POPE Francis lashed at some Vatican officials for “hidden” and “malevolent” resistance, describing the latter as being inspired by “the devil, often dressed in lamb’s clothing.”
Speaking during his annual Christmas message at the Vatican’s Sala Clementina, he called for “purification” by prelates, adding he would not accept mere “plastic surgery to take away wrinkles” of the church.
“Dear brothers, it is not wrinkles that the church should fear, but stains,” he said in a tough address to officials of the Curia, or the Vatican’s governing body, whom he accused of blocking his reforms through “hidden resistance, born of fearful or hardened hearts.”
Tackling Vatican office politics, the Pope also criticized the trick of promoting enemies into positions where they were less of a threat as a cancer to the church.”
The speech marked the third time he had used his Christmas address to warn officials that he will not tolerate turf wars, careerism and backstabbing as he tries to streamline the Vatican’s sluggish bureaucracy.
The pope also urged the Curia to install more lay people, including women, to top jobs in the Curia like he did in appointing Barbara Jutte as the next head of the Vatican Museums, making her the first woman to take charge of the Catholic Church’s artistic treasures.
Jutte, 54, steps up from her current role as deputy director on January 1, taking over from Antonio Paolucci, 77, an art historian and former Italian culture minister.
Jutte, a native of Rome, has worked at the Vatican since 1996. She will be taking over one of the world’s greatest collections of artworks, contained in seven kilometers of galleries and including the celebrated Sistine Chapel.
In his latest broadside against resistance to change in the Catholic Church’s corridors of power, the 80-year-old pontiff warned that the reform process he launched in 2013 had to lead to more than a cosmetic “facelift” or plastic surgery to remove wrinkles.
In 2014 he listed the top 15 vices of the cardinals and bishops running the tiny city state, accusing them of “spiritual Alzheimer’s” and claiming they believed they were “immortal.”
Last year, he said he wanted to avoid dwelling on “the catalogue of curial diseases” and instead listed the virtues needed for good government.
The pope gave his top 12 tips for good office management, including the need for better organisation, explaining that he was trying to give each of the Vatican’s dicasteries, or departments, a clear area of competence.
More lay people would be hired if they could do a better job than prelates, he said.
“The development of the role of women and lay people in the church and their appointment to leading roles in the dicasteries, with particular attention to multiculturalism, is of great importance,” he said.
Pope Francis has merged Vatican departments and tried to bring transparency to the state’s scandal-plagued bank since he was elected in 2013, succeeding Pope Benedict, whose shock resignation was linked to alleged corruption and infighting at the Vatican.
Last year, the Vatican’s former No 2, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, donated €150,000 to a children’s hospital after allegations surfaced that funds from the institution had been used to redecorate his luxury penthouse.
The Pope also ordered an investigation yesterday into the chivalric Order of Malta, the charity overseen by the church that was established in the 11th century.
The inquiry follows the sacking of the order’s grand chancellor, allegedly because he backed the distribution of condoms in Africa, a move opposed by Raymond Burke, the conservative US cardinal who was appointed patron of the order by the pope.