Cardinal Gracias will help to reform the troubled Catholic Church.

14 04 2013 From the Desk of…Joseph Dias, General Secretary, The CSF Catholic-Christian Secular Forum csf.org April 13, 2013: Pope Francis on Saturday made one of his first major decisions by setting up an advisory board of cardinals from around the world to help him govern the Catholic Church and reform its troubled central administration and this group included Mumbai’s Cardinal Oswald Gracias.
The Pope selected a group of eight cardinals who will help him put into place changes in an administration which has been held responsible for some of the mishaps and scandals that plagued the eight-year reign of Pope Benedict XVI before he resigned in February this year.
Anger at the mostly Italian prelates who run the Curia-the central governing bodies of the Church was one of the reasons why the cardinals chose the first non-European pope for 1,300 years and quashed the chances of one of the front-runners, Milan Archbishop Angelo Scola.
Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello from Italy, Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa of Santiago, Chile, Oswald Gracias of Bombay, Reinhard Marx of Munich, Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa, Sean Patrick O’Malley of Boston, George Pell of Sydney, and Oscar Andres Rodriquez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Bishop Marcello Semeraro of Albano, Italy, will serve as secretary, a Vatican statement said.
The Archdiocese in the city of Mumbai in India is known by the Vatican as the Archdiocese of Bombay.
Who is Cardinal Oswald Gracias?
Oswald Gracias was born on December 24, 1944 and is a Goan Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the Archbishop of Bombay (Mumbai) and was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI on 14 October 2006 to the post, and was made a cardinal in 2007. In 2010, he was elected as the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India.
After being ordained a priest in 1970 Gracias went on to study in Rome and was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Bombay and Titular Bishop of Bladia by Pope John Paul II on in 1997. Gracias was later named Archbishop of Agra. He was appointed Archbishop of Bombay in 2006 taking over from Cardinal Ivan Dias.
In 2010, Cardinal Gracias suffered from a rare cancer and underwent surgeries and is currently said to be cancer-free though this illness affected his body making him thin. But when it comes to his role as a cardinal and priest Cardinal Gracias continues to perform all his duties.
Vatican City: India’s Oswald Gracias was among eight high-ranking cardinals from around the world who were today appointed by Pope Francis in an advisory council to look into ways of reforming the Vatican bureaucracy.
The council will help the Pope revise the Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia Pastor bonus – the Church administration which helps him in the daily governance, the Vatican said in a statement. Pope John Paul II had issued Pastor Bonus in 1988.
“The Holy Father decided to set up the Council following on from discussions that emerged during the General Congregations in the lead up to the Conclave which elected him the 265th Successor to St Peter,” it said.
The group of Cardinals will be coordinated by Rodriguez while Marcello Semeraro, Bishop of Albano (Italy), will serve as the secretary.
The first meeting of the Council will take place on October 1-3, 2013, the statement said.
Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the appointments comes exactly one month after Pope Francis was elected as the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.
The council would have no legislative power and that its main function is to “help” and “advise” the Pope, the ‘Vatican Radio’ quoted Lombardi as saying.
The Pope has already been in touch with the selected cardinals, he said.
The Catholic Church has faced calls for reform in the wake of scandals involving the sexual abuse of children by priests and allegations of corruption.
- Agencies