Pope Francis is beyond that mentality and that kind of webs. Instinctive, spontaneous (he told journalists on the way back from the Holy Land that «the best gestures are those that come out from spontaneity»); Pope Francis wants an “Outward-Looking Church”, and barely cares about what had been there before, because – he writes in the “Evangelii Gaudium” – «one cannot hide behind ‘it has always been done this way’». The Pope admitted not to have any specific plan for the Church and he is now applying to the Church the one and only objective that he always deemed pivotal, dating back to the time he was a provincial of the Jesuits: that the Church be missionary, and for her to earn a clean image that can make her mission appealing.

The Pope’s work is difficult within a Roman Curia that has always resisted new outlooks. The Holy See has always been conscious that the relationship with Italy could have more shadows than lights. When the Holy See and Italy finally signed the Conciliation in 1929, the Holy See decided not to accept any ambassador to the Holy See who at the same time was an ambassador accredited to Italy (and resident in Italy). This was a result of the memories of the First World War: the moment when Italy declared war to Germany, the German ambassador to Italy naturally left, and the Holy See remained without a diplomatic link to Germany.

The progressive internationalization of the Roman Curia was started by a Pope who had been serving as a diplomat and was very conscious of the importance of the Church’s sovereignty. Pius XII had been Papal nuncio to Germany, where he was able to carry out and sign a concordat with the Nazi country (as such agreements are meant to be reached with people you do not trust, rather than friends). As a Pope, he progressively increased the number of non-Italian cardinals. In the last years of his pontificate, tired, already old and knowing that he could not govern with the proper strength, Pius XII froze Vatican hiring, leaving everything in his successor’s hands.

His successor was John XXIII, another former nuncio, who had lived his glory days in Bulgaria and Turkey before being appointed Papal nuncio to France during the years of the Second World War. John XXIII experienced in the East the richness of the ecumenical dialogue and in Europe the ferment of the Catholic movements that, since the beginning of the 20th century, were spreading to politics, society and even industries, seeking a renewal of the Christian experience that he promoted with the Second Vatican Council. John XXIII finally opened the Church to the world, and positioned it in the international context not only as a moral authority, but also as a ‘super partes’ State able to promote peace negotiations.

After him, Paul VI was elected. He had been the spiritual assistant for the University Federation of Italian Catholics (FUCI) and thus personally knew all the Italian Catholic men in politics. Like Pius XII, Paul VI paid close attention to what was happening in Italy. Like Pius XII, Paul VI wanted the Italian privileged relationship model to be projected beyond the National border – the Italian privileged relationship understood not as that of groups of interests that acted here and there around the Vatican borders, but one that had resulted in the fact that Italy was an exception in how it had successfully resisted the pressure of secularizing trends.

After the very short pontificate of John Paul I, John Paul II followed. The scenario definitely changed. John Paul II wanted a Church with a strong presence in society, able to be the lifeblood of society. It was not just opening a dialogue with the world. It was rather being relevant in the world, and taking the leading role for human renewal, as the Church in Poland had done there. The ‘earthquake’ that followed this vision marked a change of the roadmap for the presence of laity in public life in Italy.

Committed to the institutions they had themselves inspired (the Italian Constitution is based on the Camaldoli Code, drafted by a group from the FUCI in 1944), Catholics in politics in Italy maintained a very timid dialogue with the institutions they were part of. John Paul II asked for more relevance, and the Pope’s appeal was welcomed by the ecclesiastical movements, the true novelty of the Second Vatican Council.

The most famous and widespread movements (the Focolari Movement, Communion and Liberation) were born in Italy, and there they established a base for Catholics committed to society. These movements took over the organization of the new presence of Catholics in public life. They led the debates which had been at the core of the Italian public discourse until now.

In particular, Communion and Liberation took over the role of enhancing the presence of Catholics in the country and to serve as a cultural guide, bringing forward debates of magnitude on issues like religious freedom, bioethics, and subsidiarity.

Nowadays, a different roadmap seems more appropriate. An internal dialogue within Communion and Liberation itself points in this direction. Julian Carrón, the successor of CL’s founder Father Luigi Giussani, stressed in a document ahead of elections to the European parliament that there is a need to return to the essentials, the announcement of the Gospel, before forming groups of positive pressure. In the document, Carrón drew heavily from Benedict XVI, and carried on the discussion referring to Pope Francis’ Evangelii Gaudium.

