Opinion
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May 27, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) — The prominent German monthly journal, Cicero, a secular-intellectual publication, has entitled its May issue “The Struggle for Rome” (“Der Kampf um Rom”) and has dedicated it to the papacy of Pope Francis. In it, Guiseppe Rusconi, the well-respected Swiss Rome-Correspondent and journalist for Inside the Vatican, reports on the internal criticisms of Pope Francis as they were privately and candidly disclosed to him from within the Roman Curia itself.

Rusconi's revelations caused an immediate stir in Rome, since he simultaneously posted the Italian version of his article on his own website, rossoporpora.org, where he summed up and specifically quoted forthright comments made by high-ranking clergymen from the Roman Curia who also openly revealed to him the atmosphere within the Vatican. They spoke with the explicit request that they should remain anonymous.

Rusconi starts his article with the stunning quote from one of his sources: “Francis has remained with his heart and mind the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. That would also be fine, if he were not, for two years now, the Bishop of Rome and therewith Pope of the Universal Church.”

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As Rusconi says, many Curial members are still indignant about Pope Francis' last Christmas address in 2014 to the Roman Curia:

The large stomach of the Vatican still has not yet digested the last address of Pope Francis to the Curia on December 22 of last year. […] The address still burns under the skin of many Curials. 'If someone would have had the courage to get off his chair and to leave the Sala Clementina while the Pope was presenting his list [of reproaches and accusations], then, I think, all – or nearly all – would have left: right-wing or left-wing, young or old,' comments which came from my first interlocutor with the bitterness of a man who feels wounded. And he earnestly requested once more: 'That my name will not be made public! Can I rely on that?'

Rusconi describes the atmosphere within the Curia, as follows: “The Curia finds itself in an uncomfortable, even insecure situation.” He describes the intensification of conflicts in Rome:

Today, with the distance of two years, some of those wearers of the purple color who were then joining in jubilation might regret to have given their own vote to the then-76-year-old Archbishop. A struggle for Rome has started, and it is not at all clear who stands where – also because Francis himself speaks in a contradictory way. But there is already taking place a wrestling [a grappling]. And from October 4 on when between 200 and 300 bishops will meet in Rome for the [2015] Synod in order to speak about family questions, it could come to even harder fights.

Pope Francis' expression of “Who am I to judge?” also finds much criticism:

With this renunciation to judge, this 'sentence which has been abused by many media, Pope Francis did damage to the Church,' stressed another interlocutor from the Vatican with whom I met for lunch in Trastevere. 'He has, without intending it, favored the advance of the homosexual lobby which he claims to fight.'

Concerning the question of the family, many members of the Curia do not understand Pope Francis' intentions. As one source says to Rusconi: “One simply does not understand what Pope Francis' aims are. After a very firm principled declaration, he follows up with words and gestures that cause insecurity and confusion among orthodox Catholics.” In the eyes of this man, Pope Francis is tempted “to want to win the hearts of those who are, according to the current teaching, living in an irregular situation [i.e., remarried couples].”

Rusconi discusses some of those Cardinals who push for a liberalizing agenda with respect to the Church's moral teaching, namely, Reinhard Cardinal Marx and Walter Cardinal Kasper, both of whom are now meeting with resistance and adverse criticism. For example, he says about Cardinal Marx himself:

The President of the German Bishops' Conference [Cardinal Marx] does not have an easy status and standing in Rome these days, since he has claimed for the German Church the right to go its own pastoral ways with respect to the problem of the remarried divorcees, and independently of any majority of the Synod. 'We are not a subsidiary of Rome,' Marx has declared. The Swiss Curial Cardinal, Kurt Koch, promptly felt reminded of the 'German Christians' who bowed down to the Nazis during the Third Reich. In the same way, the German Curial Cardinal, Paul Josef Cordes, also disapproved of the ideas of Marx. He declared in the newspaper Die Tagespost: 'As a social ethicist, Cardinal Marx might have some knowledge about the [commercial-financial] dependencies of subsidiaries toward their mother company. But, in the context of the Church, such comments should rather be left to the village pub.'

One of Rusconi's interlocutors criticizes Pope Francis for trying to fight material poverty while omitting to speak about the danger of spiritual poverty, and even the loss of Faith. He says:

But the Church is universal, and the greatest poverty is the spiritual poverty, as one sees it especially in the Occident, where the number of Catholics is continually dwindling. Unfortunately, the Pope has very little interest in Europe.

The same source, as presented by Rusconi, comments on the Synod of the Family:

I think, he [Pope Francis] wants to lead the forthcoming Synod on the Family in October onto a certain path so that the Synod Fathers feel urged to choose [putatively] merciful solutions – which would be, in my eyes, not be a true mercy – especially with regard to the question whether remarried people shall be admitted to Holy Communion.

The journalist Rusconi concludes his very important synopsis of some of the internal criticisms from within the Curia with these words: “The dispute in the fall, however, could turn out just the same: sour and sharp.”

Not a pretty picture; and not an edifying example or ethos, is it?