Magister on some recent appointments:
As the new prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the pope has called an Indian, cardinal Ivan Dias, 70, who has been archbishop of Bombay for ten years, but before that served at the secretariat of state and as a diplomat in many countries, including Albania (his last diplomatic post), and before that South Korea, Ghana, Indonesia, and Sweden, without counting the dozens of countries he followed as a Vatican observer, including Russia, China, Vietnam, and South Africa. He has learned many languages, speaking eighteen fluently having some familiarity with others.
But even though this skill is very much adapted to his role, it is not the only reason why Benedict XVI chose him as the new prefect of “Propaganda Fide.” Much more influential was the fact that cardinal Dias, who has an excellent understanding of the Eastern religions, has never surrendered to that “relativism” of faiths that Ratzinger condemned in 2000 with the most important of his actions as the cardinal custodian of doctrine, the declaration “Dominus Iesus.”
As archbishop of Bombay, Dias has on a number of occasions complained of the fact that the Jesuits, excessively enthusiastic supporters of interreligious dialogue, play the master in the seminaries of India. His goal was to evangelize and convert, and each year he administered many baptisms. Before the last conclave he was listed among the candidates for the papacy, but in reality he was one of Ratzinger’s most resolute supporters.
Dias is not the only Asian that Benedict XVI has called to an important curia post. Another is the new secretary of the congregation for the liturgy, Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, from Sri Lanka: in his first public appearance – on April 27, see below – he came to the defense of the tradition orientation of the liturgical prayer of the clergy and faithful, and so also of the altar, to the East, against the practice that came in after the council of turning the altar to face the people. The new Vatican nuncio to Iraq, Francis Chullikat, is Indian. And China provides the most visible of the recently nominated cardinals, the combative bishop of Hong Kong, Joseph Zen Zekiun.
Apart from Europe, pope Ratzinger has clearly placed Asia at the center of his religious geopolitics.
This is just one more reason to call a new man as head of the secretariat of state, where Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who is far from sharing Ratzinger’s approach, is waiting to be dismissed at any moment.
And…what about that Secretary of State? The hot money is Cardinal Bertone, former secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I have no idea why, but the rumor is strong.
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