THE CHURCH MILITANT - BELEAGUERED BY BERGOGLIANISM

Pope Francis’s 'open and incomplete' leadership
and the puzzling 'reform' of the Curia
Fr. Antonio Spadaro, SJ, one of the pope's closest advisers, says Bergoglio's leadership
'is based on the success-error dynamic' which inevitably 'destabilizes whoever seeks certainties…'
by Christopher R. Altieri

December 19, 2017


Does Pope Francis have a plan for the reform of the Church? The editor-in-chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, Fr. Antonio Spadaro, SJ, reportedly says, “No.”

While that answer sounds counter-intuitive, there are good reasons for giving it, only some of which Spadaro is reported to have spelled out, in remarks he delivered to a group of journalists gathered in Madrid under a banner describing themselves as Periodistas pro Papa Francisco – “Journalists for Pope Francis”.

The event was billed as the I Congreso Internacional (first international congress, and included participants from ten countries, according to one organizer. [I had read, in passing, an announcement of this event, and the question that flicked to mind immediately was - "How many will turn up for it?" So, it seems there were journalists from 10 countries! Quite a poor job on the part of the organizers, considering that there are at least 40 countries in the world where Catholics account for 50% or more of the population.]

According to another supporting organization, the actual number of participants was “reduced.” The participants issued a Final Declaration that makes for some fascinating reading on its own.

The only name on the speakers list certainly recognizable to English-speakers was Spadaro’s.

A write-up on Spadaro’s remarks, which appeared in the e-pages of Religión Digital – one of the organizers of the event, along with Mensajeros de la Paz – under the by-line of Religión Digital’s director, José M. Vidal, tells us Spadaro really brought the house down. [RD and Vidal have been among the most pro-active propagandists of this pope, Bregoglianism and the church of Bergoglio, in an unabashedly sycophantic way.]

Religión Digital reports that Spadaro – who really doesn’t like to be called “adviser to” and “confidant of” Pope Francis (so much so that he seems to make a point of expressing his discomfiture at being described in such terms) – as saying some interesting things, mostly regarding what Pope Francis is not. [Spadaro doth protest too much - considering how he has been diligently using his social network capabilities (small though his followers number seems to be] to tout the pope's views every chance he gets and to openly interpret them in case you may not have understood Bergoglio's original language!]

The piece in Religión Digital has Spadaro quoting Pope Francis as saying, in response to a direct question regarding his intentions as a reformer, “I do not [want to reform the Church]. I just want to place Christ more and more at the center of the Church. It will be He who makes the reforms.” [Really??? That's the first time I've read him say any such thing! Now he's saying Christ 'will make the reforms'. Christ does not 'make the reforms' even if the Catholic Church is his one true Church. He gives the Church and the men who are in charge of the Church the graces they need - if they ask for it, accepting they can never do anything by themselves alone, without the grace of God - to be able to make the Church perform the mission for which Christ intended her, which is to prolong his presence on earth for all time.

Yet haven't Bergoglio and his idolators always presented him to be the wonder worker who was going 'to change the Church', not just reform the Curia (which was their specified goal initially)? As in fact, Bergoglio has, by building his own church through piecemeal but systematic wreckovation of the structures and doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church while availing all he can of his authority as pope and the bimillennial infrastructure of the Church to make it appear that the emerging church of Bergoglio is, in fact, still the Roman Catholic Church? ]

Nevertheless, Pope Francis was elected with a mandate for reform. A good deal of ink has been spilled in the effort to parse his papacy as one of reform. He has spoken of the need for reform. So, to hear that he does not want to reform the Church is surprising.

Perhaps it ought not be.

To the extent Pope Francis was elected with a reform mandate, it was a specific one to reform the Roman Curia – and the Curia is not the Church (though it is the instrument that assists the Successor to Peter in his mission of teaching, governance, and sanctification of the Universal Church, and that’s something, like it or not).

In any case, that work seemed to begin in earnest, with the swift nomination of eight (later extended to nine) members of a “small council,” the “C8” (later “C9” after the inclusion of the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin) Council of Cardinal Advisers, in April of 2013, just a month after his election.

