Thursday, July 26, 2012

Stanislao scenario repeated?

Another Episcopal nomination is soon due in the Vatican. 

A new prelate is to join (if not substitute) Prefect Harvey. 

Were the latter to be transferred to another post - now that the Pope’s former butler, Paolo Gabriele is under investigation - this would be seen as an accusation against him.

There’s a new Bishop on the way. 

In the Curia, a new Episcopal nomination for the Papal Household is seen as inevitable. The man chosen to work alongside Prefect James Michael Harvey could be the Pope’s current secretary, Mgr. Georg Gaenswein.

If he is indeed chosen, it will be history repeating itself as the Pope’s right hand man will also become number two man in the Papal Household. 

In 2003, Fr. Stanislao Dziwisz was appointed Adjunct Prefect of the Papal Household , a role created specifically for him in one of the most delicate Vatican offices: the one which oversees private, special and general audiences; the office which arranges everything that goes on around the Pope. 

Fr. Georg could also potentially be chosen as successor to Mgr. Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, former Bishop of Regensburg, who was appointed as the new Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith a week ago. Ratzinger himself had held this position for over twenty years before being elected Pope. 

Fr. Stanislao was appointed bishop in 1998, becoming the only secretary of a living Pope to receive  Episcopal the dignity in modern times. 

A great deal has been written on the supposition that in the last Consistory, the Pope had chosen Cardinal Stanislao in pectore.  But the name did not appear in John Paul II’s will so, as spokesman, Joacquin Navarro Valls, said, the question was “no longer posed.” 

The Prefecture of the Papal House deals with the organisation of the Papal Household and the work of chaplains and the Papal Family. 

Established by Paul VI through the Apostolic Constitution Regimini Ecclesiae Universae of 1967, supplemented by the motu proprio Pontificalis Domus of the following year and now regulated by articles 180 and 181 of the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus. 

It is made up of individuals who serve the Pope directly within the Apostolic Palace or when He is in Rome or in any other Italian city. Its task is also to organise papal ceremonies, though not the strictly liturgical side. 

This is handled by the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff. The Prefecture concedes public and private audiences depending on the circumstances, sometimes arranged together with the Secretariat of State. 

In February 1998, Mgr. Harvey replaced Mgr. Dino Monduzzi as Prefect of the Papal Household. 

Mgr. Monduzzi had handed in his upon reaching the age limit for cardinals. So a new Episcopal nomination is soon due in the Papal Household. A new prelate is to join (if not substitute) Prefect Harvey. 

Were the latter to be transferred to another post - now that the Pope’s former butler, Paolo Gabriele is under investigation - this would be seen as an accusation against him. 

Apparently, in his confession, Gabriele is said to have given Vatican magistrates the names of the other individuals involved in the Vatican document leak. 

The Vatican does not wish to prolong the scandal any further and aims to keep investigation work under wraps so as to eventually pardon the Pope’s former butler.