CALIFORNIA
National Catholic Reporter
by Emeritus Archbishop John R. Quinn | Mar. 11, 2013
The eyes of the world are focused on Rome. The big question is who will be the next Pope. As they approach the election, reports indicate that the Cardinals are deeply concerned about scandals in the Church. But they are also concerned about two other things: about papal government and about reform.
Media reports, dealing with reform, tend to focus on clerical celibacy and on the ordination of women and on the reform of the Curia understood as putting it back in order. These are important topics but it would be a mistake to stop there. We know that there were reform movements during the period before the Reformation. Most of them failed, not so much for lack of holiness or the lack of worthy objectives, but because they failed to ask the deeper questions. They did not go far enough.
Today, if we want to deal seriously with the legacy of Vatican II and issues of reform we must have the courage to consider the deeper questions. This is not possible unless the paramount issue of the exercise of the papal office is addressed.
The papacy and the reform of the Roman Curia were taken off the agenda of the sixteenth century Council of Trent. Rome feared that discussion of the papacy or of reforming the Curia could reignite the controversy about whether a council was superior to the Pope. Vatican Council II balanced and corrected the teaching of the 19th century Vatican Council I and clearly located the papal office within the College of Bishops.
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