Pope's meeting with Council of Cardinals underway

Fr Lombardi SJ

Pope Francis and the eight members of the Council of Cardinals began their third meeting on Monday. The Council is devoting its discussions mainly to financial and administrative affairs. The meetings will be followed by an extraordinary consistory of all the world’s cardinals on Thursday and Friday, February 20 and 21, following by the elevation of 16 new cardinals at a consistory on Saturday, 22 February.

Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, told reporters that Monday morning’s meeting of the Council of Cardinals had heard a report from the special papal commission created in July to study the economic and administrative structures of the Holy See. The chairman of that commission, Josef Zahra, presented a report to the cardinals.

No decisions were made during that session, Fr Lombardi said. However the cardinals were due to continue discussing the commission’s report in the afternoon session. Archbishop Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State, attended the Monday morning meeting and will continue to sit with the Council of Cardinals, but Fr Lombardi indicated that Archbishop Parolin (who will become a cardinal on Saturday) had not been added as a member of the Council of Cardinals, the group that Pope Francis created to help him with revisions of the Roman Curia.

Today, (Tuesday) the Council of Cardinals turned their attention to the Vatican bank. The morning was spent hearing the representatives of the Pontifical Commission for Reference on the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), instituted by Pope Francis on 24 June 2013. Its task is to gather information on the functioning of the Institute and to report the results to the Pontiff.

The session was attended by Cardinal Raffaele Farina, president; Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, member; Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta Ochoa de Chinchetru, coordinator; and Msgr. Peter Bryan Wells, secretary. Professor Mary Ann Glendon was not present as she does not reside in Rome.

The Commission presented the work carried out during these months, which was received with great interest by the cardinals, and provided information on the current situation of the Institute and the problems that it must face. Suggestions were offered for future changes, although no decisions were made following the hearing. One of the key points was the mission of the IOR in relation to the action of the Church in the world and not only from the perspective of economic performance.

Fr Lombardi commented that it is important to bear in mind, considering the work of the two Commissions, that their aims are different but that they both fit into the contextual reality of the Holy See; for this reason the Holy Father wishes to obtain an overall view with regard to the reorganisation of its governance and structures. The meeting was continuing in the afternoon.

On Wednesday the group will meet with the cardinals who oversee the preparation of budget statements for the Vatican. Pope Francis is expected to attend most of these sessions, leaving for his regular weekly public audience at midday on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the world’s cardinals will gather in the Vatican’s Synod Hall for two days of free discussions. The only talks officially scheduled for the meeting, Father Lombardi said, are a greeting by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the dean of the College of Cardinals; and a talk by Cardinal Walter Kasper. The remainder of the two-day meeting has been left free for open discussion.

Source: VIS