New "Foreign Minister" in the Vatican? --- Continuing Reassignments by the Pope

Vatican Foreign Minister Dominque Mamberti

(Vatican) Pope Francis is preparing for the renovation of the Vatican "foreign ministry". The former "foreign minister" of the Holy See, the French Curial Archbishop Dominique Mamberti  will probably  be dismissed. While the overall reform of the Roman Curia is still written in the stars, Pope Francis is making more heads of Benedict XVI's  Curia roll. A few days ago  the Curial Cardinal Prefect Cañizares, then the secretary of the Congregation for the Clergy, was hit. Another of his Prefects, Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, had to vacate his seat a year ago.

In mid-September,  the C8-Kardinalsrat , formed by Pope Francis as an advisory body for the reform of the Curia and the management of the world Church will meet. In the beginning of July  it's been the fifth meeting of a C9-Council, since  Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin  then was also added to the C8-Council. A formal act of the membership of the Cardinal Secretary of State in this body, has not yet taken place, as the Vatican expert Sandro Magister mentions.

It will be at the sixth meeting of this committee. The seventh meeting follows from 9-11 December and the eighth meeting on 9-11 February 2015.  The work of the Cardinal Council  still seems to be in the preliminary phase. "There are no designs for a new apostolic constitution," said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi at the end of the fifth meeting, "It takes time."

 "Little Ratzinger" Promoted to Valencia

Benedict XVI. and the "Little Ratzinger" Cardinal Antonio Cañizares

The "ruling bishop of Rome" (Sandro Magister)  already related soon after his election  that he did not intend to wait for the reform of the Curia to make personnel decisions.  It had been expected for months when on August 28th, the removal of the Spanish Cardinal Cañizares Llovera of the Roman Curia took place.  Cardinal Cañizares was   Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship under Benedict XVI. and became a supporter of the "reform of the liturgical reform". He had a close relationship to the Church understanding of the German Pope, which he shared with Cardinal Mauro Piacenza. Too close for  Pope Francis.  He  "promoted" the "little Ratzinger", as the Cardinal is known for his bodily stature, who is content but not necessarily aptly, called back to his home and named him Archbishop of Valencia, after all, "one of the most vibrant Dioceses of the Iberian Peninsula," says Sandro Magister.

What responsibilities will remain the Congregation for Divine Worship?

Officially, Francis Pope had the transfer not imposed, but only responded to the wishes of the Cardinal to want to accept "the smell of the sheep". Cardinal Cañizares that, if they did, "dear Madrid would have preferred Valencia, is a different story," said Master.

A successor to Prefect Cañizares  of the important Congregation of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has not yet been appointed. For Sandro Magister  it appears as "unlikely" that Pope Francis will seek a "break" with   Benedict XVI. in his choice of successor. Rather it would is much more to be what responsibilities the Pope leaves the Congregation,  transferring them to the Episcopal Conferences, such as responsibility for the review and revision of the liturgical books.

The Secretary of the Congregation for the Clergy is Also Promoted Back to Spain

Celso Morga Iruzubieta: Secretary of the Congregation for the Clergy is Coadjutor Archbishop in Spain

According to Spanish media reports, the return of another high prelate to Spain is imminent, who currently holds a leading position in the Roman Curia. It is Curial Archbishop Celso Morga Iruzubieta. The priest of Opus Dei has been since 2010 the Secretary of the Congregation for  Clergy . Now he is to be Coadjutor Archbishop in the Archdiocese of Merida Badajoz in Extremadura.

This completes the repluisti Pope Francis, the "repudiation" of one of the most important offices of the Roman Curia. The Congregation for the Clergy is concerned among other things with  disputes between priests and bishops, with the dispensing of the priestly duties (except the delicta graviora ), with the sale of church property over a certain value. By the will of Benedict XVI.  it was give charge of the seminaries. Above all, it is also about the image of priesthood and thus  the self-image of the priest. The successful prevention of the appointment of the saintly Curé of Ars Patron of Priests, which Benedict XVI. wanted to make, is still vividly remembered.

