VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider
One paragraph of the Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium” announces changes and a “conversion of the papacy”: “Excessive centralization, rather than proving helpful, complicates the Church’s life and her missionary outreach”
ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY
It is only a short paragraph but it announces significant changes to the papacy as well as decentralization and more power to Bishops’ Conferences. In section 32 of the document published today, Francis refers to the “pastoral conversion” he is asking the Church to undergo and writes: “Since I am called to put into practice what I ask of others, I too must think about a conversion of the papacy.”
“It is my duty, as the Bishop of Rome, to be open to suggestions which can help make the exercise of my ministry more faithful to the meaning which Jesus Christ wished to give it and to the present needs of evangelization,” Francis adds. In the document, the Pope recalls that in the encyclical “Ut unum sint” (1995), John Paul II asked for help in finding “a way of exercising the primacy which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to anew situation.” But, Francis remarks, “we have made little progress in this regard.” “The papacy and the central structures of the universal Church also need to hear the call to pastoral conversion. The Second Vatican Council stated that, like the ancient patriarchal Churches, Episcopal conferences are in a position “to contribute in many and fruitful ways to the concrete realization of the collegial spirit.”
“Yet this desire has not been fully realized, since a juridical status of Episcopal Conferences which would see them as subjects of specific attributions, including genuine doctrinal authority, has not yet been sufficiently elaborated. Excessive centralization, rather than proving helpful, complicates the Church’s life and her missionary outreach,” the Pope remarks.
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