If there was a Catholic “man of the year” for 2018, many people’s candidate would be Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta. Or perhaps “fireman of the year”, as he was deployed to extinguish the conflagration ignited by the Holy Father’s incendiary trip to Chile in January. He put out the fire threatening Francis, but saving the Pope left the Chilean Church in smouldering ruins.
It is an indication of how all-consuming the sexual abuse crisis is now in Rome that when Scicluna – while keeping his day job as Archbishop of Malta – was appointed in November the adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), it was widely hailed as a positive sign.