The removal of the Number Two of the Congregation follows that of the number one, Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, which Pope Francis had already carried out in September 2013. Both were by Pope Benedict XVI. been appointed. Cardinal Piacenza still comes from the Genoese school of Cardinal Giuseppe Siri. On him the diplomat Beniamino Stella followed. For the seminars appointed Francis one additional Assistant Secretary, the Sino-Mexican Curia Archbishop Jorge Carlos Patron Wong. In addition, over the past year such a strong exchange of employees in this Pontifical Council was held that Roman observers speak of an unprecedented precedent.

"Foreign Minister" Mamberti Before Dismissal

The new curial organization chart of Pope Francis stands at the edge of another reshuffle. Curial Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, head of the Section for Relations with States in the Secretariat of State and thus "foreign minister" of the Holy See is to be replaced. The reasons for the action are not known. It can at best be speculated about as a change of course in the relations with the states and international bodies.

"It will be interesting to see whether the Pope in this case will follow the unwritten law that the Vatican's 'foreign minister' is awarded  at the end of his service with the dignity of Cardinal," said Sandro Magister. The predecessors Mambertis were  given this honor,  from Giovanni Lajolo, Jean-Louis Tauran, Angelo Sodano, Achille Silvestrini, Agostino Casaroli to Antonio Samore, etc.

Vengeful Bergoglio

Jean-Louis Bruguès, archivist and Librarian of the Holy Catholic Church, but not Cardinal

Or is Pope Francis denying Mamberti  the cardinal's purple, as he is - in spite of unwritten law - the Archivist and Librarian of Holy Roman Church, rejected Curial Archbishop Jean-Louis Bruguès? The French Dominican Bruguès had, as Secretary of the Congregation for Education (2007-2012), skirmishes with the rector of the Catholic University of Buenos Aires, and was discharged  Victor Manuel Fernández. Fernández is considered a "foster son" of Jorge Mario Bergoglios,  and he was -  just as soon as Bergolio was elected pope - quite unusually, immediately promoted him to  Archbishop, while he avenged  himself on Father Bruguès for his criticism of Fernández.

Pope Francis justifies his appointments  in the Diplomatic Corps of the Vatican on renewal. For this reason, it seems very likely that the successor of Mambertis will come from the ranks of diplomats. It is likely he will also be  valued by Cardinal Secretary of State Parolin nuncio.

With the exception of the two French Archbishops Mamberti and Cardinal Tauran and  Poland's Wlodzimierz Czacki at the end of the 19th century,  all were the "foreign minister" of the Vatican in Italy. Just  as both the Cardinal Secretary of State and his substitute, the Sarde (Sardinian) Curial Archbishop Giovanni Angelo Becciu, come from Italy, it seems unlikely that the third high position in the State Secretariat is to be staffed by an Italian. "Unlikely, but not impossible," said Sandro Magister.

Text: Settimo Cielo / Giuseppe Nardi
image: Settimo Cielo / Wikicommons
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
Link to Katholisches....
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Cardinal Piacenza in Intensive Care -- Iron Defender of True Priesthood

(Vatican) Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, prefect of the Congregation for Clergy tipped yesterday during the Palm Sunday liturgy in St. Peter's Square from his chair and was immediately taken to the intensive care unit of the Gemelli Hospital. According to initial information, his health was "stable." His whereabouts remain under medical supervision in the Department was merely a "precautionary measure, in order to perform further checks.”

It was not bad luck that the Cardinal yesterday along with his chair tipped over. His health is obviously serious if it was a heart attack has not been confirmed. A papal master of ceremonies helped him yesterday immediately. But the same ambulance was called immediately and ordered the transport.

Cardinal Piacenza downed during papal Mass on chair

Cardinal Piacenza, 69 years old, comes from Liguria and is a student of Giuseppe Cardinal Siri. The head of the Congregation for Clergy is one of the most esteemed and influential Dicasteries of the Roman Curia.

Born on 15 September 1944 in Genoa, he joined the Archbishop's Seminary of the Ligurian capital in 1964. On the 21st of December 1969 he was ordained by the then Archbishop of Genoa, Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, as a priest. Till 1975 he worked in the parish ministry, he was until 1978 the archdiocesan seminary as chaplain. In 1976 he received his doctorate summa cum laude from the Pontifical Lateran University in canon law.

This then decided him upon his academic career. Until 1990, he taught dogmatic theology at Didascaleion, the Theological Institute for laity of the Archdiocese of Genoa. In the last five years, he was its rector, while he also taught at the Higher Institute of Religious Sciences in Liguria. From 1978 to 1990 he was also a professor of canon law at the Theological Faculty of Northern Italy.

