Pope Francis’ Eight-Man Advisory Panel Equals the Fall of Rome?
Pope Francis has made his yet most radical move in his one-month tenure as the 266th supreme spiritual pontiff when he created over the weekend an eight-man advisory panel to check and review the efficiency and perhaps debate the existence of the Roman Curia.
Ironically, those who were appointed by Pope Francis to help him in the governance of the Universal Church are not Vatican or Roman Curia insiders but are from "outside" of Rome. Not part of the so-called Vatican Mafia.
Plucked from all over the world, the new pope's non-Roman G8 is composed of:
Card. Giuseppe Bertello, President of the Governatorate of Vatican City State;
Card. Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa, Archbishop emeritus of Santiago del Cile (Chile);
Card. Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay (India);
Card. Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of München und Freising (Germany);
Card. Laurent Monswengo Pasinya, Archbishop of Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo);
Card. Sean Patrick O'Malley. O.F.M. Cap., Archbishop of Boston (U.S.A.);
Card. George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney (Australia);
Card. Oscar Andrés Maradiaga Rodríguez S.D.B., Archbishop of Tegucigalpa (Honduras);
Mons. Marcello Semeraro, Bishop of Albano, Council secretary.
Fr. Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesperson, noted the group does not have any legislative power as well as they have no powers whatsoever to interfere in the normal functions of the Roman Curia.
"Its main function is to help and advise the Pope," Fr Lombardi said.
However, with each having strong personalities and therefore consequently also strongly opinionated, these men are seen to voice out opinions more than what Pope Francis may just want to hear.
Cardinal Pell for instance, during the pre-conclave period, has been very vocal about the dysfunction in the Vatican management, despite being a solid doctrinal conservative.
Cardinal Maradiaga had a stand-off with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone in voicing out an overhaul of Caritas Internationalis. In 2010, Cardinal O'Malley and Cardinal Schönborn criticised Cardinal Angelo Sodano for downplaying as "petty gossip" the church's record on sex abuse.
Thus, it won't be a surprise if the eight cardinals eventually call for the abolition of the Roman Curia, something which Pope Francis seemed to be thinking along the lines.
Although the Secretariat of State will continue to exist, Pope Francis nevertheless wants its powers clipped.
"It will continue to exist, but it will be substantially weakened," Italian journalist Paolo Rodari said on Friday.
The Curia has attracted attention over the past year starting with the theft of papal documents by the butler of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. It revealed infighting among Vatican cardinals. The biggest blow to the religious faith, however, was the shocking abdication of Benedict XVI, the first in 600 years.
The eight cardinals will be responsible for drawing up a plan to revise the Curia's constitution. And as will be expected, not everyone in the religious faith will surely adhere to the future reforms the G8 will suggest.
A resistance and destabilisation could most likely occur in Italy or Rome, thus the Fall of Rome.
A statement from the Vatican said the group is set to meet only on October. But Pope Francis had already started talking to its members.
Bishop Marcello Semeraro of Albano, Italy will be the G8's secretary.