What Is Behind Francis' Fury Against the "Ecclesiastical Career"?
"Your founder, from a wealthy family, probably destined for an 'ecclesiastical career' - a term that repels me and should be abolished - who came to Rome with tasks of a certain level, did not hesitate to change the plans and prospects of his life in order to dedicate himself to the street children he met in the city".
The Vatican journalist Luis Badilla is surprised: "But Bergoglio himself is also the fruit of a (sometimes planned) 'ecclesiastical career'."
In a commentary on 5 December he writes: "Why this language and anger? Should a normal and correct expression be abolished, but where? From the dictionary?" And: "If it is so repugnant to Francis, why does he use it?"
Once again, instead of speaking with moderation and precision, he opted for an almost scandalous outburst, Badilla analyses.
The expression 'ecclesiastical career' has no malicious meaning, unless one deliberately wants to give it that qualification, writes Badilla. Francis is Bishop of Rome today "precisely because his priestly vocation was a long and articulated ecclesiastical career, a path (in different stages) wisely planned".
Already at the age of 27, in Chile (1963), Bergoglio confessed to a group of astonished Jesuit seminarians that he wanted to become "master of novices", thus demonstrating that he was planning a career within the Society of Jesus.
Badilla names three Jesuits who heard this several times. At the time, they were confused because there is an implicit norm with the Jesuits says that no one may (consciously) aspire to leadership positions.
At the age of 34, Father Bergoglio became master of novices and later provincial of Argentina.
For Badilla, Francis' comment on the "ecclesiastical career" is another example of his vice of "manipulating words", in this case associating "career" with "careerism".
The problem lies elsewhere. Under Francis's watch, Badilla notes, "there have been more and more cases of presbyters without merit or ability who have advanced in their ecclesiastical careers, without this being synonymous with preparation, suitability and authority".
He adds the truism that "no one is elected Pope who has not had an 'ecclesiastical career'".
If one does not honestly admit that there are secular mechanisms in the hierarchy of the Holy See, one would have to say "that Ratzinger, Montini and Pacelli were questionable Popes because they were notorious career clerics".
Bergoglio, too, is the child of an "ecclesiastical career", "and it is wrong to demonise him, it is trivial, demagogic and misleading", writes Badilla.
For him, Francis's statement is "propaganda" designed to reinforce the media illusion of a "progressive pope" who is fighting - in the media's language - against the "ecclesiastical career" because there is something "repugnant" in this caste that needs to be abolished.
The Church uses the recruitment of a member to a collegiate body by appointment by the members already in office to form its ruling class, and this may often, but not always, encourage nepotism, writes Badilla: "Francis's pontificate is heavily polluted by this, the root of which - despite what the Pope has said - is Bergoglio-friendly careerism."
Francis has used this mechanism "with perseverance and decisiveness", but his problems arose when "the majority" of these appointments "turned out to be inadequate, because the appointees did not have quality, experience and competence; in fact, they were clerics without a career, just faithful friends".
In this way, Francis "caused himself, among other things, great practical and material damage, as well as damage to his image and credibility".
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