A man a man whose reputation became speedily that of one who worked efficiently

Piacenza has the reputation of working extremely efficiently. In the archdiocese of Genoa he was soon responsible for a range of tasks, from media representatives to a judge of the ecclesiastical court. In 1986, he also taught religion at a Humanistic Gymnasium in the city and was chaplain of its convent.

For the Archbishop, he took care of the formation of the spiritual life and led several times led visitations of religious congregations, held all kinds of spiritual recollections and retreats for priests, seminarians, and religious congregations and wrote also several books on the necessity of a permanent spiritual formation of the clergy, or to issues of relations between Church and state.

In 1990 he was appointed to the Roman Curia, and was on duty at the Congregation for Clergy. In 1997 he became Head of Department and in 2000 its Undersecretary. On the 13th of October 2003, Pope John Paul II appointed him President of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church, and raised him to the rank of bishop. On the 15th of November he was received by the then Archbishop of Genoa and now Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa, and consecrate bishop in the cathedral.

On the 28th of August 2004, he was appointed President of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology. During the three-year term at the helm of the two commissions he proposed a number of new initiatives. For public attention, especially the performance of an opera composed by him, in two acts on the Beatitudes, which was ran mainly in eastern Central Europe and Eastern Europe.

John Paul II summoned him to Rome, he was above all a man of Benedict XVI.

He was called by John Paul II to Rome, but it was to Pope Benedict XVI. to whom Piacenza was particularly connected. The formed in the school of priests Cardinal Siri was never modernist tendencies. He clung to the traditional vision of the priesthood and defended Catholic orthodoxy. He was therefore the right man for Pope Benedict XVI. He had previously appointed the Archbishop of Sao Paulo, Claudio Cardinal Hummes, to the new Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy. One of those appointments that are in Rome considered to belong to the category of “promotions out of the way”.

The domesticated Liberation Theologian Hummes came from a diocese with a strong pastoral, but less than dogmatic zeal. Before Hummes boarded the plane, to take up his appointment as chief of the Dicastery for the Clergy, he told the press that celibacy was "not a dogma." Even before his plane landed in Rome, he had him sign a prescribed denial. He has screwed up his debut, so that there was almost no room for own his initiatives remaining. So that would also was safe, so in return on Pope Benedict XVI.’s sideCuria Bishop Piacenza rose to the Archbishop.

The Priest is a "witness of the Absolute”, and attacks against celibacy come from thinking alien to the Faith

In the year of the priest, which took place from 19 June 2009 to 11th in June 2010, was organized by the Congregation for the International event "Faithfulness of Christ, Faithfulness of Priests" who then bore the signature of the Secretary and not the Prefect. On 19 June 2009, the then Archbishop Piacenza Curia said in an interview with L'Osservatore Romano, the priest is a "witness of the Absolute." The attacks on priestly celibacy were for Monsignor Piacenza the product "of contexts and mentalities that are completely alien to the Faith, which often in time and form come from most hidden forces lead to a progressive weakening" and seeks one of the most central effective witnesses of Christian discipleship.

Cardinal Hummes was strong enough with the help of some curial positions and some Bishops' Conferences and papal initiatives to slow it or even prevent it. This includes the conclusion of the Year for Priests planned appointment of the Curé of Ars, St. John Mary Vianney, the patron saint of priests. The idea was to get a pre-Vatican II priest as a model, which went too far for a number of bishops, who  tolerated in some dioceses the almost endemic phenomenon of priests engaged in liturgical abuse, living in concubinage and preaching heresies.

Cardinal Hummes replaced by Piacenza, when trying to prevent Cure of Ars patron of priests

Less than two months after midway point before the completion of the Year for Priests, Pope Benedict XVI intimated quite unequivocally that Cardinal Hummes 75 that he expects his resignation on time because he had reached the age limit.

On the 7th of October 2010 Curia Archbishop Piacenza succeeded Hummes as Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy. Benedict XVI. created him in summary proceedings on 20 November 2010 a Cardinal. His titular church in Rome is San Paolo of the Three Fountains.

Last year, Cardinal Piacenza was suggested as a possible new Secretary of State, should replace Cardinal Bertone.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
 Image: Vatican Insider

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