Cardinals voice 'Vatileaks' concern
2013-03-04 18:54
Vatican City - Catholic cardinals on Monday pressed for
more information about the "Vatileaks" scandal at the start of a
series of Vatican meetings to prepare for a conclave to elect a new pope after
Benedict XVI's sudden resignation.
"If we're going to make a good decision, I'm sure
we'll have to have some information on that," South African Cardinal
Wilfrid Napier told reporters on the sidelines of the meetings.
Asked whether there would have to be a reform of the
Roman Curia, the central government of the Catholic Church, Napier said:
"That naturally is going to come into the picture as well."
French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin said: "We want to
know what's going on inside the Vatican, which has been a bit knocked about in
recent years."
Hundreds of confidential papal documents alleging
instances of corruption and intrigue in the administration of the Vatican were
leaked to the press last year, causing huge embarrassment.
Benedict's personal butler was convicted in the case but
some Vatican watchers say there may have been a wider conspiracy and an inquiry
by three cardinals into the affair has been kept secret.
Vatican spokesperson Federico Lombardi implied there
would be no general discussion on "Vatileaks", saying that cardinals
could ask fellow cardinals "for any information they believe useful”.
Spanish Cardinal Carlos Amigo Vallejo, however, played
down wider implications from the scandal.
"I was a missionary bishop for a long time and I
thought of those small communities in North Africa. I don't think they care a
lot about our little internal problems," he said.
The Vatican meetings will set the date for the start of
the conclave later this month and help identify cardinals who could become the
next leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.
"We're going to take as much time as we need to
think about what sort of pope the church needs now," French Cardinal Andre
Vingt-Trois said.
"I'd be keen to have a polyglot, a man of faith, a
man of dialogue... The new pope will certainly have to confront problems within
the Curia."
The meetings are expected to last all week and are also a
rare chance for all the world's cardinals to get together and to discuss the
many different challenges facing the Catholic Church.
"The key themes the church will have to face are
inter-religious issues and poverty," Vingt-Trois said.
Napier said: "My priorities would be...
reconciliation, renewal of the faith so people understand what the faith is
about and rebuilding the credibility of the church."
Vatican scandals
Benedict's eight-year pontificate was often overshadowed
by Vatican intrigue and scandals in Europe and North America over sexual abuse
by paedophile priests going back decades, and the cover-up of those crimes by
senior prelates.
A total of 115 "cardinal electors" - cardinals
aged under 80 - are expected at the conclave after Britain's Keith O'Brien
opted out due to allegations of sexual misconduct with priests and an
Indonesian cardinal said he was too sick.
Lombardi said 103 cardinal electors were present at
Monday's meeting and the remaining ones were expected to arrive later by on Tuesday.
The field for next pope remains wide open after Benedict
became only the second pontiff to step down by choice in the Church's 2 000-year
history and the first to do so since the Middle Ages.
Vatican observers say there are possible candidates from
every corner of the world and from both progressive and traditionalist wings.
Church leaders are also concerned about issues like how
to counter rising secularism, priestly celibacy, treatment of gays, attitudes
towards divorcees, as well as inter-religious dialogue.
Indian cardinal Baselios Cleemis, Catholicos of the
Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, said: "We will work for the well-being not
only of the church but of the whole world. You'll have to wait and see."
No date has yet been set for the election of the church's
266th pope, although Italian media have mentioned next Monday, 11 March as a
possibility.
Among the leading candidates are Italian Cardinal Angelo
Scola, a big promoter of inter-religious dialogue, and Austrian progressive
Christoph Schoenborn, a former student of Benedict's.
US Cardinal Sean O'Malley, who cracked down on abuse in
the Boston archdiocese where the scandals began to emerge, and Timothy Dolan,
the archbishop of New York, are also seen as possibilities.
In the Americas, Canadian Quebecois Cardinal Marc
Ouellet, a conservative with ties to Latin America, is also highly rated, as is
Brazilian cardinal and Sao Paulo archbishop Odilo Scherer.
In Africa, Ghana's Peter Turkson, Guinea's Robert Sarah
and Napier are also seen as possibilities.
For Asia, Manila archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle, a
55-year-old theologian and pastor is very popular.
