When
he returned to the Sistine Chapel from the Room of Tears and received the homage
of the cardinal electors, the newly elected Pope Francis then received the
homage of the four prelates summoned after the canonical election had been
accepted: the Secretary of the Conclave, the Master of the Papal Liturgical
Ceremonies and the two Assistant Masters of Ceremonies. As the Secretary,
Archbishop Lorenzzo Baldisseri, knelt Pope Francis placed on his head the
scarlet cardinal’s zucchetto of which, naturally, he had no further use. Thus
he indicated his intention, according to an ancient tradition not always
followed in modern times, to reward the Secretary with the Sacred Roman Purple
at the first opportunity. (As far as I can determine the last Pope to do this
was Good Pope John in 1958. The recipient of papal benefaction was Mgr Alberto
di Jorio who had been Secretary of the Sacred College of Cardinals since 1947.)
It
must be remembered, of course, that Mgr Baldisseri was not a stranger to His
Holiness. His Excellency was Nuncio in Haiti and Paraguay 1992-99 and in Brazil
2002-12 and they would have often met at CELAM (Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano, the Latin American Episcopal
Council). (In between times he had been Nuncio to India and Nepal.)
Moreover,
Mgr Baldisseri was a classmate and friend at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical
Academy (Class of ’71) of one of the few men in the Roman Curia whom the Pope
knew extremely well, Leonardo Cardinal Sandri, Prefect of the Congregation for
the Oriental Churches (the 22 Eastern Rite Churches in full communion with
Rome). Cardinal Sandri, like Pope Francis, is the son of Italian immigrants to
Argentina; and, he is a priest of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires.
On
the day our own Mgr Cushley was being honoured with episcopal ordination and
installation as Archbishop and Metropolitan of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh at
St Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh, September 21, back in Rome Pope Francis was
making a few announcements involving some of his former colleagues in the
Secretariat of State.
Manuel
Cardinal Monteiro de Castro (Portugal), a former Nuncio, resigned as Major
Penitentiary a mere 6 months after his 75th birthday. Moreover, he had only
been in office for about a year and a half. But this allowed the Pope to
transfer Mauro Cardinal Piacenza out of the Congregation for the Clergy to the
Apostolic Penitentiary and install Archbishop Beniamino Stella as Prefect. Mgr
Stella had been President of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy (where
Cardinal Monteiro de Castro had been a classmate of our very own Mgr Basil
Loftus, Academia Class of 1965).
Archbishop
Nikola Eterovic was removed from his post as Secretary General of the Synod of
Bishops. Naturally, His Excellency was given an important assignment, Apostolic
Nuncio to Germany. Aged 62 years, His Excellency will in all likelihood be made
cardinal when in due course this present mission is concluded since, now
reunited, Germany is again one of the most important delegations. (And all
three predecessors of Archbishop Eterovic as General Secretary were created cardinal.)
But
why remove him? His Excellency certainly had done nothing wrong, either
personally or professionally. Pope Francis had early decided that the Synod of
Bishops was to be central to his Pontificate. After due deliberation, he has
further decided that in consequence it has to be headed by a cardinal, or by a
prelate who can be created cardinal at the first opportunity. Elevation in
Archbishop Eterovic’s case would have been premature at this time. Not
unmerited, simply premature.
And
so Pope Francis decided that the man for the job was the man he honoured mere
moments after his election: Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri, aged 73 years.
“Pope
Leaves Vatican” ceased to be front page headline news after Pope Paul VI left
the Vatican and Rome for the Holy Land on January 4, 1964 (he would leave it on
another ten occasions, eight of them to venture furth of Italy). If anyone
doubted the importance Pope Francis attaches to the work of the Synod, then
what happened on Monday, October 7, was instructive. Pope Francis again astounded
the Vaticanisti when he left the Vatican and made his way the short distance
along Via della Conciliazione — the magnificent street created by Mussolini
which leads directly onto St Peter’s Square from Castel Sant’Angelo — and headed
to the Palazzo del Bramante for a meeting in the office of the secretariat of
the Synod of Bishops.
He
went there to discuss both changes needed within the secretariat and the agenda
for the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops called for October 5-18 next year on the
theme “The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of the
Evangelization.” This was a case of Mohamet come to the mountain not because it
would not come to him, but because he did not presume that it ought. (See
Francis Bacon “Essays” published in 1625, Chapter 12.)
It
is no surprise that comment on the Extraordinary Synod has focused on the vexed
question of the pastoral care of the divorced and remarried, and not least
their being denied Holy Communion, but another most important aspect of all
this has been ignored, or, and this is more likely, missed. Pope Francis, like his three immediate predecessors —
ignoring Pope John Paul I as he died before anything concrete could be deduced
of his intentions in the matter — sees reconciliation with the separated
brethren of the Orthodox East as the most important, and achievable, goal of
ecumenical activity.
On
Saturday, September 18, 2008, at early Vespers in the Sistine Chapel to
celebrate the participation of Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of
Constantinople, at the XII Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops,
His All Holiness said at the beginning of his remarks: “It is well known that
the Orthodox Church attaches to the Synodical system fundamental ecclesiological
importance. Together with primacy, synodality constitutes the backbone of the
Church’s government and organisation.
“As
our (the Pope and his) Joint International Commission on the Theological
Dialogue between our Churches expressed it in the Ravenna document, this
interdependence between synodality and primacy runs through all the levels of
the Church’s life: local, regional and universal. Therefore, in having today
the privilege to address Your Synod our hopes are raised that the day will come
when our two Churches will fully converge on the role of primacy and synodality
in the Church’s life, to which our common Theological Commission is devoting
its study at the present time.”
Pope
John Paul II’s dream of the Church breathing with both lungs, East and West, has
just come a lot closer to being realised. Pope Francis, by appointing Archbishop
Lorenzo Baldisseri, whom he has already as the first act of his pontificate,
even before it had formerly begun — he hadn’t signed the document, so he could
still have changed his mind! — publicly indicated is to be made a cardinal at
his first consistory has sent a clear message: the Synod is of such importance
that its secretariat must become one of the dicasteries of the Roman Curia of
the first rank, requiring to be headed by a cardinal, or an archbishop who will
be made a cardinal at the first opportunity. Whether he formally erects it as a
tenth Congregation of the Roman Rota awaits to be seen.
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