That was the gist of John Allen's All Things Catholic column last week. As Allen notes, Benedict has now filled four of the ten most important positions in the Vatican with his own appointees, and by his analysis only one of those four is clearly a leading right-wing figure - Cardinal Dias of India who is the new Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
But I wouldn't be as quick as Allen to seem to suggest that Benedict is going to be more moderate than people think. As Allen notes, two of the other three appointments are members of the "center-right", and the one centrist is the bunch might well not have been appointed as part of a plan to provide balance or outreach to those not on the right - but instead was appointed to correct for the fact that no one from Brazil, the largest Catholic country on Earth, has served in a top curial position since 2000.
So ... Allen may be right, but these is a small N to look for generalizable patterns in. And there are reasons to think he might not be right. Still, it's no doubt a good thing that Cardinal Claudio Hummes has replaced Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos as Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy, Castrillon Hoyos was indeed "callous" and radically insensitive".
Posted by armand at November 10, 2006 12:03 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Religion