The new Pope’s unprecedented decision to create a commission
of cardinals to study how the Catholic Church is governed has been seen
by many observers as a response to recent Vatican scandals. But it is a far more radical move than that, as analysis of his choice of commissioners shows.
“Revolution does not easily come to mind when we think of the papacy.” Those words appeared in the opening lines of a book that Archbishop Emeritus John R. Quinn of San Francisco published in 1999.
The Reform of the Papacy: the costly call to Christian unity (Crossroads, New York) was a response of the former president of the US bishops’ conference to John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical, Ut Unum Sint, in which the late Pope asked Christian leaders to help him find a new “way of exercising (papal) primacy”.
Archbishop Quinn said that, similar to the Second Vatican Council, the encyclical was a “revolution”. As he writes in the book, “For the first time it is the Pope himself who raises and legitimises the question of reform and change in the papal office in the Church.” But nearly two decades later, no such reform or change has been seriously discussed in Rome, let alone put into motion.
Pope Francis may have just changed that. In an announcement last week that should not have come as a complete surprise, the new Pope sparked fresh hope that reforming the way in which the Bishop of Rome exercises his global ministry was now back on the agenda. “The Holy Father Francis, taking up a suggestion that emerged during the general congregations preceding the conclave, has established a group of [eight] cardinals to advise him in the government of the Universal Church and to study a plan for revising the apostolic constitution on the Roman Curia, Pastor Bonus,” said a communiqué on Saturday from the Vatican.
Most commentators interpreted this almost exclusively as the Pope’s response to the VatiLeaks scandal – the launching of an operation to “clean up” the corruption, careerism and inefficiency that the leaks highlighted in the Church’s central bureaucracy. The pundits even suggested that what prompted him to take such action was a large, top-secret report drawn up by three elderly cardinals who investigated the scandal. Only Francis and his predecessor, Benedict XVI, have seen the classified dossier.
However, this seems to be a simplistic reading of the new initiative and one that overlooks its more radical or, as Archbishop Quinn would say, “revolutionary” intention; that is, fundamentally to change the way the Universal Church is governed.
More profound thinkers have read the Pope’s creation of a group of advisers as a bold new step towards fully implementing a model of ecclesial government evoked by the Second Vatican Council – one that is less centralised, more collegial and based on the principles of subsidiarity.
“What Pope Francis has announced is the most important step in the history of the Church of the last 10 centuries and in the 50-year period of reception of Vatican II,” said the noted church historian Alberto Melloni. Writing in the Milan daily Corriere della Sera, he said the Pope had “created a synodal organ of bishops that must experiment with the exercise of the consilium”. In other words, shared governance of the Church between the Bishop of Rome and all the world’s bishops.
Detailed proposals for this were put forth in Archbishop Quinn’s book, which in 2005 appeared in Spanish. Pope Francis read that work when he was still just a cardinal in Argentina and, at around that time, he reportedly expressed his conviction that at least some of its ideas should be adopted.
The Pope’s decision to name eight senior bishops to “advise him in the government of the Universal Church” is a sign which points in that direction. They represent all the continents. Five of the eight have been or currently are elected heads of national or international episcopal conferences; one headed his international religious order and once worked in the Roman Curia. Only two (a German and an Italian) are European. Only one is currently working at the Vatican, though technically not part of the Curia.
Pope Francis chose Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga SDB to be the group’s coordinator. The charismatic 70-year-old Archbishop of Tegucigalpa (1993-present) is considered a church moderate with a formidable social justice sense.
A former president of the Episcopal Conference of Latin America (Celam), he is in his second term as president of Caritas Internationalis (CI), the vast and professionally organised network of the Church’s national and regional charity agencies. His experience of subsidiary forms of administration in the CI confederation and his mastery of six languages strongly recommend him for the coordinating role.
He is one of only three members of the group who were created cardinals by John Paul II, getting his red hat in the same 2001 consistory as the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope.
Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz Ossa of Chile is the representative from South America. He’s another of the Pope’s 2001 consistory classmates and also a past president of Celam.
The Archbishop Emeritus of Santiago de Chile (1998-2010) will be 80 in September.
A member of the Schönstatt Fathers, he was elected in 1974 to the first of three consecutive terms as the institute’s international superior general. Immediately afterwards he was appointed archbishop-secretary at the Congregation for Religious (1990-96). Two terms as president of Chile’s episcopal conference are also part of his leadership experience.
Australian Cardinal George Pell, who will be 72 in June, is the final member of the group that got their red hats from John Paul II (2003). Archbishop of Sydney since 2001, he is arguably the most conservative of the eight advisers.
He has never been elected to any major leadership position, but he has received several papal appointments, most notably as head of the Vox Clara Committee that supervised the English translation of the Missal.
Pell is a no-nonsense, straight-talking critic of the Italian-dominated and inefficient Roman Curia. He represents Oceania as its only active cardinal.
Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley, who turns 69 in June, brings impressive credentials to the group as North America’s representative, especially in dealing with sexual-abuse crises. After highly praised “clean-up and healing” missions as bishop in three smaller dioceses, he was appointed Archbishop of Boston in 2003 and was made cardinal three years later.
Although he has never been elected to major office, his Franciscan simplicity, knowledge of Latin America and close friendship with Pope Francis and Cardinal Rodríguez make him a valued adviser.
Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay since 2006 and the current president of India’s episcopal conference, is also secretary general of the larger Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences. The 68-year-old’s training as a canon lawyer and his experience at several Vatican-held synods are part of his skill-set. He was created cardinal in 2007.
The African member of the group, Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa (since 1998), served for several years as parliamentary leader of the former Zaire during its transition into the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A Rome-trained biblical scholar, he has been elected president of the national bishops’ conference, as well as head of the large continent-wide symposium of all of Africa’s episcopal conferences. In addition, he once served as co-president of Pax Christi International. He will be 74 in October; and was created cardinal in 2010.
Europe’s principal representative in the group of advisers is German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, president of the Commission of the Episcopates of the European Community. Conservative doctrinally but a strong proponent of the Church’s social teaching, he has been Archbishop of Munich since 2009. The youngest member of the Pope’s advisers, he turns 60 in September. He was created cardinal in 2010.
Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, a career papal diplomat, is the only member of the group who has not been a diocesan bishop. After serving as nuncio in several African countries, the United Nations in Geneva, Mexico and finally in Italy, he was named “governor” of Vatican City State in 2011.
Technically he is not part of the Roman Curia, but oversees the administrative and technical services inside the papal enclave. Ordained priest for the Diocese of Ivrea, he will be 71 in October, and some believe he could be the next Vatican Secretary of State. He was made a cardinal last year.
Pope Francis also selected Italian Bishop Marcello Semeraro, 65, to be the secretary of the group. Bishop of Albano (where the Castel Gandolfo papal summer residence is located) since 2004, he worked as an assistant to then-Cardinal Bergoglio at the 2001 Synod.
The Vatican said the eight advisers would not hold their first joint meeting until next October. But the Pope is already consulting with them, probably by telephone and mail, as well meeting them during their frequent visits to Rome.
No doubt he is also consulting with several others who are already living in the Eternal City – cardinals such as Walter Kasper, Cláudio Hummes OFM and João Cardinal Bráz de Aviz. Certainly, Pope Francis is not expected to postpone all significant decisions or appointments until the autumn.
Rather, he’s likely to discuss them with his consultants in Rome and his G8 abroad.