Those Catholics unhappy with the drift of things in the Church these days, often complain that in spite of the emphasis Vatican 2 put on the place of the world body of Bishop's in running things, the Roman Curia has merely strengthened its controlling grip.
Here's an article from the Chicago Tribune, which may help you think about it. Of course you may already have thought things through and have made your mind up. If so please let this blog know. Here's the article, dated May 31, 2012.
When Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger
became Pope Benedict in 2005, epithets like "God's Rottweiler" and
"Panzerkardinal" suggested he would bring some German efficiency to the
opaque Vatican bureaucracy, the Curia.
Instead, as
the "Vatileaks" scandal has revealed, the head of the Roman Catholic
Church can't even keep his own private mail secret. His hand-picked
deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, faces a "monsignors' mutiny" by
prelates in the halls of power.
Benedict's papacy has been
marked until now by controversies over things he has said and done, such
as his criticism of Islam at Regensburg in 2006 or his 2009 decision to
readmit four excommunicated ultra-traditionalist bishops to the Church.
Now a goal he has failed to achieve -- gain control over
the Curia -- has come back to haunt him. Leaks of confidential documents
on everything from Vatican finances to private papal audiences make his
papacy look weak and disorganized.
"We've almost
forgotten that reform of the Curia was part of Benedict's program at the
start," recalled Isabelle de Gaulmyn, who was Vatican correspondent for
the French Catholic daily La Croix at the time.
"Seven years later, the Curia has never seemed as opaque, ineffective, closed and badly governed as it is today."
The "Vatileaks" scandal has revealed, among other issues,
the infighting behind the sacking of the Vatican bank president. The
pope's own butler has been arrested on suspicion of stealing documents
that have since been leaked to the media.
The
target seems to be Italian Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican
secretary of state (prime minister), whose critics accuse him of playing
politics and blocking their efforts to stamp out corruption and
cronyism in Vatican management.
THROWBACK TO RENAISSANCE MONARCHY
The Curia, a centuries-old bureaucracy dominated by
Italian clerics, is essential to the success or failure of a papacy
because it can effectively cancel or water down papal decisions if they
go against long-standing interests or traditions.
Its name comes from the Latin word for a royal court and its jumble of
overlapping departments, commissions and tribunals seems more suited to
an intrigue-filled Renaissance monarchy than a modern and transparent
democratic government.
The institution that gave
the world the word "nepotism" is not always a model meritocracy either.
Some officials are talented and dynamic while others are bureaucrats who
seem to owe their posts more to connections than capabilities.
Each department has an advisory board of cardinals and
bishops and those who sit on several boards can create powerful links
that cut across department lines to influence policy.
Pressure for reform grew during the long reign of Pope John Paul. He
announced changes in the 1980s to give local bishops more say in central
policy-making, but focused more on his travel and preaching and did not
really implement it.
Benedict was seen as the best
man to reform it since he had been a Curia member since 1981 and
reportedly knew it inside out. Now the task looks set to be handed on to
his successor.
"I'm not sure anyone has ever
really controlled it, or can control it," Thomas F.X. Noble, history
professor at Notre Dame University in Indiana, said of the bureaucracy
housed on the Vatican grounds and in office buildings nearby.
The Curia has held its own in Church power terms despite two
non-Italian popes and the growing majority of Catholics from the
developing world.
In February, the last time
Benedict named new cardinals, 10 of the 18 who can vote for the next
pope were Curia officials. That boosted their faction to 35 percent of
the votes in the next conclave, meaning they will play an important role
in the election and could try to win the papacy back for
Italy.
Supporters of the tradition of Italian popes say only they know the culture well enough to control the Curia.
A SCHOLAR, NOT A SUPERVISOR
The crisis, which hurts
Benedict's image as a leader just as he drives an increasingly
conservative line in Church policy, is as much a result of the pope's
diffident management style as of the institutional dysfunction of the
Curia itself."He's a solitary scholar and
he's not interested in the bureaucracy," said Chester Gillis, professor
of theology at
Georgetown University in Washington. "His real ambition seems to be to finish the third volume of his book."
Benedict, a leading Catholic theologian in his own right,
has devoted considerable time in office to writing a major study
entitled "Jesus of
Nazareth" rather than administering the Church. The first two volumes appeared in 2007 and 2011.
His stern reputation stems from his long tenure as head of
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), where he cracked
down on liberal trends such as liberation theology.
But his CDF work focused on his own specialty, theology. "It was not about managing the Church," Gillis noted.
When he was elected pope, Benedict brought along several trusted CDF colleagues, including Bertone.
Bertone's critics call him an autocratic power-broker, a
role the Curia lends itself to because its structure suits a Renaissance
monarchy more than modern democratic governance.
There are no cabinet meetings among heads of departments, or
dicasteries, and information circulates mostly on a need-to-know basis.
Decisions with major implications for the Church are not always
discussed with other departments that might be affected.
"A TIN EAR PAPACY"
Benedict did start reforming the Curia in early 2006,
downgrading its department for interfaith dialogue into a sub-department
of the culture ministry and sending its experienced head away to be
nuncio (ambassador) in Cairo.
But he restored it as
a full department the following year after his Regensburg speech in
September 2006, which suggested Islam was violent and irrational,
sparked protests by Muslims in several Islamic countries.
Some Curia officials had vetted the speech but not warned him of
its diplomatic dangers. At Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland
earlier that year, Benedict added the word Holocaust to his speech after
journalists saw an advance text and told his aides Jews would be
offended if he did not clearly mention it.
Benedict's aides apparently did not prepare him for the wave of sharp
protests from Catholics, Jews and even German Chancellor
Angela Merkel to his surprise decision in 2009 to readmit four rebel bishops to the Church after a 21-year schism.
The shocked pope had to write a long letter explaining the
step and admit nobody in the Curia had done an Internet search for him
and seen one bishop was a notorious Holocaust denier.
The Vatican has also reacted slowly and defensively to the clerical
sexual abuse scandal
shaking national churches around the world, giving the impression it
puts its institutional interests ahead of the children molested by
priests.
The cumulative effect of such incidents
over the years and revelations of Vatican mismanagement now has been to
cast Benedict's as "a tin ear papacy," said Christopher Bellitto, a
Catholic Church historian at Kean University in New Jersey.
"This all seems to be a power game that matters only to the
power players," he said. "It seems to be a Church hierarchy further
distancing itself from the people in the pews."
(This story corrects name and university in second to last paragraph)
(Reporting By Tom Heneghan; Editing by Jon Boyle)
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