00 07/04/2015 18:40




ALWAYS AND EVER OUR MOST BELOVED BENEDICTUS XVI







Andrea Gagliarducci's 'inside track' analysis of recent Curial developments is informative but it suffers from a basic error which I find incredible. To classify Cardinal Woelki, now Archbishop of Cologne, as a conservative - after he promptly came out of the progressivist closet with Benedict XVI's retirement to reveal his ultra-liberal propensities regarding homosexuality, communion for remarried divorcees (overwhelmingly endorsed by the German bishops' conference, of which Woelki was not one of the few holdouts), and most alarmingly, his open support of Islamist activism in Germany while suppressing attempts by the faithful in Cologne to protest Islamist advances in that country - takes away 50% of the premise that Gagliarducci lays down, namely, that JMB/PF is 'balancing' his appointments.

However, Gagliarducci does underscore some pertinent facts about Benedict XVI's Pontificate, as well as the much-maligned Cardinal Bertone, that most commentators, even the most veteran Vatican observers, have conveniently ignored. But Gagliarducci almost never fails to interpolate such observations, even if parenthetically, when the opportunity arises. For that, Benaddicts and anyone who respects facts as opposed to facile myth, should be thankful to him


The so-called Francis revolution reverts to form:
Finally, Curial appointments 'Vatican-style'

April 6, 2015

For the first time in these two years of his pontificate, Pope Francis has made two “Vatican style” appointments. Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi’s appointment as Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, along with the inclusion of Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki among the members of the APSA (Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See) – both announced on March 31 – signal the Pope’s recognition of his need to re-balance his “governing team.”

At the same time, the two appointments prove that Pope Francis is switching his focus toward the more conservative, curial wing – a wing that just some months ago was not being taken into consideration.

Cardinal Versaldi’s appointment as Prefect of the Congregation for the Catholic Education offers with it many sub-texts, to be understood. When the establishment of the Secretariat of the Economy was decided – on the margins of Pope Francis’ first consistory – Cardinal Versaldi was observed standing around the corridors dumbfounded during the new Cardinals’ courtesy visits.

He was worried that as Prefect for Economic Affairs he was losing competences and was headed toward an uncertain end. What would happen to him? What was he going to do? Would Pope Francis send him away from Rome as bishop in an Italian diocese?

Observers for the most part gave credit to this latter option. Insiders also noted that Cardinal Versaldi was one of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone’s men, and that Cardinal Bertone was one of Benedict XVI’s men, his Secretary of State, and that he remained so during Pope Francis’ first months.

Despite his loyalty to Benedict XVI – or perhaps because of it – Cardinal Bertone had been the privileged [???] target of every media campaign orchestrated against Benedict XVI’s pontificate, and following the Pope’s resignation, the victim of media campaigns decrying curial dysfunction.

After Pope Francis’s election, everyone waited – and hoped – for him to put a spoils system in place against the Curia that Cardinal Bertone had fashioned. However, this spoils system did not take hold.

True, the diplomatic wing, led by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Dean of the College of Cardinals and Cardinal Bertone’s predecessor as Secretary of State – gained new importance and influence. But the re-organization of Vatican dicasteries is proving in the end to be a mere reshuffle and nothing more.

Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, transferred to the Apostolic Penitentiary from the powerful Congregation for the Clergy, has held on [I think the proper verb is 'was kept on' (as president of)] to the presidency of the Pontifical Foundation “Aid to the Church in Need”, a crucial body that assists Catholic missions and Christians in difficult foreign countries.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, whom Pope Francis appointed Secretary of State, comes from the old diplomatic school, but also served in the Cardinal Bertone’s Secretariat of State. [That says little of Parolin's political orientation. Increasingly, he has shown himself to be outspoken about the aim of this Pontificate to be pro-active on the world's political stage - a most secular goal that not even John Paul II ever articulated, even if his intense opposition to Communism which had established a stranglehold on his native Poland since the end of World War II made him one of the triumvirate of leaders, along with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, who eventually brought about the collapse of the Soviet empire and effectively, of Communism in Europe.]

