Friday, December 22, 2017

Pope:Reforms Needed for Cath.Church to Grow; Rips Cath.Traitors for Resisting Church Change

Pope Francis issued a stinging new critique of the Vatican's top administration yesterday, saying "traitors" stood in the way of his reforms and made any changes as hard as "cleaning Egypt's Sphinx with a toothbrush," the Reuters website reports today (December 22, 2017).

Francis used his annual Christmas greetings to the Roman Catholic Church's central bureaucracy, or Curia, to lecture the assembled cardinals, bishops, and other department heads on the need for change.

Since his election as the first Latin American pope in 2013, Francis has been trying to reform the Italian-dominated Curia to bring the Church's hierarchy closer to its members, to enact financial reforms, and guide it out of scandals that marked the pontificate of his predecessor, former Pope Benedict.

But he has encountered resistance from a half-dozen cardinals and many Catholic traditionalists, who believe his reforms and his failure to adhere to Catholic doctrine -- for example, allowing divorced Catholics who have remarried to receive Communion -- can be viewed as heresy.

No comments:

Post a Comment