Last month during his annual Christmas greetings to the Vatican Curia, the body of cardinals, bishops and priests who run the central administration of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis listed 15 ailments of the group.
Just in case you missed the list, or failed to appreciate its significance, here’s a second look just before the Holy Father’s visit this Thursday. According to Church historian Alberto Melloni, “this is a speech without historic precedence. If the Pope uses this tone, it’s because he knows it is necessary.” Another historian, the Rev. Robert Whister, noted that “perhaps, he believes only a severe rebuke can help turn things around.” His audience was not amused.
1. Feeling immortal, immune or indispensable. “A Curia that doesn’t criticize itself, that doesn’t update itself, that doesn’t seek to improve itself, is a sick body.”
2. Working too hard. “Rest for those who have done their work is necessary, good, and should be taken seriously.”
3. Becoming spiritually and mentally hardened. “It’s dangerous to lose that human sensibility that lets you cry with those who are crying, and celebrate with those who
are joyful.”
4. Planning too much. “Preparing things well is necessary but don’t fall into the temptation of trying to close or
direct the freedom of the Holy Spirit which is bigger and more generous than any human plan.”
5. Working without coordination like an orchestra that produces noise. “When the foot tells the hand, I don’t need you or the hand tells the head, ‘I’m in charge’.”
6. Having spiritual Alzheimer’s. “We see it in the people who have forgotten their encounter with the Lord—in those who depend completely on their here and now, on their passions, whims, and manias, in those who build walls around themselves and become enslaved to the idols that they have built with their own hands.”
7. Being rivals or boastful. “When one’s appearance, the color of one’s vestments, or honorific titles become the primary objective of life.”
8. Suffering from existential schizophrenia. “It’s the sickness of those who live a double life, fruit of hypocrisy that is typical of mediocre and progressive spiritual emptiness that academic degrees cannot fill. It’s a sickness that often affects those who, abandoning pastoral service, limit themselves to bureaucratic work, losing contact with reality and concrete people.”
9. Committing the terrorism of gossip. “It’s the sickness of cowardly people who, not having the courage to speak directly, talk behind people’s backs.”
10. Glorifying one’s bosses. “It’s the sickness of those who court their superiors, hoping for their benevolence. They are victims of careerism and opportunism, they honor people who are not God.”
11. Being indifferent to others. “When out of jealousy or cunning, one finds joy in seeing another fall rather than helping him up and encouraging him.”
12. Having a funereal face. “In reality, theatrical severity and sterile pessimism are often symptoms of fear and insecurity. The apostle must be polite, serene, enthusiastic, and happy and transmit joy wherever he goes.”
13. Wanting more. “When the apostle tries to fill an existential emptiness in his heart by accumulating material goods, not because he needs them but because he feels more secure.”
14. Forming “closed circles” that seek to be stronger than the whole. “This sickness always starts with good intentions but as time goes by, it enslaves its members by becoming a cancer that threatens the harmony of the body and causes so much bad scandals especially to our younger brothers.”
15. Seeking worldly profit and showing off. “It’s the sickness of those who insatiably try to multiply their powers and to do so are capable of calumny, defamation, and discrediting others even in newspapers and magazines, naturally to show themselves as being more capable than others.”
Some of the Curia ailments enumerated by Pope Francis also apply to our own Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). But who would play the role of Pope Francis insofar as the CBCP is concerned?
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Have we gone overboard with this papal visit?
When Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio wa s chosen to head the Roman Catholic Church, he elected to share a bus with his colleagues instead of using a private limousine. He also chose a modest vehicle instead of a more comfortable SUV to move around the Vatican, in sharp contrast with the type of transport used by some religious leaders.
After reading about the preparations for the papal visit involving additional costs for business and the economy in terms of nonworking holidays and cancelled international as well as domestic airline schedules, I wonder what he would be thinking if he knew the administrative details covering the trip. For an individual known for humility and simple tastes, less disruptions would be the order of the day.
Let us not forget that the primary purpose of his visit is to show sympathy and extend compassion toward our people who suffered so much during the recent calamities in the south.