Then, at the end of 2014, Pope Francis used the traditional exchange of greetings with the high curial officials to give a list of 15 ills that plague the Curia. That list is interesting to read in light of what has and has not transpired in the intervening three years. Though institutional reform was and is on everyone’s mind, Pope Francis was clearly, in that address, speaking of – and speaking to – the souls of men. [But, as most commonsense commentators observed at the time, why did he wait almost two full years before doing this, when all his talk of reform before that was purely structural and not directed to the men who make up these structures? If he thought the Curia was afflicted by all those spiritual maladies, why did he not, from Day 1 of his papacy, instruct all curial heads to weed out the unworthy from their offices, to begin with? Nor was there any such internal house-cleaning reported at all after that public scolding. It was just so much more of his empty sanctimony that has gotten him nowhere good.]

Spiritual reform, reform of the soul, repentance, conversion, healing, receptiveness to grace, and docility to the promptings of conscience: all these are essential to the life of every Christian, and only more so to the lives of those Christians who are called to assist the Universal Pastor in his governance of the Universal Church.

Even so, the Roman Curia is a bureaucracy, and would be a bureaucracy if it were staffed and run by living saints. It is one thing to undertake a reform of a bureaucracy. It is quite another to undertake a reform of bureaucrats. [Which, to repeat, despite that very public dressing down in his Christmas address to the Curia in 2014, does not appear to have taken place at all. Unless the firing of 3 CDF staff members for allegedly having criticized the pope in private constitutes a measure to reform the bureaucrats!]

The institutional reforms undertaken thus far have been piecemeal: two new departments, given the vague designation of “dicastery,” are responsible for essentially the same work they did before, when that work was spread out over nearly a half-dozen different offices.

Consolidation is fine – it makes a good deal of sense whether viewed from the point of view of mission-effectiveness or from that of the bottom line – but the question of nomenclature is not insignificant.

“Dicastery” is usually an informal shorthand used by Vatican insiders to refer to offices of the Roman Curia willy-nilly. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, once called La Suprema, is a “dicastery,” but so is the glorified think tank called the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Congregations are the big guys: they have governing and teaching responsibilities; councils are usually advisory bodies (the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts is an interesting middle case, but very much sui generis); academies, commissions, etc., are usually ad hoc, more focused on facilitating and being involved in conversations with thought-leaders in and across specific disciplines.

Calling a new department with a broad mandate covering mission-critical areas like Laity, Family, and Life or Integral Human Development (which includes Justice, Peace, Care for Creation, Migrants and Refugees, Health Care, and Papal Charity), by the vague title of “dicastery” does not help anyone understand what the powers of the new offices are or will be, nor does it tell them where they stand in the pecking order.

This is not something that escaped the attention of the men principally responsible for the reform of the Curia. As the Secretary to the C9, Bishop Marcello Semeraro, noted in 2016:

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[The distinction present in Pastor bonus between Congregations and Pontifical Councils is operated on the basis of the exercise, or not, of a [governing] power. It is useless, however, to circumvent the impression that comes from it (not only in public opinion) of dicasteries of first and second order! [sic]

This will also be taken into account in the general organization and this is why in the most recent implementations the more general terminology of ‘Dicastery’ has been used, which in ecclesiastical parlance is already used as a synonym and omnicomprehensive (Cf. Pastor bonus art. 1 & 2 § 1 & 2).

Among the counsels received were those insistent and widespread calls for a simplification and a streamlining of the Curia: the merging, or merger, of dicasteries according to matters of competence, as well as internal simplification of the individual dicasteries; the possible suppression of offices that no longer meet the needs of current contingency; the insertion and, possibly, reduction of commissions, academies, committees, etc. within the dicasteries. There have also been calls to reorganize the specific competences of the various dicasteries, moving them, if necessary, from one dicastery to another. [See? The concern has all been about structures.]

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All this takes note of the fact, but does not account for it – nor does it explain how people are to go about their work. If one were to gather the impression that the inevitable confusion is not an unintended consequence, but the real desired result of the reform, one could hardly be blamed.

