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BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

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15/06/2013 14:27
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So! Everyone has not drunk the Kool-Aid... Here's one Vaticanista who has strayed from the herd mentality. Tbanks to Aqua for calling my attention to the article.

A Vatican ‘Gay Lobby’?
This is not the crux of the matter

A news analysis
by ANDREA GAGLIARDUCCI

June 14, 2013

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis’s recent words about corruption and an influential “gay lobby” in the Vatican have revived, in the media at least, concerns raised in the Vatileaks scandal.

Pope Francis spoke about corruption, including a “gay lobby,” in an off-the-cuff conversation with the presiding board of the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Religious Men and Women (CLAR).

After the June 6 meeting, which reportedly lasted about an hour, the six board members in attendance sketched a summary of what the Holy Father told them. It is noteworthy that no mention was made in this summary about the questions and the inferences the six religious who met the Pope made.

The text of this summary was given to the Chilean website Reflexión y Liberación (Reflection and Liberation), which decided to publish the text in its entirety.

During the conversation, Pope Francis reportedly spoke about a “gay lobby” and corruption in the Vatican.

Moreover, speaking about the reform of the Curia, Pope Francis said: “I cannot promote the reform myself, these matters of administration. ... I am very disorganized; I have never been good at this. But the cardinals of the commission will move it forward.”

These declarations, albeit informal, have been headlined all over the world. Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, did not deny that the conversation took place, nor the contents of the conversation. But he declined to comment further because it was part of a “private meeting.”

CLAR did not deny the authenticity of the summary. Rather, in a statement issued on June 12, the organization stated that it “regretted” the summary’s publication, which was meant only for private reflection. The editors of Reflexión y Liberación have stood by their decision to publish the information.

In fact, notice of a “gay lobby” inside the Vatican is not groundbreaking news. Much has been rumored about a possible such lobby inside the Vatican during the last few years, and the Vatileaks scandal was the peak of such widespread gossip.

Benedict’s actions
Under Benedict XVI’s pontificate, actions against priestly lobbies and careerism were carried out.

One reform that had the potential to correct these problems was Benedict XVI’s decision to limit access to seminaries in “The Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocation With Regard to Persons With Homosexual Tendencies in View of Their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders.”

Issued in November 2005, it was one of Benedict’s first acts of governance as Pope. The instruction denies access to seminaries to anyone who has in any way, even superficially, supported a “gay culture” or a gender culture.

According to one source who works in a Vatican congregation and asked for anonymity, the instruction was intended to avoid even the opportunity for a “gay lobby.”

He explained that the “Pope’s decision would break the chain of the old-boy school system that had been taking place inside the Vatican for a long time. Vatican officials used to co-opt and hire priests and clerks faithful to them among Vatican ranks, so that they can influence his protégés. This is how any kind of lobby rises up. …This is what Benedict XVI tried to fight … by asking for a more severe selection of the candidates to the priesthood.”

This kind of Vatican old-boy school system was also described in Via col vento in Vaticano (Gone With the Wind in the Vatican), a book signed by the anonymous group of I Millenari (The Millenarians), which is full of allusions and indirect attacks on Roman Curia representatives. The book shocked the Vatican world at the end of the ’90s and was an Italian bestseller.

The instruction on seminaries was just the first step. Several times Benedict XVI censured and condemned priestly careerism. One of his strongest denunciations was in 2009, when he celebrated a Mass to ordain five bishops.

On that occasion, Benedict XVI said, “We do not bind people to us; we do not seek power, prestige or esteem for ourselves. We lead men and women toward Jesus Christ, hence toward the living God. In so doing, we introduce them into truth and into freedom, which derives from truth. Fidelity is altruism and, in this very way, liberating for the minister himself and for all who are entrusted to him.”

These two examples are evidence that a fight against a possible (never verified or verifiable) “gay lobby” and against priestly careerism was handed on to Pope Francis from Benedict XVI.

Pope Francis also inherited the report of the three cardinals appointed to investigate on the leaks of private documents from the Vatican. In fact, Pope Francis did not mention the Vatileaks report in the meeting with CLAR, and he was more likely speaking of the need for reform in general terms.

What surprised Vatican insiders
While media have focused on the corruption and “gay lobby” references in the CLAR summary, what astonished most within the Vatican corridors was the part of the transcript where Pope Francis admits he “cannot promote the reform” himself. In fact, the sentence has been viewed as a misunderstanding of the role of the Pope himself.

A consultant of a Vatican congregation, who requested anonymity, told the Register June 12 that “no Pope can afford a reform of the Roman Curia by himself. He always asks for the support of commissions, consultants, canon-law experts.”

But, he added, what the Pope said to CLAR “could lead to the impression that there are people who are taking over the power while he is acting as the bishop of Rome.”

Such an impression would be dangerous if the message people take away is that the Pope has handed over his own authority over the universal Church to other people.

In fact, there is much that must still be understood about the role of the “advisory board” of eight cardinals appointed by the Pope to help him to develop a Curia reform.

According to Paolo Gherri, who teaches canon law at the Lateran University, “The advisory board could lead to a complex reform of the Roman Curia or simply to nothing. … They just give an institutional/political line, giving the Pope suggestions and ideas. Only the Pope will decide if this will lead to a reform and what kind of reform it will be.”

