UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage
William D. Lindsey
This is an important week for the Catholic church: as Fr. Thomas Reese explains in this recent National Catholic Reporter article, this week the eight cardinals Pope Francis has appointed to advise him about the needs of the church and reform of the Vatican will meet in Rome. As Reese also notes, it’s not clear that the “gang of eight” will actually do anything beyond listening and talking. And this poses a danger, given the pope’s advanced age, the urgent need for reform–the need, precisely, that something be done. Immediately.
Reese envisages a best-case scenario in which the eight cardinals spark what he calls “comprehensive reform” rather than better management of a badly faltering institution in need of more than more adroit management. Reese’s prescription for (part of) such comprehensive reform:
• Stop making Vatican officials bishops or cardinals
• Remove all curial officials from the committees (congregations and councils) that oversee curial offices and replace them with diocesan cardinals and bishops nominated by the synod of bishops and/or bishops’ conferences
• Remove all curial officials from the synod of bishops and have it meet at least once every five years.
As Reese concludes,
On the other hand, his [i.e., the pope’s] attempts to change attitudes need to be supported by structural reforms in the Roman Curia. We have been waiting and preparing for change since Vatican II, where the foundations for change were laid. Will the gang of eight produce a plan? Let’s hope so.
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