Pope Francis promulgated this Saturday a new Constitution that reorganizes the Vatican's governing body, introducing more financial transparency and opening it to women and lay people, fulfilling a promise made before his election in 2013.
The new Constitution, which will enter into force on June 5, reforms parts of the Roman Curia (the Vatican government) and will replace the “Pastor bonus” promulgated in 1988 by John Paul II.
Among the main changes are the possibility for lay people and Catholic women to head departments of the Vatican, as well as the incorporation of the advisory commission on sexual abuse to the Curia.
The dicasteries (ministries) of the Curia, which operated with opaque financing and behind closed doors for decades, were initially reluctant to accept more centralized management, now enshrined in the new Magna Carta.
- Evangelization -
The document incorporates many reforms already implemented by the Argentine pope, but it also contains some new features, such as the desire to expand Catholicism beyond its 1.3 billion faithful.
The new 52-page Constitution “Praedicate Evangelium” creates a new “dicastery” for evangelization, which will be presided over by Francis himself.
By becoming a “chief evangelizer,” the pope brings about a “tectonic shift towards a more pastoral and missionary church,” David Gibson, director of the Center for Religion and Culture at Fordham University, told Twitter.
Along these lines, the pope assures that any baptized Christian is a missionary.
“We cannot fail to take this into account in the updating of the Curia, whose reform must ensure the participation of the laity and women, including in roles of government and responsibility,” he said.
“Pope Francis has been working on a new organizational structure for the Vatican for nine years. It's an important aspect of his legacy,” Joshua McElwee, of the National Catholic Reporter, said on Twitter.
- Protection of minors -
The text, which was published on the ninth anniversary of the Pontificate of Francis, also incorporates the Vatican Commission for the Protection of Minors - a papal advisory body - into the diastery that oversees canonical investigations into cases of sexual abuse of clergy.
According to Cardinal Sean O'Malley, who heads the Commission, it is a “significant step forward”, which will give institutional weight to the fight against a scourge that has ravaged the Church worldwide.
But Marie Collins, an Irish survivor of clerical abuses who was part of the commission before resigning in 2017 over the Church's management of the crisis, is a step backwards.
“The Commission has officially lost any semblance of independence,” he said on Twitter.
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