The prominent Italian vaticanista Sandro Magister underlined that the Pope seems to be following the Jesuit way of managing things. In the leadership of the Society of Jesus, the superior general appoints assistants, who represent their respective geographical areas. Each of the assistants gives his own suggestions to the superior general, who is the only one charged with making the final decision.

According to Magister, the same style of management is taking place with Pope Francis’s advisory board of cardinals, who represent eight geographical areas and are expected to report back to the Pope Oct. 2-4.

Magister wrote, “The eight will be gathered around the Pope. They will deliver to him a set of proposals. He will be the one to decide. Alone.”

Francis’s recent declarations to CLAR seem to cast doubt on his capability of governance, since he himself admitted his disorganization.

In some Vatican corridors, this is the more profound focus of the Pope’s off-the-cuff comments to CLAR, not the attention-grabbing headlines about a Vatican “gay lobby.” [Yes, but it has been egregiously and pointedly ignored by almost all the media reports about the CLAR remarks! Oh no, we can't have this Pope with any defects or deficiencies at all! ]

The bigger questions must still be answered: Who is counseling the Pope? Who will he appoint as secretary of state and other key Vatican positions? And, ultimately, will Pope Francis be truly capable of reform? [This is an unfair question. We must wait and see.]

When Rocco Palmo coins the tag PAPA CHIACCHIERONE (Chatterbox Pope) for the reigning Pope... er, Bishop of Rome... that sounds like a lowering somewhat of the skyhigh pedestal on which Pope Francis rests right now in the world's perception. Not that I have read any of the Italian MSM use that openly irreverent term, as Rocco claims, but he was responsible in the remote past for inventing the frivolously inappropriate tag His Fluffiness for Benedict XVI, as if he were a poodle, a term which fortunately, no one else picked up. But across the pond from Philadelphia, this time, the Chatterbox Pope tag was picked up by Damian Thompson, in a masterly blog post that begins by sort of tweaking the Pope's nose about his propensity for too much candor in his private remarks, and then modulates into well-phrased praise for his brand of messaging. Excellent job, Mr. Thompson! I could take lessons...

Meet Francis, the 'chatterbox Pope'

July 14, 2013



I’m not surprised that Pope Francis’s first meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury went well: these are early days, but this new pontiff is a media-savvy charmer in a way that none of his predecessors have been. Seriously, he could give Bill Clinton lessons in how to work a crowd.

And he’s just as effective in small groups or one-on-one. Notice how he described himself yesterday as just “Bishop of Rome”, a title he seems to prefer to that of “pope” – and this is music to Anglican ears, as well he knows.

We haven’t been told exactly what the Pope and Archbishop Welby said to each other in private, but I wouldn’t be surprised if His Holiness departed from his prepared message. He always does.

His morning sermons are often extemporised, accompanied by shrugs worthy of a harassed maître d’ and “huh?” noises that the Vatican press office has given up trying to render into English.

All very sweet – but what do we really know about Francis’s views? Well, he’s not a traditionalist like his predecessor, Benedict XVI. Indeed, he’s positively anti-traditionalist, not aggressively so, but in an I-can’t-be-doing-with-all-that-fussy-nonsense kind of way.

Consider, for example, what he said to a group of Latin American members of religious orders who sat with him in a circle the other day, none of the nuns wearing religious dress (Benedict would have been horrified).

Apparently, Francis recalled that one traditionalist group had presented him with a spiritual bouquet of 3,525 rosaries that they’d prayed for him. “Why didn’t they say 'we pray for you’… but this thing of counting.”

Now, it’s true that the devotional practice of counting rosaries is very old-fashioned – but they were said with love, and it’s just rude, Your Holiness, to diss the old ladies who counted them.

But did he actually say those words? The comments were taken from notes compiled afterwards by his visitors, and we can’t be sure of their accuracy. Something tells me that confusion over quotes is going to be one of the leitmotifs of this pontificate. “Did the Holy Father really say that Catholics have to throw away their iPhones?” “I think he was joking, but you never know with Pope Frank.”

When the former Cardinal Bergoglio was first elected, we were told that he was famous for not giving interviews to the Argentine press. To which one can only reply: who needs interviews, when he shoots from the hip all the time? Francis the Chatterbox Pope. A recipe for disaster, huh?

I don’t think so. He won’t undo the work of the great Benedict: it would create too much ill-feeling and, at 76, he doesn’t have time. Yes, there will be gaffes, possibly so many that we stop worrying about them. But if you listen to the Pope’s improvised talks, you quickly realize that his central focus never shifts.

Follow Jesus by helping the poor. Beware of the Devil, who wants you to spend all day distracting yourself with little treats.

This is not earth-shattering stuff – until you try to put it into practice. Jorge Bergoglio has a gift that eludes the boring, risk-averse platitude merchants who have captured the machinery of most Catholic and Anglican dioceses. He relaxes you with his smiles and shrugging, and then tweaks your conscience so hard that you wince in pain.

Don’t gossip, he tells us. That’s the one that really sticks in the mind. I can’t say I’ve followed that instruction to the letter, but every time I backslide, shall we say, I imagine Francis the Chatterbox tapping his watch and reminding me: you haven’t got forever, you know.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/06/2013 15:12]
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