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	Following Bertone's Gaffe, Pope Benedict XVI Has the Chance to Clear out the Useless Old Guard from the Vatican By Damian Thompson Telegraph April 15, 2010 http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100034544/following-bertones-gaffe-pope-benedict-xvi-has-the-chance-to-clear-out-the-useless-old-guard-from-the-vatican/ As the Telegraph points out, English Catholic bishops have been quick to criticise Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State, who this week made ill-judged generalisations about homosexuality and paedophilia. But note, too, that the Vatican also slapped down Bertone pretty damn quickly. Some of Pope Benedict’s supporters in Rome will be hoping that the accident-prone Bertone moves on to a job for which he’s better suited. He spends too much time on Italian politics, has a tendency to shoot off at the mouth, and isn’t much of an improvement of his predecessor, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, whose reputation is in tatters following the Legionaries scandal. Certainly it would be nice to see a Secretary of State who gave a bit more thought to the appointment of Papal Nuncios to Britain: the current one, Archbishop Faustino Sainz Munoz, is Magic Circle through and through, as was his predecessor. Sainz was responsible for suggesting the names of English and Welsh bishops to the Congregation for Bishops, and in the era of his friend Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor he was quite a cheerleader for the grey-shirted mafia who have done such damage to our dioceses. But what if the Congregation for Bishops should acquire a new Prefect, replacing the hopeless Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re? A Prefect who shared Benedict’s vision of dynamic orthodox pastors would make a refreshing change, though he’d have to watch out for the President-for-Life of the English and Welsh Magic Circle, Murphy-O’Connor, who was made a member of the Congregation as a consolation prize for missing out on the seat in the Lords personally vetoed by the Pope. Factor in a better replacement for Cardinal William Levada of the CDF, one of Benedict’s less inspired appointments, who is rumoured to be heading for early retirement, and a fascinating possibility emerges: a Vatican that actually supports, rather than undermines or simply fails to understand, Benedict XVI’s ambition to “purify” the worship and ministry of the Church.
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