Many hope that Pope Francis will undertake something of an overhaul of the Roman Curia, to bring it up to date and make it more efficient. But a Dutch cardinal may have proposed much the same thing more than 80 years ago, so Sandro Magister suggests. Citing a recently published book from the Vatican Secret Archives in honour of its vice-prefect, Dutch Father Marcel Chappin S.J., Magister discusses an older work, published anonymously in 1931. It offers strong criticism against the bishops and Curia of the time.
“Aliquando autem totus episcopatus alicuius nationis ita est compositus, veluti si coecorum, claudorum et infirmorum omne genus esset refugium,” (Sometimes, however, the whole of the episcopate of a country is composed as if it were a place of refuge for the blind, the lame, and the sick of all kinds.)
Harsh words, but who wrote them? The only hint is a synonym: “Paulus Bernardus a S. Catharina“. And there are some who say that this is, in fact, Willem Marinus Cardinal van Rossum, in 1931 the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. The reasons for thinking that he is behind the writings is, to me at least, obscure, as no element of the synonym seems to be linked to the person of Cardinal van Rossum.But, then again, as a member of the very Curia he so strongly criticises, Cardinal van Rossum may well have had reason to keep his identity secret.
In Caelo et in Terra 