Will the Francis Revolution Last?

A reader wrote in in regard to the previous posting:

Do you have an idea of what percent of the cardinals and bishops support Francis?

Not everyone 

gets the style.

The simple answer is “No,” but this calls for a response that is far more complicated than can appear in a reply posting.  This is a classic example of trying to read the data and write the history as it is unfolding.  As for those who support or don’t support the direction Pope Francis is moving in, it is somewhat easier to get a read on the Cardinals than on the bishops as the Cardinals are fewer in number and far less able to conceal their opinions but even in the case of the Cardinals, there is a “silent majority” that is very difficult to second guess to what extent they support Pope Francis’ agenda for reform. 

Let’s look first as what a Conclave might look should Francis’ papacy come to an end in the next six months. (God Forbid, I might add.)  There are 120 Cardinals eligible to vote in the next conclave.  As of the most recent consistory with its newest class of Cardinals we have 30 potential electors who were appointed by Pope John Paul II.  We have 59 electors appointed by Pope Benedict XVI.  And we have 31 electors who were appointed by Pope Francis.  We can surmise that the Cardinals, to some extent, reflect the thought of the Pope who appointed them.  But again we have to be careful.  One of Francis’ strongest critics regarding his desire to find a “pastoral solution” to the problem of the divorced and remarried receiving the sacraments is Gerhard Müller, Prefect of the Congregation of the Faith.  But Müller is a Francis appointee.  Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, on the other hand, is perhaps Francis’ most trusted right-hand man and is a John Paul appointee. 

What the numbers, arranged by the Pope who appointed the Cardinals, show is just how fast the complexion of the College can change.  With only two “classes” of his nominees, Francis already has appointed more members of the College than John Paul.  Probably with two more classes, three at the most, his nominees will have a simple majority in the College.  This will presumably make a return to the pre-Francis days far more difficult. 

But all is not smooth sailing.  Last year before the Synod, five Cardinals wrote a book, Remaining In The Truth of Christ, in order to stall Francis’ agenda.   This year eleven Cardinals teamed to write: Eleven Cardinals Speak on Marriage and the Family: Essays From A Pastoral Viewpoint.  One of the authors of the second book, Cardinal Basileos Cleemis of India, is only 56 years old.  He will be voting in conclaves for 24 more years.  Another, Cardinal William Jacobus Eijk, has 18 more years.  This means that they will probably play a role not only in choosing Francis’s successor, but his successor’s successor—and perhaps even a third and fourth successor.  Cleemis is a Benedict appointee as is Eijk. 

There is no doubt that whatever opinions you hold the next Conclave is going to be a “Battle for the Soul of the Church.”  The most articulate of Francis’ supporters, Walter Kasper, is too old to vote or even to be in the Conclave.  The Francis faction will probably be led by Cardinals Maradiaga, Marx, Tagle and Schönborn.  The anti Francis, or perhaps better the “reverse direction” party will be led by Raymond Burke (who can participate in conclaves until 2028), aided by Malcolm Ranjith of Sri Lanka.  There are a number of Cardinals, including Müller, who are opposed to Francis’ agenda on finding ways to allow people in irregular unions a deeper participation in the Church’s sacramental life, but who are on board with the wider Francis’ agenda.  While the “reverse direction” faction may have only a few spokespersons within the Sacred College, I suspect that there is enough of a “silent majority” to have an impact on the election and the direction of the Church.  While I doubt there will be an attempt to go back to the Church Triumphant model of the last papacy, I think there are enough doctrinal hard-liners in the Sacred College to want very clear guidelines on the limits of pastoral outreach to the LGBT community and to the divorced and remarried.  I think there will be stronger support for tighter liturgical discipline or at least for those who want the optional use of the pre-conciliar rites.   Francis has thrown a few bones to the liturgical conservatives but he is clearly not interested in any return to the pre-Conciliar rites.  Nor do I think is he interested in advancing further reforms in the Liturgy despite his own pastoral style.  I suspect his successor will be a man who in naming bishops divides the power a bit more evenly than Francis has.  On the other hand, each Pope of recent years has “stacked” the College to some extent with men who think like himself. 

This brings us from the Cardinals down to the bishops.  Francis is clearly appointing men who comprehend his agenda of a more simple Church.  The Chicago appointment (Archbishop Cupich) is particularly telling.  It will be even more telling the next time red hats get passed around to see among the Americans who gets one and who doesn’t.  Many of the American bishops have expressed—usually off the record except for Bishop Tobin of Providence—a dismay at the change in style and tone set by Francis.  The American hierarchy are particularly conservative, however.  On the other hand, American Cardinal-Archbishops Dolan, O’Malley, Wuerl, DiNardo are pretty much following Francis’ lead.  O’Malley is particularly interesting as he is one of Francis’ most trusted advisor—and rightly so, a man of exceptional talent—yet he pretty much stands above the fray whereas Dolan is an Irish street-fighter and gets down and gets dirty.  Wuerl too doesn’t mind skating out onto thin ice in following Francis’ lead.  We need to see more new bishops to get a good read on Francis and what he is doing with the American hierarchy.  I will be surprised to see Lori of Baltimore get his coveted red hat in this papacy but Chaput—despite his rigid conservativism—might as a reward for the upcoming World Meeting of Families.  It will be interesting and, if he doesn’t get the hat, very telling.  There are some key dioceses that need to be filled and it will also tell us a lot whom Francis chooses.  I am particularly interested in Arlington Virginia whose bishop turns 75 this month and whose diocese has long proved to be somewhat unmanageable with obdurate clergy who live in a time warp, convinced that it is 1955. 

