VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider
The cardinal claims: ‘The Pope talks about himself as well. Gossip can kill’
GIACOMO GALEAZZI
VATICAN CITY
‘To be honest, nothing like this has ever happened before’. Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, the former Vatican governor and foreign minister, does not hide his surprise. ‘It is the first time this has happened; never before had a Pope set us in the Curia a series of pathologies that we must examine ourselves on.’ All along, says the cardinal who has been head of some of the most important offices of the Holy See for many years, ‘the exchange of Christmas wishes has been a customary occasion, that follows a usual pattern’.
What did you expect from Pope Francis’ speech?
‘On this occasion, his predecessors would usually say nothing but the most relevant events of the past year. They summed up the principal events in the Church and in their apostolic activity. So you could have expected Francis to talk about his travels to the Holy See and Turkey, instead he said nothing about them. Maybe he will refer to these in his speech to the ambassadors to the Vatican.’
How did you welcome the Pope’s warning?
‘It is the request of an examination of conscience, of an end-of-the-year confession. For the first time a Pope asks the Curia to examine itself on a number of problematic issues. For instance, on the basis of my experiences of the Curia, I believe that a simplification of procedures would diminish scandals.’
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