Carrón’s words dwelled into the spirit of Father Giussani. Promoter of a Christianity imbuing every aspect of life, Father Giussani periodically reminded his followers not to make of «structure, organization, principles» more than of the main goal of being Christian, the announcement of the Gospel. This is the reason why Father Giussani never gave CL the contours of an association. And this is the reason why he chose Julian Carrón as his successor. Carrón is a Spaniard who formed a movement before knowing Communion and Liberation. Once he met Father Giussani, Carrón joined CL with his movement. The same path had been followed by the founders of the Brazilian movement Trabalhadores sem Tierra, who are now responsible for CL in Brazil.

The movement’s outward-looking strategy was also manifested in the choice for president of the Compagnia delle Opere (CDO), the CL’s economic-financial branch. Lawmakers linked to CDO have recently been involved in several business scandals in Italy, since they are tied hand in glove to a certain financial-political milieu. The president is now Bernhard Scholz, a German who is completely out of this kind of logic, who is moving the CDO to a brand new world, outside of the Italian mind-frame.

Carrón’s words triggered a profound self-reflection within Communion and Liberation. There were those, like the philosopher Massimo Borghesi, who noted that many cultural struggles had become more an expression of a sort of Christian lobby than part of the evangelization. And those who, like the journalist Antonio Socci –who took part with conviction in those battles – underlined the importance of that way of taking part in the public discourse. Even standing in opposition or making alliances with the secular world without the intention of evangelizing it.

This discussion certainly goes beyond Communion and Liberation and – on a smaller scale – is replicated in the Catholic Church.

After John Paul II, Benedict XVI carried on this outward-looking strategy. He spoke of a «non moralist Church » and of the primacy of evangelization in several occasions, the most bold ones were the off-the-cuff speech to Swiss bishops in 2006 and the speech held in Freiburg during his 2011 trip to Germany. Benedict XVI placed the roots of faith in truth, speaking about God and freeing the Church of any kind of political constraints; and he gave the Holy See an international mentality, also on a juridical level on which every structure is based: the reform of Vatican finances, the reform of the Vatican penal code, the way of managing diplomacy, are part of Benedict XVI’s legacy.

And Benedict XVI was constantly under attack because he was not bound to the old logic. John Paul II’s huge effort decreased in the last years, when he was sick and tired. Then, the curiali, led by the then Secretary of State Angelo Sodano, made new ties with the Italian world, backed by a certain type of provincial thinking, benefitting from John Paul II’s popularity. In the last period of John Paul II’s pontificate, the Church had become the reign of the curia’s “pope-chaps” rather than a fountain of cultural dialogue.

The members of the Curia of the old days pushed for a new image of the Papacy in the last conclave. A more popular papacy, in order to mitigate the damage to that image, that they themselves had infringed during Benedict XVI’s pontificate. Pope Francis met their needs. An outward-looking Pope, that would allow the Curia to be rebuilt according to the old schemes. And Pope Francis ultimately appointed the men of the Curia of the old days to many key posts, and praised the “old Curiale”.

At the same time, Pope Francis does not love the old ‘Italian fix’, and perhaps his future choices will be a surprise for those who were hoping a return of the old days. Putting aside any diplomatic reverence, Pope Francis instinctively goes beyond the old schemes of the Curia. Although the informal Papacy may present some limits, it is also true that Pope Francis may also contribute to strengthen the international profile of the Catholic Church. He designed the profile of the outward-looking Church. How it may be shaped for what concerns its governance is yet to be determined. The Pope will need very good consultants. One of them, a hidden one, may be Benedict XVI. Looking at the discussion about reforms and listening to rumors on his next moves, it is conceivable that Pope Francis’ next choices will be to further the goal of giving the Church an ever more international character.

It seems that the Second Vatican Council tactics are back. During the Council, drafts of the documents still under discussion were leaked to friendly journalists, in order to influence the outcome and favor the more progressive positions. It is not accidental that Benedict XVI has spoken about a «Council of the media» and a «real Council». Nowadays, everything has changed. The instigators of the «Council of the media» are now commanding the levers of the information flow. Therefore, it is imperative that the “real” document be circulated, or at the very least an update on the state of the discussion thus far.

