UNITED STATES
The Times-Tribune
BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Published: December 25, 2014
In addition to the traditional prayers and wishes for peace and goodwill, Pope Francis has presented the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics a distinctly unique Christmas gift — sweeping reforms of Vatican institutions.
Members of the Curia, the powerful cardinals, bishops and priests who run the Vatican bureaucracy, sat before the pope Monday like schoolchildren waiting to see the vice principal.
Pope Francis was unsparing in his assessment of their performance. He accused some of them of using their careers to accumulate power and wealth and, thus, of being hypocritical relative to the church’s fundamental mission — what he called, delightfully, “existential schizophrenia.”
That was just one of the “15 illnesses of the Curia” he defined in a Christmas season address that departed exponentially from its usual collegial tone.
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