And Cardinal Bertone left his post not because the Pope got rid of him, but because of his age – he was almost 80, way beyond the age of retirement, set at 75. The fact that Pope Francis does not dislike Cardinal Bertone can be deduced from the fact that the Emeritus Secretary of State is still a member of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. [After all, they worked together for several months, and Cardinal Bertone is known for his great likeableness and bonhomie.]

The head of that Congregation is Cardinal Fernando Filoni, whom Cardinal Bertone chose as his deputy in the Secretariat of State and then backed as prefect. Cardinal Filoni was appointed special papal envoy to Iraq in August, and he also spent Holy Week there in order to bring papal support to persecuted Christians.

In the end, the much vaunted “Pope Francis Revolution” has turned into a modest reshuffle of top posts and into the establishment of a parallel Curia that is step by step replacing the old structures. [Actually, it is this establishment of a parallel Curia that is the more general observation that has to be made about Curial reforms so far.]

As the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs was going to be suppressed, Cardinal Versaldi had to be positioned in a new place. Where?

In Vatican corridors, it is rumored that Cardinal Versaldi has had some misunderstanding with Cardinal George Pell, Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, because of a clash of competences between the two bodies and a different view of how financial reform should be carried out.

These discussions were part of a wider internal debate, and this debate resulted in the leak of confidential information to the Italian magazine L’Espresso. The leak revealed no big news as such, but it sounded like a shot across the bow of Cardinal Pell. Some internal observers noticed that the leaked information could have come from the ranks of the Prefecture for Economic Affairs or from any of the Vatican financial institutions connected with it. The leaks prove that the Vatileaks period has not come to an end. It can begin again at any moment.

Pope Francis responded to the risk of a new Vatileaks with a classical “promoveatur ut amoveatur” – to promote in order to remove. The Pope promoted Cardinal Versaldi, who previously was president of a Prefecture and now is prefect of a Congregation.

With that promotion, the Pope also showed that curial reform is still far off. Cardinal Versaldi’s appointment freezes any changes to the Congregation for Catholic Education for at least four years – the Cardinal will reach the retirement age then. [Not necessarily 'freezes'... It could still be absorbed into a super-dicastery, and then the Pope will have to decide what to do with Cardinal Versaldi, unless he makes him head of that super-dicastery.]

Some proposals for curial reform that have been floated up till now had suggested the establishment of a super-dicastery that would comprise the Congregation for Catholic Education and the three Pontifical Councils for Culture, Social Communication and Promotion of the New Evangelization. [There you are! In which case, Versaldi's only rival to head the super-dicastery would be Cardinal Ravasi who now heads Culture. Both Mons. Celli at Social Communications and Fisichella at New Evangelization are not cardinals - and not likely to be soon, unless JMB decides that his pointman for the Holy Year of Mercy, Mons. Fisichella, should be made cardinal before or at the start of that year. And in any case, whoever ends up heading the super-dicastery, at least one Curial cardinal would be left without an office to head.

I do not know exactly Cardinal Versaldi's qualifications to head the Congregation for Catholic Education, which was led for 16 years by Polish Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, appointed by John Paul II in 1999, and who ended up serving under Benedict XVI and Francis as well. Interestingly, he was Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura from 1998-1999, until he was made in charge of Catholic Education, a congregation that deserves far more public attention than it has been getting, because it is supposed to oversee Catholic institutions of higher learning, including universities, to make sure that they remain Catholic in identity as manifested in their adherence to Catholic orthodoxy in their choice of professional faculty and in the overall exercise of their academic functions. This has, of course, been notoriously defied by many Catholic universities and colleges in the United States, and even by what was once a stronghold of orthodox Catholicism, Louvain University in Belgium.]

But the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization has a new life, too. Pope Francis entrusted it with the organization of the upcoming Extraordinary Holy Year of Mercy, and Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the president of the dicastery, has already made it known that there will be no Preparation Committee for the Jubilee, since the Pontifical Council will take over every part of the organization.

At the same time, everyone’s eyes have been focused on Vatican economic reform. Even there, in fact, the big revolution did not take place; Pope Francis simply continued what Benedict XVI had started.

The Prefecture for Economic Affairs will be suppressed in May, since its competences were taken over by the Secretariat for the Economy and the Council for the Economy. The Secretariat for the Economy has been entrusted with oversight and budget projections, including those of the Vatican City State administration. The Council for the Economy has been entrusted with tasks of financial planning and oversight, previously assigned to the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs with its March 2012 regulation reform. That reform made the Prefecture a modern “Ministry of Finance.”

The Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (namely the APSA) is the third pole of the Vatican economy. It was slightly remodeled under Pope Francis. It first served as a kind of central organ of the Holy See, but is now being fashioned into a sort of central bank – this is the reason that the original tasks of the ordinary section have been transferred into the Secretariat for the Economy, while the ordinary section is now taking care of relations with central banks.

Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne has been appointed as a member of APSA. Cardinal Woelki comes from the influential and rich German Church, and is an exponent of a theological wing quite distant from that pursued by Cardinal Walter Kasper, and even further than that of Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising. The latter is President of the German Bishops Conference, a Member of the Council of Cardinals and Coordinator of the Council for the Economy.

Cardinal Woelki was previously Archbishop of Berlin. When he was transferred to Cologne as archbishop, it was fair to say that Pope Francis had made an appointment that hewed closely to Benedict XVI’s sensibilities. [NO, NO AND NO! Yes, Woelki was named Archbishop of Berlin by Benedict XVI and later made cardinal, but Benedict's promotion of Woelki appears to have been based on the fact that Woelki was for eight years auxiliary bishop to Cardinal Joachim Meisner as Archbishop of Cologne, an outspoken and staunch conservative, as well as a close personal friend of Joseph Ratzinger. So Woelki apparently followed Cardinal Meisner's orthodox line faithfully, and in doing so, earned his promotion to Berlin, where one of his earliest initiatives was to coddle Berlin's influential gay community. After Benedict XVI retired, Woelki came out in full progressivist garb and has flaunted that ever since, surely an attribute that prompted Pope Francis to name him to Cologne when Cardinal Meisner retired.]

Cardinal Woelki’s appointment to Cologne was followed by Archbishop Osoro Sierra’s appointment as Archbishop of Madrid – even in this case, an appointment that certainly did not align with progressivist notions that have dominated in the media over the past two years.

Now Cardinal Woelki is member of an important Vatican dicastery, called there to balance Cardinal Marx’s positions. The appointment may also show that Marx’s push toward reform has come to an end. [Even assuming that Woelki holds orthodox views, how does a member of APSA 'balance' out a cardinal who is not only on the Pope's advisory council of 9 but also heads the Council for the Economy which can dictate policy for all of the Vatican's financial offices, including APSA? For as long as Marx holds those two all-important positions in the Vatican, how can anyone say that his 'push for reform' is at an end? He has been doing all he can to promote the idea that a national church can be autonomous of Rome, as he claims the German Church is, in his capacity as president of the German bishops' conference. Not to forget that he is the Archbishop of Munich-Freising, Europe's second largest diocese (after Milan).

In many ways, Marx is really more powerful and influential than the two other megastars of the Bergoglian supercouncil - Cardinal Pell, who no longer has any episcopal function and whose influence is 'limited' to the Pope and the Vatican, or Cardinal Maradiaga, who heads a tiny archdiocese in Honduras where he is hardly home, although he heads Caritas International and has certainly been JMB/PF's most audacious, outspoken (occasionally, over the top) and ostensibly unbridled surrogate on the international circuit.]

And perhaps it is not by chance that the fiscal agreement the Vatican had signed with Italy – the first ever signed by the Holy See – has been presented as a sort of revolution toward more financial transparency. In fact, the agreement merely represents a (not needed) facilitation in the exchange of fiscal information between the Holy See and Italy. [But, of course, it had to be hyped as yet another first-ever under JMB!]

Italy will be able to require information on that status of bank accounts and money transfers by Vatican employees who hold an account in the IOR, and the Holy See will communicate this information by means of a simplified procedure. This is, however, no more than a development of the cooperation that has always existed between the Holy See and Italy.

In fact, Vatican sources maintained that the way this new agreement was conceived was not good, not least in the manner it was written. This is the reason Vatican officials hurried to stress that the agreement preserved the Holy See’s sovereignty. [Big deal! Of course, it does - it is an agreement between two states. No one in his right mind would have signed it on behalf of the Vatican if anything in it called the sovereignty of Vatican city state into question!]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/04/2015 06:42]