Pope Francis was elected five years ago with a mandate to reform the Roman Curia. He had a clear goal: to shift power and responsibility away from the Vatican and towards local bishops’ conferences. As he put it in his famous pre-conclave speech to cardinals, the Church had become “self-referential” and needed to turn its gaze outward again.
But while Francis had a strong vision of curial reform, he seemed uncertain how to realise it. And so precisely a month after his election he formed a council of eight cardinals from Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas to advise him. A year later, their number increased to nine when Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, gained a seat at the table.
