VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Dec. 12, 2015

VATICAN CITY The Catholic cardinals advising Pope Francis on reforming the church’s central bureaucracy have decided to focus their next meeting in February 2016 on the possible decentralization of the global church’s structures, the Vatican has announced.

The Council of Cardinals will focus their reflections on an October speech by Francis that called for a “healthy decentralization” of the church, the Vatican said Saturday.

The Cardinals’ council is a group of nine prelates advising the pope on reforming the Vatican bureaucracy, known as the Roman Curia. They had been meeting in Rome for the twelfth time Thursday-Saturday.

Their advice to the pope is known to have led to the institution of a new papal commission to protect minors, the new Secretariat for the Economy that centralizes the Vatican’s financial structures, and the planned new Vatican office for…