Cardinals seek pope to tackle Vatican bureaucracy

Cardinals seek pope to tackle Vatican bureaucracy

The next pope's ideal profile
began to take shape today as cardinals held a second day of
pre-conclave talks -- a man with pastoral experience,
missionary energy and few ties to the Vatican's unruly
government.
Cardinals waved cheerfully to journalists at the gates of
the Vatican but declined to divulge details of the closed-door
debate on who among them could be the best candidate for the
papacy following Benedict XVI's sudden resignation.
Vatican experts say one of the hot-button issues now
uniting many of the cardinals is the need to choose a new
leader for the world's 1.2 billion Catholics capable of
putting his stamp on the Roman Curia, the central government
of the Church.
"There is definitely a lot of reflection going on in the
Catholic world on the governance of the Catholic Church and
how to improve it," said US Cardinal Sean O'Malley.
Secret papal documents leaked to the press last year
alleged corruption and intrigue in the Vatican administration
and unearthed infighting which many hope the new pope will
tackle.
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo said the electors "need to look
attentively at the work of the Curia in recent years. The
Curia is there at service to the holy father."
Though the centuries-old bureaucracy should serve the
papacy, it has the power to block or water down papal
decisions and has been criticised for playing politics under
Benedict.
"What began as a trickle has become a torrent in the last
24 hours of cardinals insisting that the number one issue is
governance," said expert John Allen of the National Catholic
Reporter.
This might mean choosing someone who has no previous ties
to the opaque Vatican bureaucracy, such as Italian Angelo
Scola, who could appeal because "he knows the lay of the land
but has never been a Vatican official," Allen said.
He also has much more extensive pastoral experience than
Joseph Ratzinger did before he became pope -- but so does
Brazilian Odilo Scherer, "an old Vatican hand (who) brings
together concrete pastoral experience and strong governor
skills," Allen said.