A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

Synod of Cardinals to “rip up” current constitution on Church governance? September 30, 2013

As I have related in several recent blog posts, we would really start to know what this Pope plans to achieve next month (October), as the Synod of Cardinals begins their work of – apparently, in the words of their own leader – radical demolition on the current model of authority in the Churh.  Now, that current model is quite a bit different from what governed the Church for centuries from Trent to VII, but I think what we’re looking at here is an unheard of devolution of power from the Vatican and Curia to the “local bishops,” which will mean in actuality, the national episcopal conferences, entities the world over utterly dominated by progressives.

A Roman Catholic cardinal said Sunday that a group of senior church figures handpicked by the Pope to shake up the Vatican’s murky and autocratic bureaucracy would “rip up and rewrite” the constitution which apportions power at the Holy See.

The eight cardinals, who were appointed by Pope Francis in April, have been briefed to revise the constitution, known as Pastor Bonus, drawn up in 1988 by Pope John Paul, in a bid to give greater voice to bishops around the world. [Look, there are lots of legitimate complaints regarding Pastor Bonus. It has basically made the Secretariat of State a semi-dictator in the Vatican. There is a giant war in the Vatican still ongoing between the immediately former Secretary of State – Bertone, and HIS predecessor, Sodano. Cardinal Sodano, waaaaay past retirement age, still has a huge wing of supporters in the Curia, and it was his supporters, it is thought, that created Vatileaks, contains most of the homosexual mafia, and who basically ran Pope Benedict out of office.  I think some reform is definitely needed.  But read on, I don’t think they’re headed in the right direction]

Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, the group’s leader, said that at tomorrow’s meeting they were planning to go much further than just changing “this and that”.

“No, that constitution is over,” he said in a television interview. “Now it is something different. We need to write something different,” he added.  [OK, so Pastor Bonus is dead.  What next?]

Gerard O’Connell, a Vatican analyst at the Vatican Insider, said that the proposed rule changes were a “rupture after a century of increasing centralisation”.

“Cardinal Maradiaga is hinting that the Pope is asking the fundamental question: ‘What can be decided in Rome and what at local level? How can the Roman Curia serve bishops instead of being an office of censure and control?’”  [Ummm…….they have been an office of censure and control for very vital reasons. There has been a neo-modernist revolution in the Church, constantly advancing errors and endangering souls! The Pope has the charism of infallibility in certain circumstances.  Bishops do not.  Heresies and apostasy run amok in many dioceses – Rome has been at least something of a bulwark against this over the past two pontificates.  Over the past 35 years, we at least had one pretty orthodox man in Rome whose job it was to limit the damage of the revolution in the Church. That man was Ratzinger. He is gone. The progressives want to insure his like can never dampen their excesses ever again.]

O’Connell cited Japanese bishops as examples of victims of the Vatican’s centralisation. “They must ask advice from Rome on the correct Japanese to use in their liturgies, yet you would think they would be the best judge.”  [Yes, they have screwed a bunch of stuff up. Then again, the Japanese bishops are not without their own problems. The Curia screwed up the revised 2011 English translation of the Novus Ordo, making a vast improvement into a moderate one.  But devolving huge swaths of power to episcopal conferences is not the answer.  Doctrinally, bishops conferences still have no authority whatsoever.  And what if the way this constitution is written not only devolved power to episcopal conferences, but through its language manages to favor progressive interests?]

Over the weekend, Pope Francis gave another clear indication that he sees the Vatican as a hotbed of intrigue and power struggles when he suggested Vatican policemen should crack down on gossip as well as looking out for intruders.

Defining gossip as the devil’s work, “a forbidden language” and “a war waged with the tongue”, he told gendarmes gathered for Mass to tell any gossipers: “Here there can be none of that: walk out of St Anne’s Gate. Go outside and talk there! Here you cannot!” [Is this genuine concern over the state of souls, or annoyance that some might question the direction of his pontificate?]

Cardinals gathering in Rome before Pope Francis was elected in March complained that Vatican officials had become a self-serving elite indifferent to the needs of dioceses around the world. [Are not the national conferences, and even many bishops, indifferent to the needs of souls for an orthodox faith?  This is the pot calling the kettle black.]

Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga said his group had received suggestions on Vatican reform from around the world, including 80 pages of suggestions from Latin America. The convergence on a few main themes suggested God’s will was at work, he said. “You cannot have millions of Catholics in the world suggesting the same unless the Holy Spirit is inspiring.”.  [Well, millions of Catholics around the world think killing babies in the womb is wonderful, should we listen to them on that, too?  The problem with trying to identify the sensus fidei is that it assumes well formed, obedient, orthodox Catholics, not a situation where a modernist revolution has run rampant through the Church.]

My own excitability aside, we really don’t know much, but the rumors which Pope Francis so derides all point in the same direction – a devolution of many powers, perhaps even power to determine Doctrine, from the Curia not to individual bishops, which would be exciting but perhaps manageable, but to the national episcopal conferences, which have demonstrated themselves both heavily biased towards progressive or modernist interests AND almost impervious to outside influence. Yay.

My own surmise is that  even many of Pope Francis’ most staunch defenders may well experience a change of heart as they see what develops.  But, then again, they may not, some people simply cannot bring themselves to criticize even the prudential actions of a reigning pontiff (long dead ones, that’s a different matter).

More and more evidence indicates Pope Francis may have been elected under a quid pro quo arrangement.  The article also states that this new arrangement will get the Italian episcopal conference out from under the Vatican, something especially the progressives in Italy have long wanted.  Non-curial Cardinals from around the world of course want more power, so this arrangement will suit them. The way the election came down so fast, much of this was certainly worked out in advance.  All I can say is, yikes!  This arrangement, if it becomes what I think it will, has the ability to unleash “Vatican III” on the Church without the headache of a formal council.

Thanks to reader RC for the tip.