On December 21, Pope Francis addressed his Curia in the Clementine Hall for the Christmas Greetings.
Regarding the much advertised "reform of the Curia" which he has failed to deliver so far, Francis attempted a self-justification: “Making reforms in Rome is like cleaning the Sphinx with a toothbrush”.
Then, he warned the Curia of an "unbalanced and debased mindset of plots and small cliques that in fact represent" a "cancer", despite the fact that Francis has increasingly presented himself as the pope of a small magic circle treating the rest as people under suspicion.
These people Francis insulted as "those who betray the trust put in them". He accused them of failing to understand their responsibility for "the reform" and even of being "corrupted by ambition or vainglory".
Francis continued with thinly veiled allusions, "When they are quietly sidelined [Cardinal Sarah], they wrongly declare themselves martyrs of the system [Cardinal Müller, Cardinal Burke], of a 'Pope kept in the …More