Pope in blistering critique of Vatican bureaucrats

Associated Press
By NICOLE WINFIELD December 22, 2014 7:59 PM
VATICAN CITY (AP) — To the Catholic Church's "seven deadly sins," Pope Francis has added the "15 ailments of the Curia."
Francis issued a blistering indictment of the Vatican bureaucracy Monday, accusing the cardinals, bishops and priests who serve him of using their Vatican careers to grab power and wealth, of living "hypocritical" double lives and forgetting that they're supposed to be joyful men of God.
Francis turned the traditional, genteel exchange of Christmas greetings into a public dressing down of the Curia, the central administration of the Holy See which governs the 1.2-billion strong Catholic Church. He made clear that his plans for a radical reform of the structures of church power must be accompanied by an even more radical spiritual reform of the men involved.
Ticking off 15 "ailments of the Curia" one by one, Francis urged the prelates sitting stone-faced before him in the marbled Sala Clementina to use the Christmas season to repent and atone and make the church a healthier, holier place in 2015.
Vatican watchers said they had never heard such a powerful, violent speech from a pope and suggested that it was informed by the results of a secret investigation ordered up by Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI in the aftermath of the 2012 leaks of his papers.
Benedict tasked three trusted cardinals to probe deep into the Vatican's back-stabbing culture to root out what would have prompted a papal butler to steal incriminating documents and leak them to a journalist. Their report is known only to the two popes.
View gallery
Pope Francis meets with Cardinals and Bishops of the …
Pope Francis meets with Cardinals and Bishops of the Vatican Curia on the occasion of the exchange o …
Francis had some zingers: How the "terrorism of gossip" can "kill the reputation of our colleagues and brothers in cold blood." How cliques can "enslave their members and become a cancer that threatens the harmony of the body" and eventually kill it off by "friendly fire." How some suffer from "spiritual Alzheimer's," forgetting what drew them to the priesthood in the first place.
"The Curia is called on to always improve itself and grow in communion, holiness and knowledge to fulfill its mission," Francis said. "But even it, as any human body, can suffer from ailments, dysfunctions, illnesses."
Francis, who is the first Latin American pope and never worked in the Italian-dominated Curia before he was elected, has not shied from complaining about the gossiping, careerism and bureaucratic power intrigues that afflict the Holy See. His 2013 Christmas address cast a spotlight on such sins.
But a year into his reform agenda, Francis seemed even more emboldened to make clear to the prelates themselves that superficial displays of change aren't what he is looking for.
"This is a speech without historic precedent," church historian Alberto Melloni, a contributor to Italian daily Corriere della Sera, said in a telephone interview. "If the pope uses this tone, it's because he knows it's necessary."
View gallery
Pope Francis meets with Cardinals and Bishops of the …
Pope Francis meets with Cardinals and Bishops of the Vatican Curia on the occasion of the exchange o …
Melloni noted that until Francis was elected, the Vatican bureaucracy largely answered to no one, saying "an entire generation of the Curia ran it as if they were pope." St. John Paul II was too busy travelling the world, and later too sick, to pay attention to administrative details, and Benedict left the minutiae of running a government to his deputy, later determined to have been part of the problem.
The Rev. Robert Wister, a church historian at Seton Hall University, said Francis was essentially asking the Curia to undergo an examination of conscience, asking them to reflect on how they had sinned before God before going to confession.
"Perhaps he believes that only a severe rebuke can help turn things around," he said.
The cardinals were not amused. Few smiled as Francis spoke, and at the end they offered only tepid applause to a speech that was so carefully prepared it had footnotes and Bibilical references. Francis greeted each one, but there was little Christmas cheer in the room.
It is, to be fair, a difficult time for the Curia. Francis and his nine key cardinal advisers are drawing up plans to revamp the whole bureaucratic structure, merging offices to make them more efficient and responsive.
View gallery
Pope Francis
Pope Francis waves to faithful during a meeting with members of Pope John XXIII Community in the Pau …
Francis has said though that while this structural reform is moving ahead, what is taking much longer is the "spiritual reform" of the people involved.
The Vatican's finances are also in the midst of an overhaul, with Francis' finance czar, Cardinal George Pell, imposing new accounting and budget measures on traditionally independent congregations not used to having their books inspected.
Francis started off his list with the "ailment of feeling immortal, immune or even indispensable."
Then one by one he went on: Being rivals and boasting. Wanting to accumulate things. Having a "hardened heart." Wooing superiors for personal gain. Having a "funereal face" and being too "rigid, tough and arrogant," especially toward underlings — a possible reference to the recently relieved Swiss Guard commander said to have been too tough on his recruits for Francis' tastes.
Some critiques could have been seen as worthy of praise: working too hard and planning too much ahead. But even those traits came in for criticism as Francis noted that people who don't take time off to be with family are overly stressed, and those who plan everything to a "T'' don't allow themselves to be surprised by the "freshness, fantasy and novelty" of the Holy Spirit.
At the end of the speech, Francis asked the prelates to pray that the "wounds of the sins that each one of us carries are healed" and that the Church and Curia itself are made healthy.
___
Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield
View Comments (1425)