I have painted this with a pretty broad brush—there is a lot one could write or say on it and a lot of subtlety I have glided over.  Let’s say in summary that Francis is building a College of Cardinals that wear his colors; but it takes longer to get that same impact on the world’s bishops.  Let’s hope the man has the time to do it.  

The Papal Posse: White Hats, Black Hats, Red Hats continued

Commission member,

Cardinal Sean O'Malley

Well in the past two postings we have looked at the eight Cardinals who make up the papally appointed commission to see what can be done to reform the administrative branch of the Church, the Roman Curia.  So  now, what is there to think of this reform commission?  Rather than look at how the different personalities fit together, I think we first need to frame the analysis correctly.  What most people have picked up on is that given the troubles at the Vatican Bank, the dossiers stolen by the butler and given to journalists, the “rumors” of a gay cabal in the Curial ranks, and other front-burner news items, the commission’s task is to go in and identify the problem people and suggest their replacement.   But in fact, it seems to more keen observers that the task is far more fundamental.  According to Robert Mickens, Vaticanista at the London Tablet, probably the finest English language Catholic paper, Francis was struck, in his Cardinal days, by a book by former San Francisco Archbishop John Quinn, The Reform of the Papacy, the costly call to Christian Unity (Crossroads, 1999).  Quinn who earlier in his life leaned somewhat toward the right, grew very disillusioned with the recentralization of the Church under John Paul II.  He took an early retirement—some say he was pushed into early retirement by an unfriendly papacy—and has spent most of his golden years with a subtle but weighty undermining of the current style of papal authority.  When John Paul II in his 1995 encyclical letter Ut Unum Sint (That All May Be One) asked leaders of all denominations to help him find new ways of exercising the Petrine Ministry, Quinn used the pope’s own words as wedge to force open the door to a historical critique of the Papacy.  In his lectures and writing, Quinn demonstrated how the papal monarchy of the last five centuries is a malformation (I would like to say cancerous malformation but that would be stronger than Quinn’s stated views) of the historic papacy.  Vatican II with its call to collegiality tried to change the way that authority is exercised in the Church, but the re-centralizing of authority in the Roman Curia under John Paul II and Benedict XVI undid that mission to restore proper governance to the bishops.  Now it seems that Francis wants the question investigated anew and what this commission is charged with it not simply looking for unworthy servants in the papal household, but restructuring the governmental apparatus of the Church. 
One person I spoke with said that supposedly Francis picked this particular group of Cardinals because they have each had run-ins with the Curia.  In fact, it would have been difficult for the Holy Father to pick any bishop for this commission who has not had runs with the Curia.  In my years in Rome I saw any number of prelates making their ad limina reports —Bishops, Auxiliary Bishops, Archbishops, Cardinal Archbishops—come out of the various meetings with dicastery officials apoplectic over the way some pezzo grosso monsignor with his ego inflated by his purple belly-band had treated him.  Bishops called in like miscreant schoolboys and berated by some pompous junior grade pansy in a red dress—this is no way to run a Church.  Hopefully this commission will design the sort of reforms that will empower bishops to be the shepherds of their flocks, empower the pope to be first among equals, and give the administrative departments of the Holy See the mission to be of service to the universal Church and not to get wrapped up in egocentric power plays that satisfy their petty egos but hinder the Church’s mission of evangelization.       

The Papal Posse: White Hats, Black Hats, Red Hats continued

Cardinal O'Malley leads today's inter-

faith service at Holy Cross Cathedral

Boston for victims of the Boston

Marathon Bombing. President Obama

is in the pulpit speaking his message

to the assembled congregtion. 

