Cardinal Kasper: Pope will disappoint ‘progressives,’ ‘conservatives’

July 18, 2013

Stating that “it's not possible to pigeonhole” Pope Francis “in the classic European conservative-progressive debate,” Cardinal Walter Kasper told an Italian paper that the Pope will disappoint both sides.

Many self-described conservatives “will be disappointed in Francis," Cardinal Kasper said, “because he doesn’t have the intellectual heft of Benedict and then because he abolished the pontifical court -- something I am grateful for; it was an anachronistic extravagance.”

On the other hand, self-described progressives will be disappointed because Pope Francis “will not change the content” of the faith.

He will not, for example, change “anything with priestly celibacy, will not open ordinations to women,” said Cardinal Kasper, the President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Pope Francis “is not a conservative or a progressive,” he added. “He wants a poor Church and (a Church) of the poor.”

Turning to the topic of curial reform, Cardinal Kasper called for monthly meetings between the heads of curial dicasteries and for direct communication between dicastery heads and the Pope without going through the Secretary of State.

“The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing,” said Cardinal Kasper, and the Secretary of State “has become of late like a government middleman.”

 

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Further information:

• Pope who can't be pigeonholed bound to disappoint some, says cardinal (CNS)