The one new dicastery that does have a specific designation is the Secretariat for Communication, which has a clear mandate, but is headed by a priest with the rank of monsignor, while the other secretariats are headed by cardinals who are also archbishops.
Nota bene: This is not a question of vanity.

The new communication secretariat’s first task is to implement the recommendations of the two independent blue-ribbon panels (the first conducted by the consulting firm of McKinsey & Co. and the second by a special commission headed by Christopher Francis Patten, Baron Patten of Barnes) that studied Vatican communications from 2013 to 2015, and came back with advice that came to: cut costs, and get the message under control.

The cost-cutting work has been hard and painful – more so since Pope Francis told the leadership of the new secretariat they could not wield the sword of redundancy – but the message-control part of the mandate is made measurably more difficult by the circumstance of ecclesiastical rank.

Said simply: prefect or not, no monsignor can tell a bishop what to do, let alone an archbishop or a Red Hat – and the major problems with message discipline have never really come from the communications outfits now under the direct control of the Secretariat for Communications.

The Secretariat for Communications, ongoing challenges notwithstanding, did just this past week clear a major hurdle when it rolled out the revamped web portal Vatican News for beta testing.
So, there’s that. [I have not had the time to check out the new portal, and I have yet to read any reviews of it.]

Meanwhile, the C9 cardinals studying the reform of the Curia continue to meet – their 23rd working session is scheduled for the end of February – without so much as a rough outline having been presented to the public to date (though we are promised it is “more than ¾ ready”).

Perhaps it is as Spadaro is reported to have said to that group of “Pro-Francis” journalists, i.e., that Pope Francis “does not have a plan for the Church,” though a less-reserved observer might suggest that a plan for the Curia is arguably neither too much to ask at this point, nor really entirely lacking. One need only know where to look – and the place to look is Santa Marta, where all the shots are called and all the stories start and end.

Here, too, Spadaro offers some words that are in line with what we have seen of the Holy Father’s own characterization of his working methods. Francis’s leadership, Spadaro is reported to have said, “is based on the success-error dynamic,” which inevitably “destabilizes whoever seeks certainties,” insofar as “discernment is not based on human certainties, but on enabling the unfolding of God’s will in history.” [Oh, so now the infamous 'accompaniment-discernment-blahblahblah' of AL for remarried divorcees who persist on living in adultery is supposed to 'unfold God's will in history' - and are we then to conclude that God's will is for these couples to continue being adulterers and yet be in a stage of grace that makes them worthy to receive communion? I do not doubt Vidal's account of what Spadaro said - so this seems to be an egregious instance of this know-all Jesuit failing to think out the logical consequences of the statements he makes in his endless apologiae pro Bergoglio.]

Spadaro reportedly described the Holy Father’s thought as “open and incomplete” – a turn of phrase that is meant to place Pope Francis’s thought in contrast to that of a closed system or self-contained ideology. [But to vaunt 'open and incomplete thinking' is as much of an ideology in itself - ridiculous as it may be - and as self-contained as any so-called 'self-contained' ideology.]

If this really is an accurate picture of the Holy Father’s mind, it would mean Francis conceives his mission as essentially that of the discerner-in-chief. [Whose task is quite easy, then, because all he has to discern is his own mind - certainly he acts as if he does not have to consult the Catechism and the bimillennial Magisterium it contains and teaches, because all that is irrelevant to the Bergoglian here and now.

After all, hasn't he said from the beginning that everything he says and does since he became pope comes directly from the Holy Spirit? Who needs the Catechism, tradition, previous Magisterium, or even Scriptures, if God speaks directly to you and through you? That is the insufferable conceit and hubris of this man.]

How that understanding squares with the expectations of his electors, or with the hopes of those they elected him to lead, is still very much to be seen.

Another perspective on what's happening in the Bergoglio Vatican - from someone who seems to think Bergoglio is blameless in the 'lawlessness' he decries...

The curia’s biggest problem?
The rule of law is being overlooked
[Does that not follow when you have a 'dictator pope'?]
by Ed Condon

December 20, 2017

Over the weekend, Pope Francis turned 81. All Catholics of good will wished him a happy birthday and, of course, many more. The Pope is now two years past the age at which a cardinal can participate in a conclave, six past the age when curial officials have to submit their resignations, and eight past the age when a diocesan bishop is required to submit his resignation. But he has, I am sure he would agree, still a lot left to do.

