VATICAN CITY
euronews
By Robert Hackwill
Almost as soon as the identity of the new Pope was known, the feeling was that Francis would represent a break with the Catholic Church’s euro-centric past.
The first supreme Pontiff to be chosen from another continent was always likely to represent a tectonic shift of some kind, and Francis made it clear in his early public statements that he would be whipping up a wind of change to blow through the dusty corridors of the Vatican.
As Francis, in the job for less than two years, embarks on his second Asian tour, he has already found that wrestling with the Curia and other vested interests within the church hierarchy will be no easy matter. What are his major concerns and priorities for the period ahead?
Cleaning up the temple
The Vatican is long overdue for serious reform, as it has allegedly become a viper’s nest of careerism over calling, a pit of backstabbing and financial opacity, corruption and cronyism. The last time any serious attempt was made to address this was in 1978 under John Paul I, who died suddenly after only 33 days in the job. Four years later one of the bosses of the Vatican bank, Roberto Calvi, was found hanged under a bridge in London. He had reportedly been on the brink of being sacked before the pope’s untimely death, as John Paul I had made Vatican bank reform a priority.
Confronting sexual abuse
American Catholics in particular are desperate for Francis to ride to the rescue of their Church, crippled in recent years by revelations about sexual and child abuse, and hammered by victims for damages in US courts that have bankrupted some dioceses. It appears to be a global problem for the church, and one that is driving some faithful into the arms of other churches like the Evangelists , who have been eating into the Catholic congregation in places like Brazil at a worrying speed.
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