Anonymous Cardinal Writes about What Must Change after Francis
The text, entitled "Profile of the next Pope", published on LaNuovaBq.it, was shared on social media by Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen.
The pseudonym Demos was first used by the late Cardinal George Pell in the spring of 2022 to criticise abuses in Francis' pontificate. The key points.
Shortcomings of Francis
- An autocratic, vindictive style of government
- carelessness in matters of law and legality
- intolerance of dissent, even respectful dissent
- most seriously: a pattern of ambiguity in matters of faith and morals.
Francis leaves behind "a Church more divided than at any time in its recent history".
The next pontificate must be one of reconciliation, recovery and restoration of truths that have slowly been obscured or lost among many Christians.
Fundamental truth that need to be emphasised
(a) No one is saved except by and through Christ, as Christ himself made clear.
(b) God is merciful and just and is intimately involved in every human life, forgiving and holding us accountable. He is both Saviour and Judge.
(c) Man is God's creature. Man doesn't invent himself. He is a creature not only of emotions and appetites but also of intellect, free will and an eternal destiny.
(d) There are unchanging objective truths about the world and human nature that can be known through divine revelation and the exercise of reason.
(e) God's Word, recorded in the Holy Scriptures, is reliable and has permanent validity.
(f) Sin is real and its consequences are deadly.
(g) The Church of Christ has both the authority and the duty to "make disciples of all nations".
Conclusions
1. Real authority is damaged by authoritarianism. A pope cannot change the doctrine of the Church, and he must not arbitrarily invent or alter the discipline of the Church.
2. The Church is neither an autocracy nor a "democracy". We have no authority to reshape the teachings of Christ to suit the world. Moreover, the Catholic sensus fidelium is not a matter of opinion polls, or even the opinion of a baptised "majority".
3. Ambiguity is neither evangelical nor welcoming. On the contrary, it breeds doubt and feeds schismatic impulses. The Church is a communion not only of word and sacrament, but also of creed. Doctrinal questions are not burdens imposed by "doctors of the law".
From the beginning, the present pontificate has resisted the [alleged] evangelical force and intellectual clarity of its immediate predecessors.
4. The Church, in addition to Word, Sacrament and Creed, is also a community of law. Among the characteristics of the present pontificate are an excessive reliance on motu proprios as instruments of governance, and a general carelessness and aversion to canonical detail.
5. The Church, as John XXIII described her, is Mater et Magistra, the "mother and teacher" of humanity, not its dutiful follower.
6. Global travel served a shepherd like John Paul II well because of his unique personal gifts and the nature of the times. But times and circumstances have changed. The Church in Italy and throughout Europe - the historic home of the faith - is in crisis. The Vatican itself urgently needs a renewal of its morale, a cleansing of its institutions, procedures and personnel.
7. Many of the electors in the next conclave will not really know each other and may therefore be vulnerable to manipulation.
Picture: © Mazur/cbcew.org.uk, CC BY-NC-ND, #newsSlabkzsmlr
