Cardinal Muller sees curial reform as ‘purification of the temple’

February 10, 2015

In reforming the Roman Curia, Pope Francis is “pursuing a spiritual purification of the temple” so that God’s glory may be more resplendent in the Church, Cardinal Gerhard Müller said in an article that appeared in L’Osservatore Romano.

The prefect of the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith noted that the Roman Curia was distinct from both the Vatican City State and the Synod of Bishops: the Curia serves the Church’s unity, he said, while the synod expresses her catholicity.

The “spirit of the world” sows mistrust between the universal Church and dioceses, the prelate continued. A “just decentralization” does not signify “more power” for episcopal conferences, but rather that bishops may exercise a “genuine responsibility” based on the episcopal power of teaching and governing, “always, naturally, in union with the primacy of the Pope and of the Roman Church.”

“A true reform of the Roman Curia and of the Church has the objective of rendering more luminous the mission of the Pope and the Church in the world” in the face of “radical” global secularism, the dictatorship of relativism, and the globalization of indifference, Cardinal Müller added, as he noted the continuity of efforts by Pope Benedict and Pope Francis against worldliness in the Church.

 

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Further information:

• Purificare il tempio (L’Osservatore Romano, p. 5)