Recommended for You

  • Israel strikes Gaza, killing militant after soldier shot

    Israel launched an air strike in southern Gaza on Wednesday and killed a Hamas militant after a sniper attack on a patrol seriously wounded a soldier, the army and medics said. It was only the second time Israel had struck Gaza since a 50-day war ended with a truce on August 26, after witnesses…
    AFP

  • Get Glo Mobile Tutor for Unlimited Learning.

    From JAMB and NECO past questions to real-time Lectures and Counselling. Learn at your Pace & at your Convenience with Glo Mobile Tutor. Learn More.
    Globacom LimitedSponsored

  • Protesters set off explosives, throw bricks after police officer shoots, kills 18-year-old in Missouri

    Violent protests broke out at a Mobil gas station in Berkeley, Mo., where an officer fatally shot an armed man who pointed a handgun at him, police said. Four people were arrested for assaulting police officers and at least two officers were treated for injuries.
    Yahoo News32 mins ago

  • Iran foreign minister says nuclear deal 'within reach'

    Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Wednesday that he is confident that a lasting agreement can be struck with world powers over his country's disputed nuclear programme. Tehran and the so-called P5+1 group of nations have been locked in talks since February on a permanent nuclear…
    AFP41 mins ago

  • As U.S. troops return to Iraq, more private contractors follow

    By Warren Strobel and Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government is preparing to boost the number of private contractors in Iraq as part of President Barack Obama's growing effort to beat back Islamic State militants threatening the Baghdad government, a senior U.S. official said. How…
    Reuters
  • View

    Photos of the day - December 23, 2014

    A three-month-old female lion named Dominjoon wears a Christmas hat during a Christmas event at the Everland amusement park in South Korea, a woman crosses a street decorated with New Year and Christmas illumination in the center of Moscow and a Brazilian nun pilgrims prays in the Church of the…
    Yahoo News

  • Brain Training Games

    Challenge your brain with games from Lumosity.com, the personal trainer for your brain.
    LumositySponsored

  • Russia: NATO pushed Kiev to drop nonaligned status

    MOSCOW (AP) — NATO members pushed Ukraine toward dropping its nonaligned status, Russia claimed Wednesday, and also criticized the alliance for expanding its military presence near Russian borders.
    Associated Press

  • Here's What the Internet Looks Like in North Korea

    When the Internet in North Korea crashed this week for nearly 10 hours, it's unlikely that many of the reclusive nation's millions of residents noticed.That's because so few North Koreans have access to the Internet, and when they do, they see a very different online world than what most other…
    ABC News

  • Putin oversees successful rocket launch

    President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday oversaw the successful test-launch of Russia's newest heavy-class Angara rocket, a rare piece of good news in a week dominated by the economic crisis. The president oversaw by video link the launch of the Angara-A5 from Plesetsk in northern Russia at 0557 GMT,…
    AFP

  • Cameroon army says dismantles Boko Haram training camp

    YAOUNDE (Reuters) - Cameroon's army has dismantled a training camp for the Boko Haram Islamist group, arresting or killing dozens of militants and seizing 84 children who were being trained there, the army said on Monday. Local people in northwest Cameroon alerted the military on Saturday to the…
    Reuters

  • Facebook® Account Sign Up. Join for Free Today!

