“The [new constitution’s] preamble says a lot about collegiality and subsidiarity,” one long-serving curial official told CNA, “but this is just the total centralization of power in the office of the Secretary of State.”
The most dramatic reform proposed in the current draft of Praedicate Evangelium is the effective ending of any curial department’s ability to exercise papal governing authority on a stably delegated basis.
The draft text lays down that a curial department “cannot issue laws or general decrees having the force of law, nor can it deviate from the prescriptions of the universal law” except on a case-by-case basis “approved specifically by the Supreme Pontiff.” It further provides that any “important, rare, and extraordinary affairs” cannot be treated by the prefect of the dicastery unless and until he has cleared the matter with the pope and received his approval.
Legally, this means that the pope must personally approve every authoritative decision to emerge from a curial department – an historic recentralization of Roman power into the person of the pope.
Ending the authority of the Roman Curia by recentralizing it in the Pope? How likely is it for Pope Francis to divest himself or repudiate that authority, with respect to the patriarchate? (There should be no authority whatsoever for the Roman Curia with respect to the Church Universal.)
NCReg: Analysis: New Vatican Constitution to Centralize Power in State Secretariat by Ed Condon/CNA
The most dramatic reform proposed in the current draft of Praedicate Evangelium is the effective ending of any curial department’s ability to exercise papal governing authority on a stably delegated basis.
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