The Pope publishes the new Apostolic Constitution, which decentralizes the Curia and focuses on evangelization

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The Pope published this Saturday the new Apostolic Constitution 'Praedicate Evangelium', after

and review of drafts, which decentralizes the Vatican Curia to give more power to local dioceses and restructures its organizations to focus on the task of evangelization .

"In the spirit of a healthy decentralization, it is proposed to leave the competence of the diocesan pastors the power to resolve, in the exercise of their own

the issues that they know well, that do not touch the unity of the doctrine, of discipline and communion", points out the legislative text, which will enter into force on June 5, when the Church celebrates Pentecost, in one of the 250 articles that comprise it.

Francis has created a Dicastery for Evangelization that he presides over himself, which shows the importance he assigns to this new body that absorbs the Pontifical Council for New Evangelization and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

This department will be divided into two subsections: one dedicated to the fundamental questions of evangelization in the world and another dedicated for the first time to

Just after Christmas, the Pope commissioned the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization to prepare for the Jubilee of 2025. In addition, he has created the new Dicastery for the Service of Charity, what used to be the Apostolic Limonery, which continues to be chaired by Cardinal Polish Konrad Krajewski and who "performs anywhere in the world the works of assistance to the poorest in the name of the Pope".

The document thus completes the reform of the bureaucracy to make the machinery of the Vatican Curia more "effective."

In this sense, it is explained that it has been "necessary

" by uniting those whose purpose was very "similar" in order to avoid "overlapping of competences and to make the work more efficient".

This aspect is not new.

In August 2016, the Pope established the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development, which encompassed the competencies previously developed by the Pontifical Councils for Justice and Peace;

*Cor unum*;

for the Pastoral Care of Emigrants and Itinerant People and for the Pastoral Care of Health;

and the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, which combined the powers of the former Pontifical Council for the Family and Pontifical Council for the Laity.

The Pontifical Council for Culture has been incorporated into the Congregation for Catholic Education with two other subsections;

the first dedicated to the promotion of culture, pastoral animation and the valorization of cultural heritage and the other to develop the principles of education in schools, Higher Institutes and research.

In addition, the Pope

which puts several new appointments on the table.

For example, Argentine Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for Oriental Churches, will turn 79 next November;

Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, who will turn 78 in June;

or the Spanish Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who will turn 78 in April.

An appointment to replace Argentine Archbishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, "chancellor" of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Social Sciences, who will turn 80 in September, is also considered likely.

This five-year limitation of the position was already put into practice in December when the Pope accepted the resignation of Cardinal Peter, Kodwo Appiah Turkson, as prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development (DSDHI), in a formal gesture that is part of the structural organization of the Roman Curia.

Requirement of "professionalism" and "integrity"

In an attempt to improve the skills of Vatican officials, the new Apostolic Constitution requires its employees "professionalism" in the matter for which they have been appointed, and for the first time it is asked to respect in the new assumptions "the criterion of universality ".

According to what is read in the legislative text, "integrity" will also be required of "all those who provide a service in the Curia among bishops, priests, deacons, members of the Institutes of Consecrated Life and laity who are distinguished by their spiritual life , good pastoral experience, sobriety of life and love for the poor".

Another novelty is the opening to a

in the organisms of the Curia since clergy should not be in charge.

"The consultants of curial institutions and offices are appointed from among the faithful who are distinguished by their proven ability and prudence," states the text.

The new Vatican Magna Carta also makes it clear what the Pope's powers are, such as "examining questions and problems that go beyond the sphere of competence of diocesan bishops or episcopal bodies";

"study the most serious problems of the present time, with the aim of promoting pastoral actions in the Church in a more adequate, coordinated and effective way, always in agreement with and respecting the competences of the particular Churches, the Episcopal Conferences, their Regional and Continental Unions and Eastern Hierarchical Structures.

The Pope also has the task of examining and deciding on particular matters that the faithful refer directly to the Apostolic See.

The Pope will no longer be the main guarantor in the event that there are "possible conflicts of competence between the dicasteries and the Secretariat of State";

in this case, it will be the Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura that decides, unless the Pope does not want to act otherwise

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