Pope Francis: Roman Curia needs ‘synodal conversion’

Pope Francis urged Vatican officials on Thursday to undergo a “synodal conversion.”

In his annual pre-Christmas address to members of the Roman Curia on Dec. 23, the pope said that the Holy See’s administrative institutions should be a model for the worldwide Catholic Church.

“The Curia — let’s not forget — is not merely a logistical and bureaucratic instrument for meeting the needs of the universal Church, but the first body called to bear witness,” he said.

“Precisely for this reason, it grows in prestige and effectiveness when it embraces in first person the challenges of that synodal conversion to which it too is called. The organization that we must adopt is not that of a business, but evangelical in nature.”

The pope has often used his annual December address to offer his frank perspective on the state of the Roman Curia and outline his vision for the coming year.

In 2014, he famously diagnosed 15 spiritual “diseases” afflicting the Curia, including careerism and idolizing superiors.

Then in 2015, he offered a “catalog of needed virtues” that curial officials needed for their service to be “more fruitful,” including humility, respect, honesty, and sobriety.

In 2016, he discussed various types of opposition to change in the Curia, including “malicious resistance,” which “hides behind words of self-justification and, often, accusation.”

Last year, he stressed that there is a crisis that is calling the Church to renewal, using the word “crisis” 44 times in his speech.

This year, he underlined the importance of humility, using the word 36 times in his almost 4,000-word address.

“The mystery of Christmas is the mystery of God who enters the world by the path of humility,” he said during his live-streamed speech.

“Our times seem either to have forgotten humility or to have relegated it to a form of moralism, emptying it of its explosive power.”