    Connect with friends and the world around you on Facebook. Sign up, it’s free and always will be.
    FacebookSponsored

  • Off duty, black cops in New York feel threat from fellow police

    By Michelle Conlin NEW YORK (Reuters) - From the dingy donut shops of Manhattan to the cloistered police watering holes in Brooklyn, a number of black NYPD officers say they have experienced the same racial profiling that cost Eric Garner his life. Garner, a 43-year-old black man suspected of…
    Reuters

  • Reader Write:US must end gun violence, and US/NATO actions provoke Russia

    Regarding the Dec. 16 online Monitor’s View, “Taliban massacre of children: how Pakistan must now change” (CSMonitor.com): While I don’t disagree that Pakistan needs to take action, it seems disingenuous of anyone in the United States to tell people in another country how to respond to the massacre…
    Christian Science Monitor

  • Wife of freed Cuba agent pregnant, thanks to US

    Before President Barack Obama announced last week that Washington and Havana would restore diplomatic ties, one US official had already been working on a special project -- call it insemination diplomacy -- to unite the two countries. The highly improbable arrangements allowed for Adriana Perez…
    AFP

  • Hungary PM Orban: U.S. uses corruption charges to gain influence

    BUDAPEST (Reuters) - The United States is using corruption allegations against some Hungarian public officials as a "cover story" to boost its influence in central Europe amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Tuesday. Orban's comments come amid a wider souring of…
    Reuters

  • Outraging Russia, Ukraine takes big step toward NATO

    Ukraine took a historic step toward NATO on Tuesday in a parliamentary vote that stoked Russia's anger ahead of talks on ending the ex-Soviet state's separatist war. Lawmakers in the government-controlled chamber overwhelmingly adopted a bill dropping Ukraine's non-aligned status -- a…
    AFP
  • View

    It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

    The streets of New York City are filled with shoppers and visitors from distant places who were here to grab a slice of the Christmas Big Apple and the holiday spirit. (Yahoo News) Photography by Gordon Donovan Find more news-related pictures on our photo galleries page and follow us on Tumblr.
    Yahoo News

  • IS captures Jordanian pilot after warplane crashes in Syria

    AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Islamic State group militants on Wednesday captured a Jordanian pilot after his warplane crashed in Syria while conducting airstrikes, and a Jordanian official said it was believed to have been shot down by the extremists. If so, it would be the first downing of an aircraft…
    Associated Press
    30 mins ago

  • Israel strikes Gaza after Palestinian sniper fire

    JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel deployed tank fire and an airstrike on targets in Gaza after its troops came under attack by Palestinian snipers as they were on patrol on the Israeli side of the border, the military said Wednesday.
    Associated Press

  • Why American Jews Eat Chinese Food on Christmas

    If there’s a single identifiable moment when Jewish Christmas—the annual American tradition where Jews overindulge on Chinese food on December 25—transitioned from kitsch into codified custom, it was during Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s 2010 confirmation hearing. During an otherwise tense…
    The Atlantic

  • Police officer kills armed black man near Ferguson, Missouri

    By Ian Simpson and Eric M. Johnson (Reuters) - A white policeman shot dead a black man brandishing a pistol at a suburban St. Louis gasoline station overnight, igniting violence reminiscent of riots over the police killing of an unarmed black teenager in nearby Ferguson, police said on Wednesday.…
    Reuters55 mins ago