The spate of appointments, resignations – generally forced ones- and transfers that have struck the local scene after the general election is keeping local pundits more than busy. I will not enter the fray except for one comment about the transfer of John Rizzo, former commissioner of the Police. All leaders of all political hues have declared solemnly and repeatedly that they have full trust and confidence in Commissioner Rizzo.

Consequently many are asking why should a man who is trusted by all be transferred from his post, more so, at a particularly sensitive period given that the Police Corps is investigating cases of high political significance. This question is pertinent and begs to be answered in a satisfactory way.

The above, however, is not the subject of my present musings. They are of a different nature though they also have to do with a probable exercise in musical chairs and transfers. The exercise I refer to is of a religious not a secular kind.

On April 13 – it was not a Friday - Pope Francis appointed a commission of eight cardinals to advise him on a reform of the Roman Curia. This is a clear indication that major changes are probably on the way. It just took a month for Pope Francis to set up this Commission which was mooted during the general congregations preceding the conclave.

Not all was well in the state of the Vatican and this probably led to the resignation of Pope Benedict who wished to give his successor a piazza pulita. All heads of the Vatican congregations resign when a pope dies or, in this singular case, resigns. Prompted by the revelations of Vatileaks many Church leaders clamoured for radical reforms in the Roman Curia. In one swoop Benedict made this possible.

The Pope’s predisposition for a reform of the Curia can be guessed from the fact that Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Secretary of State, is not a member of the Commission. Pope Francis nominated on the commission only one official currently serving at the Vatican. The only other member who has direct experience of the workings at the Roman Curia is Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa, who was secretary of the Congregation for Religious from 1990 to 1996.

The Commission will have its first formal meeting in October but commentators said that there are already some discussion going on.

The setting up of this commission is the latest in a series of innovative moves taken by a pope who very clearly believes that things ecclesial should be done differently.

As the Maltese saying goes: ‘il-gurnata minn filghodu tidher.’

When Pope Francis emerged from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica on the night of March 13 he was not wearing – quite naturally because he refused to wear it - the ermine-rimmed red velvet cape, or mozzetta. Instead he wore the simple white cassock of the papacy.

He did away with the red shoes – which some mistakenly said that were Prada shoes – that the popes had worm these last two hundred years. Pope Francis preferred to respect the tradition of the other one thousand eight hundred years of the papacy that the innovation that lasted just two hundred years.

These are small but very significant gestures particularly since in the last decade or so the neo-conservative movement inside the Catholic Church tried to revive the wearing of all stuff that in today’s world has a place only in a museum.

Of more significance was the Maundy Thursday celebration at the Casal del Marmo juvenile detention facility in Rome. Pope Francis got down on his knees and to wash the feet of 12 inmates, two of them women.

Horror of horrors the conservative lobby fainted in despair!

The decision of the Pope not to go to the so-called papal apartments was dubbed by some as another departure from tradition while ignoring the fact that this so called papal tradition is just one hundred years old!

The conservative commentator Marcelo Gonzalez reacted to the election of his fellow Argentinian with this phrase: “The Horror.”

The contrary seems to be the truth. Pope Francis will herald a new spring of hope for the Church.

 

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