This week commenced with a controversy between the Church in the US and the Vatican. On Monday the US bishops on the first day of their annual conference in Baltimore were informed by their president, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, that they should shelve their proposals about child abuse. That was the order communicated by the Vatican.

Conservatives and liberals rebelled. Carl E. Olson the editor of the conservative The Catholic World Report titled his editorial (the first since July) ‘The Pope fiddles, the bishops fumble, and the laity fume’. David Clohessy’s salvo was fired from the liberal-leaning National Catholic Reporter. The bishops should ignore the Vatican, he wrote.

A day later the Pope showed that bulldozing more than fiddling was on his mind. On Tuesday it was announced that Archbishop Charles Scicluna had just been appointed Adjunct Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The penny dropped and the international Catholic media reacted with enthusiasm. Christopher Lamb, writing for The Tablet, immediately put both things together. The Pope wants a “one-Church” strategy against abuse. “Rather than dragging his feet, the Pope’s naming of Archbishop Scicluna… shows his seriousness in getting to grips with the abuse scandal worldwide.” 

Rocco Palmo, the editor of the Catholic website Whispers in the Loggia, said that Scicluna has the “honourable” name of the ‘Most Dangerous Man in the Vatican’. Let abusers beware! The National Catholic Reporter, published in the US, described Scicluna as “arguably the Catholic Church’s most respected abuse investigator”. The authoritative Jesuit magazine America wrote that Scicluna “enjoys enormous credibility among both survivors and bishops worldwide for his work in this field”. In a recent commentary the editor of Crux, John L Allen, described Scicluna as “smart, informed, multilingual, and the real deal as a ‘reformer’”. He added that Scicluna could be one of the persons considered for the papacy.

All well and good for Scicluna; but where does all this leave the Church in Malta? Do we now have a part-time Archbishop, so much so that the appointment should be seen as a pontifical insult to the Church in Malta?

I take it that the concern of those who raised questions is genuine, albeit at times it betrays an insular mentality and a vision of a pyramidal Church where decisions are taken only by the man on top.

The Pope’s decision to appoint Scicluna could be based on his belief that running a diocese of 400,000 and a mission at the Vatican are less onerous that heading the Church in Buenos Aires with a population close to 15 million. It could be that time will show that the part-time assignment in the Vatican develops into a full-time one; or that, for one reason or another, it would be difficult for Scicluna to run both pastoral ministries. If that time comes I am confident that the Pope will take the necessary decision. But we are far from reaching that point, if it is ever reached.

Scicluna could be one of the persons considered for the papacy

What appears to be a problem for some should be turned into an opportunity. The Vatican appointment of the Archbishop, as well as the recent resignation from one of the highest positions in the archdiocese, should provide the Archbishop with the chance to radically change the top team.

I have no doubt that if the Archbishop is aided by the Auxiliary Bishop together with a team of three Episcopal Vicars, the task at hand will be possible and not even arduous.

Their work should concentrate on three areas inspired by the theological virtues. Faith: the catechetical/evangelisation dimension; education and parishes as communities of faith. Charity: all initiatives helping the vulnerable particularly the new poor.

Hope: the liturgy through which we celebrate the Kingdom to come, communication work that passes on this hope to others and pastoral operators that witness this hope. The financial/administrative arm will be at the service of all these pastoral initiatives.

The Episcopal Vicars must be pastorally minded, established themselves as doers and have full powers of delegation. I have no doubt that there are in the Church in Malta more than enough people (preferably under the age of 60) to ably compose the episcopal cabinet.

I purposely refer to ‘people’ not to ‘priests’. The team should represent the reality of an-outgoing, dynamic People of God made up of diocesan priests, male and female religious and male and female lay people. I hope for a religious and/or a lay person among the three Episcopal Vicars as well as more of the same in the rest of the team.

Under the guidance of the Archbishop this team should be able to instil a breath of fresh air in the Church; the fresh air that Francis is trying to fill the Church’s ailing lungs with. The appointment of the Archbishop is not a problem but an opportunity for the universal church to assertively fight sexual abuse of minors and for the Church in Malta to reorganise itself.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece