Word: curia
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...vote rather than by two-thirds, and substitute schemata may be brought to the floor of the council by petition of 50 or more bishops. Four cardinals have been given "executive mandate" by the Pope to supervise the debates. One member of the quartet-Gregory Peter Agagianian -is a Curia moderate who favors a measure of church renewal. The other three are among the most vocal "progressive" members of the council-Belgium's Leo Josef Suenens, Julius Dopfner of Munich and Giacomo Ler-caro of Bologna...
...Tune Instrument. Another and more drastic kind of reform was an nounced by the Pope a week before the council opened. In a speech that blended praise and criticism, irony and soothing words, the Pope announced to the Roman Curia that the time had come to reform and internationalize the vast
Vatican bureaucracy.* Paul defined the Curia as "the instrument" he used to fulfill his "divine mandate," but added that the instrument was now out of tune and subject to much criticism. The Curia, said the Pope, "has become old, less suited to the times. Now it feels the need to simplify itself and decentralize itself." Pope Paul did not specify what reforms he had in mind, but by implication the Curia personnel will be internationalized, and many decisions now made in Rome will be left to individual bishops or national hierarchies...
...Staffa has little liking for Küng's ideas is easy to see. In his new collection of essays and papers called The Council in Action (Sheed & Ward; $4.50), Küng pleads for such reforms as internationalization of the Roman Curia, reduction of its power, greater authority for regional councils of bishops. He speaks of "reactionary doctrinaire tendencies" in certain council fathers, and dismisses the agenda items drawn up for the council by the Curia-dominated preparatory commission as "ill-prepared, partisan schemata...
...council's theological experts, but there are rumors of an instruction pending in Rome that might restrict his freedom to publish or give public speeches. If so, Küng would join a long list of distinguished Catholic thinkers who have been silenced, at least temporarily, by Curia officials...