ROME
Commonweal
Who Will Lose His Vatican Job Next?
By Robert Mickens
July 10, 2017
Who’s the next president or prefect of a major Vatican department that Pope Francis will let go?
Many heads could start to roll—that is, if Cardinal Gerhard Müller is right and the pope really has decided to replace Roman Curia chieftains at the completion of their five-year terms.
Francis must have adopted this new policy at the very last minute. Because a mere six days before Müller reached the conclusion of his quinquennium on July 2, Archbishop Jean-Louis Bruguès OP already completed his first five years as Archivist and Librarian of the Holy Roman Church.
Benedict XVI had appointed Bruguès to the prestigious post on June 26, 2012. And by doing so, he all but guaranteed the Dominican would become a cardinal, considering that every one of his librarian predecessors dating back to 1550 eventually got the red hat.
But up to now, Bruguès, who will be seventy-four in November, has been denied entrance into the illustrious College of Cardinals. And yet Pope Francis has allowed him to continue past his initial mandate, in contrast to what happened to Cardinal Müller.
So who’s next in line to lose his Vatican job?
Going by the numbers, it should be Archbishop Georg Gänswein. In just five months from now–on December 7, to be precise–the soon-to-be sixty-one-year-old private secretary and housemate of the retired Benedict XVI will complete five years as prefect of the Papal Household.
And unless Francis makes an exception to the new policy he allegedly told Müller, Gänswein should be replaced on that date.
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