The single greatest task still ahead of the Pope is the one clear job before him when he emerged onto the loggia nearly five years ago: reforming the curia. From stamping out networks peddling favouritism and influence, to cleaning up the Vatican finances, everyone agreed that there was an urgent need for some law and order to be brought to the daily operations of the Holy See.

Francis’s first moves appeared big and bold, setting up the C9 Council of Cardinals to advise him on reforming the governing constitution of the Vatican and creating a whole new set of bodies to oversee the finances of the curia.

But from these promising beginnings, sadly little progress has been made. Systematic reform of the curia has given way to a mere renaming and merging departments. Financial scrutiny remains a distant dream, as official after official is sacked for “exceeding their mandate.”

As we await tangible progress towards constitutional reform from the C9, contempt for the rule of law and proper procedure in the curia is palpable when dealing with some Vatican departments.

Last week Prof. Kurt Martens, a very senior and respected canonist and academic, offered up a textbook example of the way Rome is running. Prof. Martens tweeted out a single line from a decree of the Apostolic Signatura, effectively the Church’s Supreme Court. It said that while the court was preparing its decision on a case before it, the Prefect for the Congregation for Clergy had taken the act under appeal to the Pope, who had been persuaded to sign it, thus making it a papal act of governance and beyond appeal. Sadly, this kind of thing is becoming all too common.

I myself know of one very recent case in which someone appealing before another Vatican department received a phone call from a senior cardinal who told him to drop the appeal because “if [the person being appealed] didn’t have the power to do what he wants, I can get the Pope to give it to him.”

The implication is clear: access to the Pope is a serious commodity in Rome, and those few who have it are able and willing to take advantage of it.

One could be forgiven for assuming this was evidence of an over-involved Pope reaching down into specific cases, but, in fact, it seems the Holy Father is, at least at times, unaware of what is happening.

Despite Francis’s stated desire to be a “free-range” Pope, and live in the Domus Sanctae Marta to allow him to be around people on a daily basis, his handlers have eliminated the ordinary mechanisms by which a pope is kept up to date on how the Church is actually being run – the regular udienza di tabella [scheduled one-on-one meetings with the heads of Vatican dicasteries, especially with the heads of CDF and Bishops, which with John Paul II and Benedict XVI, were regularly held on a specific day once a week.] has been swept off the papal schedule, for example, and those out of favour with the Pope’s gatekeepers can find that he doesn’t have a minute to spare for months at a time.

Meanwhile, whether it is retroactively authorising the cancellation of the PWC audit of the Vatican finances or okaying the illegal intervention into the Knights of Malta, those few with daily access to the Pope are able to get his signature on a range of measures which go directly against his stated aims. [Aww, Mr. Condon, don't be so disingenuous! Cancelling the PWC audit and interfering so directly in the internal affairs of the sovereign Knights of Malta could not have happened without this pope's approval, regardless of his 'stated aims'! These were not events -
both reprehensible - that simply came and went but were the object of endless media reporting and commentary for days and weeks. If they had been merely the result of handlers acting on their own, they would have been squelched right away by the pope who is, after all, the supreme authority on all this!]

Two years ago, I wrote here that I feared Pope Francis was becoming a prisoner of his handlers, and this fear seems to have come to pass. [Oh please! Does anyone think that Bergoglio's actions as pope are nothing but things he was compelled to do by his 'handlers'? An autocrat like him needs no handlers. He is his own law and he cannot be held blameless for his errors and missteps.]

Bringing discipline and structural reform to the curia is a herculean labour, and one which requires that the Pope stop presuming the foxes will fix the hen house. [But in this case, the fox is the pope himself, and he'll keep his henhouse exactly as he wants it, smothering any hens he thinks he wants to eat up.]

There is still time, though, if Pope Francis can break through his own inner circle. If he does so, many in Rome may yet find themselves confronted with an old man in a hurry. I hope they do.