Marie Collins (pictured), a survivor of clerical sexual abuse, who served on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, said she was concerned that the Vatican reforms could lead to the body losing independence.

Collins said that the Curia reorganisation unveiled by Pope Francis on March 19, which will see the Commission become part of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, will further undermine the work of the body she was once part of.

"When I was on the Commission, we got a lot of resistance to our work from the doctrinal congregation. They basically felt that we were interfering. And that, I believe, is the norm in the Vatican. They really do not like anyone who are seen as outsiders coming in," Collins told The Irish Catholic.

Collins quit her Vatican role in 2017, warning that "the reluctance of some in the Vatican Curia to implement recommendations or cooperate with the work of a commission, when the purpose is to improve the safety of children and vulnerable adults around the world, is unacceptable."

Under the pope's new apostolic constitution for the Roman Curia, due to take effect in June, the Commission will now work "within" the newly renamed Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. However, it will continue to have its own offices, officials and statutes.

Collins said if Pope Francis thought a department should oversee the commission's work, the doctrinal dicastery would be the wrong one.

The problem "all along" with how the church handled abuse was that "it was looked at as a legal problem and a problem of discipline. But it's not, and the (doctrinal dicastery) has a very bad history of dealing with survivors in a caring and healing way; that has not changed in recent times, either," she said.

But Cardinal Seán O'Malley of Boston, who heads the Commission for the Protection of Minors, praised the reforms of "Praedicate Evangelium" ("Preach the Gospel"). He insisted that "for the first time, Pope Francis has made safeguarding and the protection of minors a fundamental part of the structure of the Church's central government: the Roman Curia.

"Linking the Commission more closely with the work of the new Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith represents a significant move forward in upgrading the place and mandate of the Commission. This can only lead to a stronger culture of safeguarding throughout the Curia and the entire church," O'Malley said.

Cardinal O'Malley continued, "the renewed and reaffirmed Pontifical Commission will play an increasingly incisive role in ensuring the church is a safe place for children and vulnerable persons."

Sources

National Catholic Reporter

CathNews New Zealand

And even more unusual when the official is a layman.

After beginning with a joke that the Vatican had rather more thick walls and fewer windows than the glass-and-steel Blavatbik School of Government — "but still we hope we are introducing transparency in our own way" — René Brülhart asked the students and professors to observe a moment's silence for his predecessor as head of the Vatican's financial watchdog, Cardinal Attilio Nicora, who died earlier this week.

The Swiss regulator, president since 2012 of the Vatican Information Authority (AIF), has had remarkable success in creating and implementing new laws and regulations to prevent Rome's finances ever again exploding in scandals.

After seeing him talk to students of change management, I think I know why.

The auditor — who came to the Vatican after a remarkable success in clearing up that other traditional European money-laundering center, Lichtenstein — is an instrument of reform and change.

He should be a major threat to the Vatican old guard, always suspicious of outside experts who think they know best.

Yet that gesture towards his predecessor shows his sensitivity towards the culture of the curia.

Many of the questions from the audience, predictably, were inviting him to share stories of the tensions involved, but he never criticized anyone.

He had been given a warm welcome, he said ("walls may be thicker, but people in the Vatican are very warm-hearted"), there was a "big curiosity to learn and understand," and he was only able to introduce change because of the huge backing from the top he had received.

Brülhart has succeeded in the Vatican in large part because of his sensitivity to its singularity as both a sovereign and global institution. Rather than aggressive talk of "modernizing" the Vatican, Brülhart has sought to create a "tailor-made" system of regulation — a term he used often in his talk — that brings the Vatican into line with contemporary European standards but without sacrificing its uniqueness. Continue reading

Source and Image:

• Crux article by Austin Ivereigh, contributing editor at Crux

"There would be some people who would want to return" to the old ways, said Dew.

But, "if things were to be turned back, I think there would be a lot of dissatisfaction and unhappiness."

Dew said that among the disappointed would be many bishops and cardinals, whose job has suddenly become much easier thanks to Francis' popularity and generally hands-off approach.

The column says that Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl, a leading American adviser to Francis agrees.

"At the heart of it is expectation, Francis has created a new level of expectation for how the church should go about her work, and I don't think you can change that.

"And he's working very hard to put structures in place to support that expectation.

"There are a lot of voices that are very loud (in opposition), but I don't think they represent the mainstream," said Wuerl.

"It's too early to know" if Francis' reform has passed the point of no return, said a Vatican official who spoke on condition anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issues.

