This, at last, is the reform “strongly wished for by most of the cardinals gathered in the pre-conclave general congregations” in 2013, as Praedicate recalls at the end of its preamble. The date of the congregation’s release—March 19, the ninth anniversary of Pope Francis’s inaugural Mass—is a reminder of those days, when cardinals in the wake of Benedict’s resignation stood up, one after another, to urge the next pope to turn a dysfunctional, inward-looking court of self-aggrandizing cronies into an effective, outward-looking organism of service to the whole Church. They wanted the Roman Curia, which had spent much of 2011 and 2012 deep in scandal, to be an inspiration and model, not an embarrassment; to facilitate rather than block relations between bishops and pope; to be a help in evangelizing, rather than a counter-witness.
Anyone who heard those pleas would see at once how Praedicate specifically addresses them. While St. John Paul II’s constitution, Pastor bonus, was called simply “Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia,” Francis’s Praedicate evangelium is called “Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia and its service to the Church in the world.” The most common complaint—after finances, which occupied the early years of Francis’s reform—had been that the Curia was a law unto itself, self-referential and haughty, wedging itself between the local Church and the papacy. The Curia famously treated bishops with contempt, as they found on their ad limina visits to Rome (so called because every few years a country’s bishops pay an official visit ad limina apostolorum, “to the threshold of the apostles,” touring the dicasteries and meeting the pope.) Many bishops say the attitude was encouraged by St. John Paul II’s 1988 Apostolos suos, which all but denied any standing to bishops’ conferences.
That has long since changed. Bishops are now amazed by their reception in Rome under Francis: curial officials are keen to hear and learn from them, and to assist them. In its preamble, Praedicate praises the key role of bishops’ conferences and regional collegial bodies, calls for a “healthy decentralization”—that is, autonomy regulated by the principle of communion—and says clearly that the Curia “does not place itself between the Pope and the bishops, but is at the full service of both.” Reflecting the hierarchical nature of the Church, which is both primatial and collegial (the bishops govern “with and under Peter”), the service of the Curia is organically tied to the bishops, as the pope is; and its remit is to build bonds of collegial governance and communion by acting as a nerve center for creative ideas and contacts between bishops’ conferences. Six articles of Praedicate (38–43) are dedicated to the ad limina visits, placing great importance on them, and stressing the role of the Curia in facilitating them.
Another complaint at those cardinals’ meetings in February and March 2013 was about the Vatican’s working culture: curial officials drawn from a narrow Italian pool too often turned out to be incompetent yet self-important obstructionists, prone to nepotism if not actual corruption, spiritually dried-out careerists and clericalists detached in every sense from the People of God. Expressing on paper years of Francis’s reforms, Praedicate’s second chapter says that curiali should be distinguished by their spiritual life, pastoral experience, sobriety of life, and love of the poor, as well as their competence and capacity for discernment, and that they should serve in a spirit of collaboration and co-responsibility.
They may be selected from among bishops, clergy, religious, and lay people alike. What matters is not their state in life, but their spirit of service and mission. They should be from different cultures to reflect the Church’s catholicity, and return to their dioceses or religious congregations after five years, which can be extended to a maximum of ten. According to their state of life, those who work in the Curia must attend to “the health of souls” in addition to their office tasks, be committed to regular personal and communal prayer, and carry out their work “with the joyful awareness of missionary disciples at the service of the entire People of God.” Indeed, the function of the Roman Curia is not, primarily, bureaucratic-administrative but pastoral: as Article 3 of the General Norms puts it, the Curia carries out “a pastoral service in support of the mission of the Roman Pontiff and the bishops in their respective responsibilities to the universal Church.”
There are many other important changes in Praedicate. The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, for example, now falls within the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, resolving an enervating identity crisis in which some commissioners tried to turn it into a vehicle for holding the pope accountable to victim groups. That meant it was kept at arm’s length by the Curia, weakening it. Now it will have real heft along with a degree of autonomy. On finances, there is now a healthy distance between the bodies that administer finances and those that hold them accountable—and sophisticated oversight mechanisms to detect wrongdoing.
Finally, the whole operation has been streamlined to prevent bloating and duplication. In addition to the Secretariat of State, four justice and six finance “bodies,” and three offices to run the pope’s household and liturgies, Praedicate reduces John Paul II’s twenty-one congregations and councils to sixteen juridically equal dicasteries with clearly distinct responsibilities, helping to prevent turf wars and allowing for greater “inter-dicasterial” collaboration and co-responsibility.
But the real punch of Praedicate—its evangelizing power—is in its vision of the Church, drawn from Evangelii gaudium and the Acts of the Apostles. The preamble reminds us that Christ’s mandate to preach the Gospel is the Church’s primary task, and that it does so by witnessing to the mercy it has received through acts and words of humble service: touching the suffering flesh of Christ in the poor and the sick. To enable this witness, the Church is called to a missionary conversion, to which the reform of the Roman Curia contributes by harmonizing the daily work of the Vatican with that broader call to evangelize that Francis believes God is now making to the Church.
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