How Pope Francis can reform the Vatican Curia

[longknife]

by Thomas Reese | Mar. 25, 2013

Commentary
As the cardinals pack their bags and catch their planes home, Pope Francis is left with the unfinished work of reforming the Vatican Curia, something practically all of the cardinals said they wanted. But it is not clear what they mean by "reform." "Reform" is, after all, in the eye of the beholder.

I would distinguish between two types of reform: better management and comprehensive reform.

Much of the scandals surrounding the Curia recently are simple management problems that can be dealt with following "best practices" of business and government.

A very interesting piece @ How Pope Francis can reform the Vatican Curia | National Catholic Reporter

and, it's interesting to see just how big and complicated this body is @ Roman Curia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[waltky]

What a bunch of hypocrites...

The Vatican plays landlord to Europe’s biggest gay bathhouse
Tuesday, Mar 12, 2013 - The Catholic Church paid $30 million to acquire a building that houses a senior cardinal -- and a huge gay sauna

Happy Conclave Day, everyone. While you are discreetly scanning TMZ on your office computer or contemplating the Chipotle you will eat for lunch, 115 cardinals have gathered at the Vatican to select God’s new representative on earth. But there is something more than just choosing a spiritual leader for the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics weighing on the cardinals today: Gay bathhouses. News broke on Tuesday that the Holy See had purchased a $30 million dollar share of Rome real estate that includes Europe’s largest gay sauna, making them its official landlord.

As reported by The Independent:

The senior Vatican figure sweating the most due to the unlikely proximity of the gay Europa Multiclub is probably Cardinal Ivan Dias, the head of the Congregation for Evangelisation of Peoples, who is due to participate in tomorrow’s election at the Sistine Chapel. This 76-year-old “prince of the church” enjoys a 12-room apartment on the first-floor of the imposing palazzo, at 2 Via Carducci, just yards from the ground floor entrance to the steamy flesh pot. There are 18 other Vatican apartments in the block, many of which house priests…. Cardinal Dias, who is seen as a social conservative even by the current standards of the church hierarchy, is no doubt horrified to learn of the activities taking place a floor below.

The Europe Multi Club appears game to engage with their neighbors at the Holy See, or at least content to mess with them. The club hosts a weekly “bear night,” featuring “Bruno, a hairy, overweight pastor of souls” who, dressed in Catholic vestments (naturally), is “free to the music of his clergyman, remaining in a thong, because he wants to expose body and soul,” according to The Independent. Bear night also features a buffet, because exposing one’s body and soul works up an appetite. This isn’t the Church’s only financial holding in the sins of the flesh, either. As reported by The New Civil Rights Movement, they also own a $2.3 billion German publisher that sells titles like “Fuckable” and ”Lawyer’s Whore.”

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As cardinals gather to elect Pope, Catholic officials break into a sweat over news that priests share €23m building with huge gay sauna
Monday 11 March 2013 - A day ahead of the papal conclave, faces at the scandal-struck Vatican were even redder than usual after it emerged that the Holy See had purchased a €23 million (£21 million) share of a Rome apartment block that houses Europe’s biggest gay sauna.

The senior Vatican figure sweating the most due to the unlikely proximity of the gay Europa Multiclub is probably Cardinal Ivan Dias, the head of the Congregation for Evangelisation of Peoples, who is due to participate in tomorrow’s election at the Sistine Chapel. This 76-year-old “prince of the church” enjoys a 12-room apartment on the first-floor of the imposing palazzo, at 2 Via Carducci, just yards from the ground floor entrance to the steamy flesh pot. There are 18 other Vatican apartments in the block, many of which house priests.

The Holy See is still reeling from allegations that the previous pontiff, Benedict XVI, had quit in reaction to the presence of a gay cabal in the curia. And with disgraced Scottish cardinal Keith O’Brien lending new weight to charges of hypocrisy against the Church’s stance on homosexuality, La Repubblica newspaper noted that the presence of “Italy’s best known gay sauna in the premises is an embarrassment”. Cardinal Dias, who is seen as a social conservative even by the current standards of the church hierarchy, is no doubt horrified to learn of the activities taking place a floor below.

It is not known, however, if the former archbishop of Bombay has popped downstairs to give spitiual guidances to the clients of the Europa Multiclub, given his belief that gays and lesbians can be cured of their “unnatural tendencies” through the “sacrement of penance”. The sauna’s website promotes one of its special “bear nights”, with a video in which a rotund, hairy man strips down before changing into a priest’s outfit. It says Bruno, “a hairy, overweight pastor of souls, is free to the music of his clergyman, remaining in a thong, because he wants to expose body and soul”.

There was further embarrassment for the Holy See when the press observed that thanks to generous tax breaks it received from the last Berlusconi government, the church will have avoided hefty payments to the Italian state. The properties are recognised as part of the Holy City. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Pope Emeritus Benedict’s widely disliked right-hand man, who held the Vatican’s purse strings during the last pontificate, was said to have been the brains behind the purchase of 2 Via Carduccio in 2008.

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