From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2013
Douglas from Mombasa writes: “Dear Sir, I read your dispatch online recently about Pope Francis move to reform the Vatican, promising to do all he could to change the mentality of an institution he said was too focused on its own interests, what is this mentality pope wants to change?”
Thank you Douglas, your question is very important as Pope Francis looks forward to reform the Roman Catholic Church, which has been facing lots of scandals for decades. The first agenda in the reform program is to rewrite a 1998 constitution on the workings of the Vatican’s various departments.
This constitution was promulgated by Pope John Paul II on June 28, 1988, Pastor Bonus, which introduced a reform of the Roman Curia and divided the Secretariat of State into two sections: the Section for General Affairs and the Section for Relations with States, which incorporated the Council for the Public Affairs of the Church.
The Secretariat of State is presided over by a Cardinal who assumes the title of Secretary of State. As the Pope’s first collaborator in the governance of the universal Church, the Cardinal Secretary of State is the one primarily responsible for the diplomatic and political activity of the Holy See, in some circumstances representing the person of the Supreme Pontiff himself.
The Section for General Affairs handles the normal operations of the Church including organizing the activities of the Roman Curia, making appointments to curial offices, publishing official communications, papal documents, handling the concerns of embassies to the Holy See, and keeping the papal seal and Fisherman’s Ring.
Pope Francis has discovered just what a blander this constitution has done to the Vatican. Having also acknowledged that there was a “gay lobby” in the Curia, the Pope thinks the rewriting of the constitution can help curb this scandal.
Pope Francis does not want the church which does not concern about itself, but a missionary church that reaches out to the poor, the young, the elderly and even to non-believers.
Already the secretive Vatican bank, under investigation for alleged money-laundering by Italian prosecutors, released its first-ever annual report Tuesday, the latest step toward financial transparency championed by Francis and his predecessor Benedict XVI.
The bank’s two top managers have already resigned and a Vatican monsignor has been arrested after trying to smuggle 20 million euros into Italy from Switzerland without declaring it at customs.
The eight cardinals dubbed “G8” to help the pope on this matter include Sean O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston and a longtime friend of Francis; Cardinals Oswald Gracias, archbishop of Mumbai, India; Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, archbishop of Kinshasa, Congo; and Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and Freising, Germany, all of whom head bishops conferences in their regions.
A scandal over leaked papal documents last year showed the Curia to be a dysfunctional warren of political infighting and turf battles, fueling calls for reform from the cardinals.
The eight cardinals named by Pope Francis to begin work on ways to reorganize the Roman Curia are predominantly active archbishops of very large archdioceses, but they also have a wide range of pastoral and organizational experiences and skills.
One of the reasons why Pope Francis opted for Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, 68, who speaks Spanish fluently is because he is known for striving for transparency, tackling reform and making tough, sometimes unpopular, choices all while strengthening the church’s mission of service and evangelization.
When the Capuchin Franciscan first addressed the scandal-hit Archdiocese of Boston, he invoked “those words that inspired St. Francis, when the crucified Lord said to him, ‘Francis, repair my church.’ I ask you and plead with you: Repair my church.”
Arriving in Boston in 2003, he tackled the financial and administrative disarray in the archdiocese that had been the epicenter of the national clergy sex abuse scandal. He confronted the loss of confidence in its church leadership and sharp declines in revenue by making sometimes controversial decisions.
He sold off 43 acres of archdiocesan property, including the large mansion known as the cardinal’s residence, and ordered the closure of 63 of the archdiocese’s 357 parishes based on a study of what parishes were viable and which ones must be closed or merged. His reorganization also involved eliminating jobs, consolidating or merging programs, selling more property and making efforts to increase fundraising.
He also opted for Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, 70, for his wide experience as president of Caritas Internationalis, the umbrella organization of national Catholic charities around the world that has brought him into regular contact with the curia and have involved him directly in questions of the roles and responsibilities of various curial offices.
For Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa, Congo, 73, apart from preaching Pope Benedict XVI’s 2012 Lenten retreat on “communion in the church, both the communion of the faithful with the apostles and of the faithful and the apostles with God,” he also has had direct experience in governing and mediating in a very, very difficult situation.
With the Vatican’s blessing, in the 1990s he took an active role in mediating his country’s political crisis and trying to guide the nation to a new democratic constitution. In 1991, he was elected president of the Sovereign National Conference; from 1992 to 1994, he served as president of the High Council of the Republic; and in 1994-1995, he served as speaker of the country’s transitional parliament.
On the other hand, German Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, 59, is an expert on Catholic social teaching and speaks often about the importance of reforming economic systems to respect the human person, solidarity and the rule of law.
He praised Pope Benedict’s encyclical “Caritas in Veritate” (“Charity in Truth”) as a guideline for ethical principles that should be put into action. “We cannot build solidarity without the idea that everyone is in this communion,” he said in a talk he gave at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana in 2010.
On his part, Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa, the 79-year-old retired archbishop of Santiago, Chile, earned the reputation as a reconciler when he promoted truth and forgiveness in a nation divided and shocked by revelations of human rights atrocities waged during Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s military regime.
The cardinal was part of planning efforts with the future pope, then- Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, of the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean in Aparecida, Brazil, in 2007.
He was superior general of the secular Schonstatt Fathers and served at the Vatican as secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life from 1990 to 1996.
While at the Vatican office, he dealt with the conflict between CELAM and the Latin American Conference of Religious, known as CLAR, which several bishops regarded as too heavily influenced by liberation theology. He called on CLAR to make deep reforms in its most controversial programs, but rejected pressures to disband it and create another organization.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
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Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ
UN Disarmament
Conference, 2002