"There's always a danger when so much is brought in at once. There's always a chance the pendulum will swing back."

Cardinal Dew had earlier been noticed by some of the people who appear be among those who want to "return to the old ways".

In a January piece published in The Catholic Thing Fr Gerald E Murray described Dew's remarks at a post Synod press conference as "very troubling".

"Archbishop Dew's comments reveal lack of sympathy for Church laws that seek to prevent the sin and scandal of sacrilegious reception of the Eucharist by those who lack the proper disposition because they have civilly remarried after divorce," he said.

"Note the pejorative references to Church discipline for the worthy reception of the Holy Eucharist as 'judging and condemning, passing out rules and laws' whereas he seeks a new approach 'showing concern and compassion,' giving people 'hope and support and encouragement,' using 'language that helps people and encourages people in their journey to God.'

Source

• uscatholic.org
• The Catholic Thing
• Image: America

Archbishop Pietro Parolin, who took over as the Vatican's secretary of state Oct. 15, said the pope and the group of eight cardinals advising him on church reform have made clear they are looking at reforms to his office.

"I don't know if it's a different name or if they want to give it a new structure," Parolin told members of the press Wednesday.

"The important thing is for it to become a structure that is at the service of the pope as it has always been, but that it can be enhanced," the National Catholic Reporter said in a report.

Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, said during a briefing Wednesday morning that Parolin had met with the eight cardinals and the pope briefly Tuesday afternoon.

While the meetings of the cardinals' group are happening behind closed doors, reform of the Vatican's Secretariat of State has come up frequently in conversations with Vatican officials and prelates in recent months, the NCR's online report said.

Parolin's predecessor in the role, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, had come under criticism for some of the gaffes of the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI, which culminated with the arrest of Benedict's butler in 2012 for leaking sensitive Vatican documents.

Parolin, who has nearly 30 years of experience in the Vatican's diplomatic corps, previously served as the apostolic nuncio to Venezuela.

SOURCE

National Catholic Reporter
Image: NCR Online

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi said: "This is just nonsense... It is simply not a realistic possibility that Pope Francis will name women cardinals for the February consistory."

The Vatican statement came after reports said Pope Francis might name both TCD ecumenics Prof Linda Hogan and former president Mary McAleese as cardinals.

"Theologically and theoretically, it is possible," Lombardi said. "Being a cardinal is one of those roles in the church for which, theoretically, you do not have to be ordained but to move from there to suggesting the pope will name women cardinals for the next consistory is not remotely realistic."

Since his election last March, Pope Francis has often spoken of the need to reassess the role of women in the Catholic Church.

In an interview with Jesuit media last August, the pope said that "the church cannot be herself without woman", adding that Mary "is more important than the bishops".

In a September article, Juan Arias, a former Vatican correspondent for Spanish daily El Pais, floated the idea that one day, the pope might nominate a woman cardinal. Arias, who named no women candidates, based his speculation not only on Pope Francis's comments but also on the role of the deaconess in the early Christian church.

That article, however, prompted further speculation both in Italian and US religious media, with US Jesuit Fr James Keenan of the theology department at Boston College even using his Facebook page to solicit suggestions for the first woman cardinal. It is in that context that the names of Ms McAleese as well as Prof Hogan and the Italian minister for integration, Cecile Kyenge, emerged.

Sources

Irish Times

Daily Mail

Independent

Image: Getty Images/Irish Times

Some 30 people attended the meeting, which included the heads of the Vatican's eight congregations and 12 councils, as well as top officials from the Church's tribunals and from the administration of Vatican state.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's outgoing secretary of state, was also present in the meeting.

Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican's spokesman, said in a statement that the pope had the opportunity to listen to the "considerations and advice" of his closest collaborators in Rome.

Lombardi said Pope Francis had already met all the Vatican's department heads personally in recent months.

The reform process, according to Lombardi, will have another "important moment" when a group of eight cardinals summoned by the pope to oversee reforms for the Curia meets for the first time in Rome on Oct. 1-3.

The group includes Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston and is chaired by Honduran Cardinal Oscar Maradiaga.

Allegations of widespread mismanagement and corruption in the Curia overshadowed the final years of Pope Benedict XVI's papacy, including the so-called Vatileaks affair.

Many of the scandals were at least partly blamed on inefficiency and lack of collaboration among Vatican bureaucrats, who are mostly Italian churchmen.

Sources

RNS/The Washington Post

Catholic News Service

Image: KomoNews