It is a very sensitive discussion. In his most recent interview, granted to the Italian newspaper “Corriere della Sera”, Pope Francis stated that to talk about the family is the first step toward a discussion about a general crisis of society. His aim – he indicated – is to make praxis a pastoral approach, leaving case analysis aside. Pope Francis underlined this in reference to several different issues, from euthanasia to birth control, and to the pastoral care of the divorced and remarried. Speaking about birth control, he quoted Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae, and referred to him as a genius who pulled the brake on a misguided cultural trend, reiterating the tradition of the Church «despite it running countercurrent.» Pope Francis then added that the very Paul VI used to recommend confessors to be merciful.

Recalling Paul VI words helps us to see that exercising pastoral care in a way that looks at the issue on a case-by-case basis is not new. Pope Francis, in fact, wants to specifically underscore a pastoral approach, in the midst on an ongoing crisis of the Church which is yet to relent. But above all he is riding the waves stirred up by the deliberations of the general congregations, i.e. the pre-conclave meetings. «[When I was elected] I did not have a program for the renewal of the Church– Pope Francis said to “Il Corriere della Sera – I am acting on the basis of the outcome of the general congregations.»

The general congregations have been dominated by the old establishment cardinals, by the gang of old diplomats that was certainly shrewder in the wheeling and dealing of a secret vote with plenty of unknowns. The possibility of electing Jorge Mario Bergoglio had been raised all-too casually from the beginning,  and increasingly gained momentum during the votes until his election as the person to carry forward a precise program of government. The Curia of the old days is back, and with it discussions that, up until now, seemed to had been set aside some 30 years ago.

That of communion for the divorced and remarried is a particularly difficult issue. The expectation of a “shift” of position about it has been constantly increasing since Pope Francis was elected, as if it were a fundamental issue. The press underscored Francis’ “progressive outlook,” his open mind, almost taking for granted that a shift of paradigm was simply a must. The discourse in the media portrayed a Pope Francis as someone different from who he really is. Some themes from the period following the Second Vatican Council – which were thought had been dealt with and brought to a closure – are current again. Pope Francis will have to watch out for an agenda set by the media.  A media that will turn against him when they realize he is not about to meet their expectation of fulfilling that agenda.

As soon as an extraordinary synod for the family was announced, the pressure for a change in the Church’s doctrine became really strong. The pressures mostly came from the German language Churches. Not by coincidence, during his 2011 trip to Germany, Benedict XVI warned about a Church rich in works and poor in principles, a clear and painful reference to the German Church, rich because of the kirchensteuer, the tax on religion, and at the same time ever more drifting away from Christian principles. The German-speaking world gave birth – in Austria – to “We are Church”, a far-leaning progressive Catholic association. And, again, it was the German-speaking world that gave birth to the Pfarrer Initiative, a proposal from priests and theologians that called for a change in the Church’s doctrine with regards to the divorced and remarried, civil unions, and women in the priesthood.

Benedict XVI was keenly aware of these issues. In a meeting with the Swiss bishops in 2006, he recalled that – when he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and occasionally traveled back to Germany – he was always asked about these very same topics (communion to the divorced and remarried, civil unions, and allowing women to join the priesthood), and he warned not to be concerned constantly and exclusively with moral precepts, since the Christian faith is not just a compilation of precepts.

Pope Francis has also mentioned on several occasions and in different settings that he does not want a moralistic Church, either. He does want a Church that addresses and sheds light on the challenges at hand. Perhaps this is why he called Cardinal Walter Kasper to address the consistory. Cardinal Kasper himself had been, in the early 90s, among the signatories of a document by the bishops in the Rhine region. The document contemplated the possibility for people married and divorced living in a second union to receive the Communion. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then led by Cardinal Ratzinger, called them back to obedience.

The main topics of that 1993 document found echo in the sophisticated presentation by Cardinal Kasper. Ultimately, Kasper recognized that the problem of divorced and remarried who want to receive communion relates to a small portion of believers. And the theme of the divorced and remarried is addressed only in the fifth section of the speech. But it is nevertheless the real focus. And the text reaches this focal point through a series of opaque, almost misleading, statements.

Cardinal Kasper led off from the premise that so many people nowadays have abandoned their faith; they are «baptized, not evangelized,» baptized catecumeni, if not baptized pagan even. Therefore – Kasper maintained – «we cannot start with a list of teachings and commandments, and become fixated with the so-called ‘hot issues’.»

