On November 8, 2014, Pope Francis made more key
appointments intended to help bring about a change of
mentality in the Vatican hierarchy. He is looking for a
softer approach to applying Church law, and he thinks
he’s found that in French Moroccan Archbishop
Dominique Mamberti. The Archbishop will replace
U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke as the highest judicial
authority in the Catholic Church. Pope Francis is
looking to get procedural simplifications on marriage
annulments, while also safeguarding the principle of
the indissolubility of matrimony. In a Nov. 5th
meeting with canon lawyers, Pope Francis said some
procedures are currently so long and financially
burdensome that people “give up.” In his new
position, Archbishop Mamberti will be in charge —
among other responsibilities — of final appeals for
cases of marriage annulments as well as cases of
conflict of competencies among Vatican departments.
Appeals for marriage annulments have increased in
recent years and Pope Francis wants his own
appointee to be making the decisions. The position of
the supreme judge is traditionally held by a cardinal,
so Archbishop Mamberti can expect to be made a
cardinal at the next formal meeting of cardinals. The
replaced Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, 66, has been
made the patron of the Order of Malta, an mainly
honorary position which is usually assigned to
cardinals who are at the end of their ecclesiastical
career. While Francis has been Pope, Cardinal Burke,
an outspoken conservative, has frequently voiced his
concerns with some of the choices being made in
Church governance. Nevertheless, as an active
cardinal living in Rome, his capacity to communicate
his opinions will remain the same if not greater —
since no significant office will be attached to him.
British Archbishop Paul Gallagher has taken
Archbishop Mamberti’s vacated position as the
Vatican’s second- in-command to the Secretary of
State. Archbishop Gallagher is an astute, open-minded
and humble worker, with diplomatic experience in
Europe, and as an ambassador to Burundi, Guatemala
and Australia. He was chosen also for his ability to
fulfill a new diplomatic criteria required by Pope
Francis. He wants diplomats to reduce the distance
between themselves and mainstream society, engaging
the secular world more in conversation. Diplomats
have been asked “to seek to understand situations and
try to adapt to them in order to bring the light of the
Gospel to them.” Sources: Nationl Catholic Register , huffington post.com
Vatican Corner 1-18-15
