In all the talk of curial reform, most of the attention has focused on the top spots: what will they be when the dust settles, and who will hold the various positions that will emerge? Those are reasonable questions, even vitally important ones. Nevertheless, the Roman Curia is a bureaucracy, and will be the day after the reform is implemented just as much as it was the day before.
Bureaucracies run on bureaucrats – workaday folks with billets and briefcases and portfolios – and the Roman Curia is no different. These are the people who mind the store, keep the books, and do all the thankless things that keep the wheels on the bus, as it were. They are, in the main and with very rare exception, talented and dedicated professionals with a sense of institutional mission, and who take a quiet pride in their work.
