POPE FRANCIS' CRITICISMS OF VATICAN CURIA
Pope Francis has ended the year with a scathing critique of the church’s
highest-ranking officials, including a list of 15 “ailments” that he said
plagued the Vatican’s power-hungry bureaucracy.
The Argentinian pontiff used a traditional Christmas greeting on Monday
to the cardinals, bishops and priests who run the Holy See to portray a church
hierarchy that had lost its humanity at times, a body consumed by narcissism
and excessive activity, where men who are meant to serve God with optimism
instead presented a hardened, sterile face to the world.
The 78-year-old pope’s second Christmas speech since his election in
2013 was met by tepid applause among his Vatican audience, according to the
Associated Press, and just a few smiling faces.
Chief among the pope’s list of sins was the “terrorism of gossip”, which
he said could “kill the reputation of our colleagues and brothers in cold
blood”. He denounced the “pathology of power” that afflicts those who seek to
enhance themselves above all else, and the “spiritual Alzheimer’s” that has
made leaders of the Catholic church forget they are supposed to be joyful.
Francis, the first pope born in the Americas, has refused many of the
trappings of office and made plain his determination to bring the church’s
hierarchy closer to its 1.2 billion members.
To that end, he has set out to reform the Italian-dominated Curia, the
Vatican’s civil service whose power struggles and leaks were widely held to be
partly responsible for Benedict XVI’s decision last year to become the first
pope in six centuries to resign.
In his Christmas greeting, Francis used biblical references to condemn
the “disease” of feeling “immortal and essential”.
“Sometimes [officials] feel themselves ‘lords of the manor’ – superior
to everyone and everything,” he said.
“These and other maladies and temptations are a danger for every
Christian and for any administrative organisation … and can strike at both the
individual and the corporate level,” he said.
It was a harsh denouncement of his colleagues following a successful few
weeks for the pope, who was seen as instrumental in
the biggest diplomatic breakthrough of the year: the restoration of relations
between the United States and Cuba.
But Pope Francis also experienced a significant setback in 2014. His
attempt to shift the Vatican’s positions on some family issues, including its
position on gay and lesbian people and the question of whether divorced and
remarried Catholics could take communion, erupted into a massive feud between
liberal and conservative forces in the church. Ultimately, his attempts to
soften the church’s positions failed to win enough support among cardinals.
John Allen, a Vatican expert and associate editor of the Crux blog, said
the Christmas greeting came at a tense time for the Holy See, as Francis and
nine of his cardinal advisers are drawing up plans for a revamp of the Vatican
bureaucracy.
This year, the pontiff celebrated the holiday not just with cardinals
and archbishops, as pope’s have traditionally done, but also with rank-and-file
employees at the Vatican and their families, Allen noted.
In full: Pope Francis’s 15 ‘ailments
of the Curia’
1) Feeling immortal, immune or indispensable. “A Curia that doesn’t
criticise itself, that doesn’t update itself, that doesn’t seek to improve
itself is a sick body.”
2) Working too hard. “Rest for those who have done their work is necessary,
good and should be taken seriously.”
3) Becoming spiritually and mentally hardened. “It’s dangerous to lose
that human sensibility that lets you cry with those who are crying, and
celebrate those who are joyful.”
4) Planning too much. “Preparing things well is necessary, but don’t
fall into the temptation of trying to close or direct the freedom of the Holy
Spirit, which is bigger and more generous than any human plan.”
5) Working without coordination, like an orchestra that produces noise.
“When the foot tells the hand, ‘I don’t need you’ or the hand tells the head
‘I’m in charge.’”
6) Having “spiritual Alzheimer’s”. “We see it in the people who have
forgotten their encounter with the Lord ... in those who depend completely on
their here and now, on their passions, whims and manias, in those who build
walls around themselves and become enslaved to the idols that they have built
with their own hands.”
7) Being rivals or boastful. “When one’s appearance, the colour of one’s
vestments or honorific titles become the primary objective of life.”
8) Suffering from “existential schizophrenia”. “It’s the sickness of
those who live a double life, fruit of hypocrisy that is typical of mediocre
and progressive spiritual emptiness that academic degrees cannot fill. It’s a
sickness that often affects those who, abandoning pastoral service, limit themselves
to bureaucratic work, losing contact with reality and concrete people.”
9) Committing the “terrorism of gossip”. “It’s the sickness of cowardly
people who, not having the courage to speak directly, talk behind people’s
backs.”
10) Glorifying one’s bosses. “It’s the sickness of those who court their
superiors, hoping for their benevolence. They are victims of careerism and
opportunism, they honour people who aren’t God.”
11) Being indifferent to others. “When, out of jealousy or cunning, one
finds joy in seeing another fall rather than helping him up and encouraging
him.”
12) Having a “funereal face”. “In reality, theatrical severity and
sterile pessimism are often symptoms of fear and insecurity. The apostle must
be polite, serene, enthusiastic and happy and transmit joy wherever he goes.”
13) Wanting more. “When the apostle tries to fill an existential
emptiness in his heart by accumulating material goods, not because he needs
them but because he’ll feel more secure.”
14) Forming closed circles that seek to be stronger than the whole.
“This sickness always starts with good intentions but as time goes by, it
enslaves its members by becoming a cancer that threatens the harmony of the
body and causes so much bad scandals especially to our younger brothers.”
15) Seeking worldly profit and showing off. “It’s the sickness of those
who insatiably try to multiply their powers and to do so are capable of
calumny, defamation and discrediting others, even in newspapers and magazines,
naturally to show themselves as being more capable than others.”
Good man Francis!
ReplyDelete'tis to be hoped now that you've weighed up the naysayers and determined to continue pressing the need for change, that you'll be well supported not only by your nine cardinal advisors, but by a growing body of previously intimidated clergy and laity. Hopefully most of the "old guard" negativists will realise, a la Burke & Malta, that it's time to shut up and slink off into retirement. Bring it on!
MMMichael
I'm delighted to hear that the Pope is tackling the real issues that are at the heart of the problem of Catholicism. Plus it makes a change from Pope Benedicts past frequent Christmas condemnation of Gays, gay rights, equality in marriage and Gay families. Gerry.
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