In our last post we looked at four of the eight Cardinals Pope Francis has appointed for the Reform of the Roman Curia.  In this post we will look at the next four. 
Cardinal Reinhard Marx is the 59 year old Archbishop of Munich und Freising in Germany—a post held previously by Josef Ratzinger, now Pope Emeritus.  Cardinal Marx is chair of the German  Bishops’ Conference Commission on Social Issues.  In the Curia he serves on the Congregation for Catholic Education, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and the Congregation for the Oriental Churches. He is also President of the Bishops Conferences of the European Union.  He holds a doctorate in theology from the Ruhr University Bochum.  German doctorates are probably the most academically sound degrees in the entire academic world, but Bochum is, by European (and even American) standards a new university without an established heritage.  Typical to German universities it houses distinct faculties both in Protestant and Catholic theologies and it hasn’t yet had the opportunity to earn the sort of reputation for excellence as Tubingen, Freiburg, Mainz, or Munich.  Cardinal Marx would be slightly right of center in his theology but socially progressive.  In 2008, playing on his name, he published a book:  Das Kapital: A Plea For Man which subjects free market capitalism to the critique of Catholic Social Ethics.   Capitalism is judged and found wanting.  However Marx goes no further in his critique than the papal magisterium which has found capitalism to be rooted in materialism, the same heresy from which springs Marxism.     
Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya is the 73 year old Archbishop of Kinshasa in the Congo.  He studied in Rome at the Urbaniana and the Pontifical Biblical Institute and in Jerusalem at the Pontifical Biblical Institute.  He is a disciple of the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the Jesuit biblical scholar and former archbishop of Milan who before his death last year opined that the Church “is 200 years behind the times.”  Monsengwo Pasinya is co-President of Pax Christi International.  He is a member of the Congregations for Catholic Education and Evangelization of Peoples, and the Pontifical Councils for Justice and Peace, Culture, and Social Communications.  In seeing the connection between the Social Order and Justice, Peace, and Christian Spirituality, he is a sort of Catholic Desmond Tutu.  He is probably the most progressive member of this commission. 
 Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, SDB, is the 70 year old Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras.  A member of the Salesians of Don Bosco he would normally be presumed to be a team-player of Cardinal Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone, a fellow Salesian who has used his powerful post to plant members of his religious order in key positions throughout the Church, a sort of Salesian mafia.  Nevertheless, Rodriguez Maradiaga took on (unsuccessfully, unfortunately) Bertone over the shameful treatment the Secretary of State handed out to the former Secretary of Caritas International, Lesley-Anne Knight (see entry for February 16, 2012).   Various sources connected to Caritas—of which Rodriguez Maradiaga is President—say he is his own man. 
Like many Salesians, Rodriguez Maradiaga is incredibly over-educated.  He holds Doctorates in Philosophy, Theology, and Moral Theology.  He also holds a diploma in clinical psychology and psychotherapy and is a classically trained pianist.  He speaks at least six languages.  Named an auxiliary bishop of Tegucigalpa in 1978 he became Archbishop of the same diocese in 1993 and was named a Cardinal in 2001.  In addition to his responsibilities with Caritas International, Rodriguez Maradiaga is a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education.    He is probably the sharpest member of this commission which is a distinction given the high quality of his colleagues.  He works very well with laity and doesn’t suffer from the misogyny that afflicts many of the prelates whom he is being sent to investigate.  No liberal in American terms, he is one of the more progressive members of this commission.
Sean Patrick O’Malley is the 68 year old Archbishop of Boston and the only U.S. member of this commission.  Born near Pittsburgh PA, O’Malley professed first vows as a Capuchin Franciscan at the age of 21.  Five years later he was ordained a priest.  Cardinal O’Malley holds a Masters in Religious Education and a Doctorate in Spanish and Portuguese Literature from the Catholic University in Washington DC.  He briefly taught at Catholic University before becoming Vicar for Hispanic Ministry in the Archdiocese of Washington.  He brought incredible organizational skills to this ministry, opening centers offering legal and medical assistance to immigrants and starting a Spanish language Catholic newspaper.  The late Cardinal James Hickey, when Archbishop of Washington, took O’Malley under his wing as a protégé.  O’Malley managed to work closely with Hickey while maintaining his integrity,  no small feat given Hickey’s unholy alliance with Cardinal Law.  Undoubtedly his Franciscan spirituality is what has kept O’Malley focused on the Church’s mission to the poor while other protégé’s of Hickey’s have drunk the careerism Kool-Aid.    In 1984 O’Malley was named coadjutor bishop of Saint Thomas in the American Virgin Islands and succeeded to the see the following year.  In 1992 he was moved to the Fall River MA diocese where his ability to speak Portuguese was a great pastoral asset.  While there he did a remarkable job of handling the sex-abuse crisis in his diocese.  In 2002 he was sent to the Diocese of Palm Beach to clean up the scandal there where the two previous bishops themselves had been named in charges of misconduct.   Given his reputation he was a natural choice for the Boston Archdiocese where the arrogance of Cardinal Law, then Archbishop, in refusing to respond responsibly to charges against numbers of his clergy led to a total loss of credibility in the Church.  While O’Malley did heroic work in addressing the cleanup of the sex-abuse crisis, the need to close numbers of schools and parishes because of financial difficulties and personnel shortages has made O’Malley less than popular among many Catholics.  Conservatives have been further outraged by the Cardinal’s presiding over the funeral of the late Senator Ted Kennedy and his welcome to President Obama to the Cathedral for the Kennedy Funeral and then for the Interfaith Service marking the tragedy of the Boston Marathon Bombing.  O’Malley is somewhat right of center—you don’t get to be a Cardinal ordinarily if you are too left wing—but his personal integrity and apparent spiritual depth raises him above the ideological divide to be one of the most admired prelates in America.  He also is a possible key ally in giving the sisters of LCWR a fair hearing in the halls of a reformed Curia.  
Next time: how this all ties together for the job at hand.