Francis must target Roman Curia

From the editor's desk

The Tablet

Francis must target Roman Curia

17 March 2016 Pope Francis’ election three years ago has transformed the mood inside the Catholic Church. There is hope where there was confusion; mercy and compassion where there was judgement and condemnation. But the change still falls short of the cultural revolution he envisaged in 2013, in the fundamental policy document setting out the programme of his papacy, Evangelii Gaudium. He is finding that moods are easier to shift than structures. His reform of the Roman Curia has met with internal resistance, which is why the Pope has chosen to bypass it by the creation of a council of cardinals to advise him. 

The Council of Cardinals’ proposals, as far as they are known, seem to be to bring together under one administrative unit various sections of the Curia which do similar things, such as dealing with social justice issues, or laity and family matters – a juxtaposition which may have worrying implications. This is more like tidying up than revolution. The real problems with the Curia are to do with the semi-autonomy of major departments which act in the Pope’s name but are hard for him to supervise. As opaque from above as from below, some have developed financial practices that are near to corrupt if not actually so. The Pope’s new rules requiring transparency regarding the canonisation process are virtually an admission that sainthood could be “bought” by paying the right fee to the right person.

In this connection the current trial of three former Vatican employees and two independent journalists, accused of passing and receiving secret Vatican documents relating to corruption, is a scandalous distraction from the real issue, the corruption itself. It is worth asking whose interests this serves. The journalists at least should be discharged forthwith before more damage is done to Pope Francis’ good name – he has enjoyed a long honeymoon in the world’s media, which will quickly go into reverse if he starts sending journalists to prison for doing what journalists do. If there is corruption in the Curia, Catholics everywhere have a right to know. It was a free press which spurred the Church to action regarding child abuse by clergy, action which appears to have stalled.

Pope Francis may have more success with his efforts to switch the emphasis in church teaching from the importance of keeping to the rules to reliance on God’s mercy, which is close to the core message of the Gospels. But his method – convening two international synods with an implicitly reformist agenda regarding sex, marriage and family life – was partly frustrated by the reaction from traditionalist bishops who were mainly appointed as “safe pairs of hands” by St Pope John Paul II. But he has gained enough freedom of manoeuvre to pass to local Bishops’ Conferences such critical decisions as, for instance, when and whether to admit divorced and remarried Catholics to Holy Communion.

This move may gradually resolve a neuralgic issue which has divided the global Catholic hierarchy. Indeed, if this dispersal of power to national and local hierarchies can be applied to many other issues, the centralisation of power in the hands of the Curia will diminish. This would be a historic Franciscan reform that would long outlast the present papacy.