currently being translated into the major languages and once translated it will be published.

He acknowledges that in the middle of the Roman summer, the timing for this is out of the ordinary, however, notes that regardless of when it happens the effects will likely be historic.

Mickens says the re-shaped Roman Curia will need new leadership and as an example of that Francis recently brought the 63-year-old Filipino Cardinal Luis Tagle to Rome to head up the renewed Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples and promoted him to be a Cardinal Bishop.

To make way for new energy and the new structure Francis Francis will likely accept the resignations of many of those over 75 or who have completed five years in their posts.

Among those the positions looking for new energy includes controversial conservative Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, 75, has also exceeded his five-year term as head of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments.

According to Mickens it is also likely a new prefect at the Congregation for Bishops will be needed to replace Cardinal Marc Ouellet (76) who has held this post for ten years - five years longer than the usual tenure.

A significant position, the Congregation for Bishops oversees the selection of most new bishops.

Five or six of the eight cardinals that make up the Council for the Economy are also expected to be replaced, namely because they are over 75 and already retired from their primary jobs as diocesan bishops.

They include Cardinals

• John Tong Hon, former Bishop of Hong Kong, soon to be 81;
• Agostino Vallini, 80, former Vicar of Rome;
• Wilfrid Napier OFM, 79, soon to retire as Archbishop of Durban;
• Norberto Rivera Carrera, 78, former Archbishop of Mexico City;
• Juan Luis Cipriani, 76, former Archbishop of Lima; and
• Jean-Pierre Ricard,75, former Archbishop of Bordeaux.

Besides farewelling some long-serving Curia leaders, Mickens reports the Vatican has ordered 15 new cardinal's rings suggesting a number of new cardinals are likely.

Just who the new cardinals will be and who will lead the various departments under the new Curia setup has not yet been announced.

Mickens notes that in recent times 'red hat ceremonies' have become "elaborate galas", but need not be, particularly during a time when churchgoers in Rome need to respect social distancing and wear facemasks.

"Making new cardinals in a small, more sober setting, at a time one least expects?

"Unusual, yes. But not beyond Pope Francis", Mickens concludes.

Source

• La Croix
• National Catholic Reporter

Certain men of God have turned into "agents of the Evil one.

"We have betrayed like Judas." Sarah calls relativism "the mask of Judas, dressed as an intellectual."

"We tolerate everything" and "Catholic doctrine is put in question," Sarah he says. Read more

In a statement released on the CLAR website, Sr Mercedes Homes Leticia Sanches said there was no record of the conversation and what developed was a synthesis based on the memories of participants.

"It's clear that based on this one cannot attribute with certainty to the Holy Father singular expressions in the text, but just the general sense," the statement said.

Francis', June 6, spoke to the group in his native Spanish language, and the comments were first reported on a Chilean website, Reflection and Liberation and translated into English by Rorate Caeli.

Without a request for authorisation to publish, the Holy Father is reported to have said, "In the Curia, there are also holy people, really, there are holy people. But there also is a stream of corruption, there is that as well, it is true... The "gay lobby" is mentioned, and it is true, it is there... We need to see what we can do..."

Vatican spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi, SJ, has refused to be drawn on the claim, labelling reports as "conjectures, fictions and opinions".

Respected Vatican journalist John Thavis, who has seen the notes, writes, "It is important to point out that the text appears to be more working notes than an actual transcript, with plenty of ellipses. That means that nuances and qualifiers may have been lost along the way."

Thavis however also points out that the the text appears to echo the tone of Pope Francis off-the-cuff comments made elsewhere, and that if anything were patently false in the report the Vatican would not have passed up the opportunity to "knock it down".

Vatican expert Michael Sean Winters, who writes for the National Catholic Reporter, told Italy's La Stampa daily, Wednesday, that a group of gay clerics in the Vatican was trying to push its own agenda.

"The homosexual clerics are often amongst the most conservative and traditionalist, decidedly against topics such as gay unions or equal rights. The problem is sometimes they unite to favour their own interests, and this is not acceptable to the pope," he said.

"Francis wants to reform the curia, to free it from all the lobbies and the currents which prevent it from working as it should," he said.

Sources

• NY Daily News
• The West Australian
• Reflection and Liberation
• Rorate Caeli
• John Thavis
• Image: Reflection and Liberation