After affirming that «with respect to some situations, the Church cannot propose a solution that is different or in contrast to the words of Jesus,» Cardinal Kasper presented two arguments, yet left it to the synod of bishops the task to come up with more definite solutions.

One approach, Cardinal Kasper proposes, is to develop a more spiritual and pastoral procedure for the causes of marriage annulments.  He contemplates entrusting a priest with pastoral experience the decision to annul, instead of submitting the cause to the ecclesiastical courts (as foreseen by Canon Law). But this approach, some note, would lead to the dismantling of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and finally to a come up with your own faith process, i.e. a faith left to the diverse sensitivities of priests from all over the world. The Church, pragmatically, has always maintained these two stages in decision-making to declare the nullity of a marriage in order to preserve the sacrality of the marriage and to have homogeneous decisions.

In fact, the very structure of the Church is questioned. What one can read between the lines of Kasper’s presentation is that, on the one hand, there is Jesus, prompt to listening, and then there is the Church, all-too rigorous and not sufficiently merciful.

In his second argument, Cardinal Kasper recalls what the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated in 1994 (and was later reaffirmed by Benedict XVI in 2012). In some cases – it was stated – the divorced and remarried who cannot receive the sacramental communion can receive the spiritual communion. But – the cardinal argues – if «he who receives the spiritual communion is one with Jesus, how can he be in contradiction with the commandments of Christ? Why, thus, could he not also receive the sacramental communion?»

Cardinal Kasper’s reasoning could give rise to other questions: why is this logic not applied to confession? If the faithful has really repented of his sins, and he spiritually asks for forgiveness to God without the mediation of a priest, why could he not receive absolution? It is evident that following the criteria of the spiritual feeling, we devoid the sacrament of its very essence, and would find ourselves in the very same path of Protestantism.

Kasper also spoke about the early Church, and underscored that there had been some cases of second quasi-matrimonial bonds following situations of adultery in the first union. «It is certain – Cardinal Kasper said -  that in some local Churches there was a common law right that allowed for some Christians to experience a new relationship, with a second partner, even when the first partner was still alive.  This happened after a period of penance, and did not give them a second avenue, not a second marriage, but rather, through participation in the communion, a board for salvation.»

Cardinal Kasper also quoted some of the fathers of the Church, saying they favored this idea. However, such an assertion is contrary to the views set forth by the Jesuit Henry Crouzel in an article published in the Jesuit-run magazine “La Civiltà Cattolica” in 1970. In the article, Crouzel underscored that «it is unacceptable hearing so many remarkable canon law experts asserting as a fact proved by evidence that the current ‘eastern’ discipline concerning the divorce and new marriage is substantially that of the Greek fathers of the 4th and 5th century, which is simply false.»

Father Crouzel’s position, backed with extensive documentation, is that «we ought to demand from theologians and canon law experts that, rather than basing their information about complex issues on books written in a hurry and meant to impact the public at large — following a tactic that reminds us of pressure groups’ efforts to influence the public — they dedicate the attention and time that is required to study more difficult books which are the result of real scientific research. Rather, they find these books too long, too complicated, and they do not have the courage to read them.»

Crouzel evidently puts the finger on a still-open wound. The main reactions to Cardinal Kasper’s words (who then re-launched his agenda in following interviews, also calling for more space for women in the Church) came from the top levels of the German Church, like Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, archbishop of Berlin, and the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gehrard Ludwig Mueller.

At the offset of the debate, Mueller wrote an article for the Vatican daily newspaper “L’Osservatore Romano” to reiterate the doctrine of the Church. The clarification was needed because of a leak from the dioceses of Freiburg, that is administrated by Archbishop Robert Zoelltisch, President of the German Bishops’ Conference. It was an unfinished working paper, according Zoellitsch, which gave divorced and remarried people access to Communion without a penance which would have included a change in lifestyle.

During recent days, Cardinal Mueller has come back to the issue. His most important intervention was in Milan last February 13, in his lectio magistralis for the inauguration of the academic year of the School of Theology of Northern Italy.

There, Mueller underscored that «the critical rigor of theology should first of all make it steer clear from the superficiality of those who indulge in the mundane contexts created by the pressures of the media and of mentalities which are incompatible with the authentic content of the faith: just think about how inappropriately casual is the theologizing over themes like women in the priesthood, the Church’s authority, the access to sacraments for those who are not in full communion with the Church.»