Pope pushes decentralization on translation of liturgical texts
ROME – In a move likely to generate special reaction in the English-speaking Catholic world, Pope Francis on Saturday made a series of amendments to Church law governing liturgical translation, the net...
View ArticleNigeria’s bishops take sides in country’s decentralization debate
YAOUNDE, Cameroon — Nothing has provoked national debate in recent times in Nigeria more than calls for re-structuring the country, usually in the direction of greater decentralization. Although...
View ArticleWhy Pope’s earthquake on liturgy may not mean much for Americans
ROME – Anybody who watches TV, or who reads potboiler novels on airplanes, knows that the historical counter-factual genre is always good fun. “What if the Nazis ruled America?” “What if the Roman...
View ArticlePope Francis in 2017: Question marks over what counts as ‘reform’
[Editors note: This is part two of Crux Vatican correspondent Inès San Martìn’s look back at Pope Francis in 2017. Part one yesterday was devoted to Francis’s foreign trips over the past year. In part...
View ArticlePope to Curia: ‘Betrayers of trust’ are frustrating Vatican reform
ROME – From the beginning, Pope Francis has been a maverick leader, running against “the system” and making it clear he’s got no special loyalty to the Roman Curia, meaning the ecclesiastical...
View ArticleSometimes, a pope just can’t help being the pope
ROME – Late this week, news broke of a fairly dramatic papal intervention in an important archdiocese in India. Through the Vatican’s Congregation for Oriental Churches, Pope Francis has essentially...
View ArticleWhen pope goes to Japan, there’ll be a big dog that won’t bark
ROME — Cardinal Manyo Maeda of Osaka met Pope Francis on Monday, and afterwards told reporters the pontiff had confirmed his desire to visit Japan in late 2019. Among other things, he said, Francis...
View ArticleA reforming pope’s dilemma: Using the center to deliver decentralization
ROME – Before St. John Paul II, the old joke used to go that being pope meant never having to say you’re sorry. Since John Paul actually apologized for various failures and sins of the church well in...
View ArticlePope amends canons to give greater authority to bishops, conferences
ROME — Saying he wanted to promote a “healthy decentralization” of some aspects of church life, Pope Francis made several changes to church law, granting greater authority to individual bishops,...
View ArticlePope’s passion for motu proprio captures a grand irony, and a deep truth
ROME – Pope Francis made some small but meaningful amendments to church law yesterday, transferring certain powers away from the Vatican and to national bishops’ conferences and local bishops in...
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