VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
Joshua J. McElwee | Jun. 28, 2014
The group of eight cardinals advising Pope Francis on reforming the governance of the Catholic church is set to meet with him for the fifth time, presumably to more seriously consider an overall blueprint for a new structure of the Vatican’s central bureaucracy.
While the cardinals have not indicated exactly what the group will be focusing on during its July 1-4 meetings, the Vatican signaled in an April statement that the prelates have already finished a review of the Vatican’s nine main governmental bodies, known as congregations, and are now proceeding to review its 12 auxiliary bodies, known as councils.
Likewise, unsubstantiated reports in June were speculating that Francis was considering creating several new secretariats to combine similar Vatican departments into one structure for the sake of expediency and effectiveness.
Francis established the advisory group, known formally as the Council of Cardinals, last year to “study a project of revision” of the Vatican’s bureaucracy, known as the Roman Curia. The group met together for the first time in October.
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