One can hope that this will result in actual reform, but alas, I am not encouraged by Cardinal O'Malley's appointment. Recall Cardinal O'Malley presiding at the near canonization of Teddy Kennedy, a big time scandal! Isn't that part of the problem, after all? Money gets the best seat at the table. ("Oh, Money, thank you for taking the best seat. Poverty, humility, orthodoxy...get out of the low seats. We don't want you even in the room!) For a look at how the media sees these cardinals go here.
Let us pray for the committee and the pope that true reform may come to the curia! Bureaucracies are so set in stone, it will be like trying to dig a basement in Austin where it's solid rock. Get out the dynamite!
This is not a good lineup. You have already mentioned O’Malley. Most of others are no better, if not worse. Big justice and peace group. Pasinya—the Congolese Cardinal—was a disciple of the Jesuit Cardinal Martini whose pushed modernist methods of biblical interpretation and claimed that the Church is “200 years behind the times.” Ossa from Chile and Bertello are Justice and Peaceniks. Marx, playing on his name, in 2008 authored a book Das Kapital, attacking free market capitalism. Maradiaga is president of Caritas International (think CRS and Catholic Charities International). Gracias of Mumbai is a liturgical wreckovator—big on inculturalizaiton. Only Pell has credibility with the conservatives. This shows a definite bias towards undoing the accomplishments of the last two papacies. Moreover, word on Roman strada is that with the shuffle of the Curia the crackdown on LCWR is a dead letter. The new guy at the Congregation for Religious—former head of the ultra-liberal Franciscans—along with O’Malley and several other religious order bishops are determined to derail the project. With Cardinal Levada gone and the new administration in CDF, the word is that the wind is out of the sails. Not good. All the gains of the past twenty years are being washed away. We must pray and stand faithful.
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