ROME
Vatileaks enters the conclave. On the first day of closed-door discussions and shielded cell, the 144 cardinals gathered to discuss the future of the Church have been mentioned repeatedly at least three times in the Synod Hall’s request to know the confidential report on the escape of documents and poisons curia. In the morning they were three cardinals who have expressed a desire to know what is written in “the Report” prepared by the Committee of Cardinals detective, whose content is locked.
The request was made by the German Walter Kasper, just turned eighty, in conclave by a whisker, belongs to the wing of the old curial more critical of the management of the Secretariat of State in recent years. Same question from two “eligible candidates” European weight. The first is the Austrian Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna, who in 2010 publicly criticized the former Secretary of State Angelo Sodano as they were handled abuse cases in the last period Wojtyla. The second is Hungarian Peter Erdo, archbishop of Budapest, considered a possible candidate for the European to the Chair of Peter.
Required to read a watermark: they represent a common will to many cardinals come from outside Italy, willing to discuss in more detail the scandals that have recently plagued the Roman Curia. Willing to make things clear, and also to take all the time necessary for this and other issues – such as that of the Vatican’s finances – are properly gutted. It is no coincidence that the archbishops of Washington and Chicago, Donald William Wuerl and Francis George, have pointed out after the first general congregation that the case Vatileaks will be a topic of discussion and that “you will be asked some questions to the cardinals involved.”
The questions have been asked, but by the time the answers were held to an even generally, without going into details. At least this is the impression that several cardinals have made listening to the first informal replicas of Cardinal Julián Herranz, a distinguished canonist with long experience curial, highly respected by both John Paul II and Benedict XVI. It is known that “Papa Emeritus” did not want to disclose the relationship, but it did allow, however, the three cardinals investigators – as well as Herranz, Jozef Tomko and Salvatore De Giorgi – to provide some general guidelines.
Well as issues related to the functioning of the Curia have appeared, and were mentioned in the intervention of the Archbishop of Lima, Cardinal Jean Luis Cipriani Thorne. While it remains a central issue, especially the U.S., anti-clerical pedophilia and the continuation of the work of cleaning undertaken by Ratzinger: “It’s a serious wound in the body of the Church – they say – and the new Pope will have to deal with it.” Other cardinals have made specific and concrete measures of process-related problems. “The impression is that there will be a short work,” whispers one of these exit. There’s no hurry. The College of Cardinals want to take all the time necessary. Congregations today and tomorrow will take place only in the morning, because the “senators” of the Church want to have more time to talk to each other, to meet, to exchange opinions. An attitude that, that may undermine attempts to pre-established agreements and applications.
But it would be a mistake to consider scandals and Vatileaks as the hallmark of the first day of debate: the concern of most of these is to find a new Pope who can speak to the world, to proclaim the Gospel in a positive way. “We need a Pope like Saint Francis – he confided to La Stampa an influential cardinal in the evening – a man who could smile like John Paul I, who can show the face of the mercy of God that knows how to reform the Curia to make it more credible and transparent. “