Three Cardinals retired from C9

Source: Vatican Media

Three Cardinals have left the Pope's Advisory Council of Cardinals. At a press conference yesterday, marking conclusion of the 27th Council meeting, Vatican Press Office, Director Greg Burke told reporters:

"In October the Pope had written to three of the more elderly Cardinals - Cardinal Pell (77) from Australia, Cardinal Errazuriz (85) from Chile and Cardinal Monsengwo of Congo (79) thanking them for their work," Burke said, adding that no new Cardinals had been put in their place.

Burke noted that Pope Francis had been present for all sessions of the three-day meeting, excluding Wednesday morning when he presided at the General Audience. He pointed out that Cardinal Parolin had not been present due to his commitments in Morocco at the signing of the Global Compact for Migration,

Burke said some important themes of the meeting including the containment of costs of the Holy See, the February meeting of the Presidents of Episcopal Conferences, and the new Apostolic Constitution concerning the Roman Curia and the Dicastery for Communication.

He said Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Coordinator for the Council of the Economy, "got everybody's attention in talking about how to contain costs in the Vatican."

Marx, he said, mentioned several proposals to help the various offices plan "multi-year budgets - so it's not just from year to year" but with the intention of having a long-term plan that would take them "five to ten years down the road".

Burke said Cardinal Marx also voiced the possibility that all Vatican offices "have job descriptions for each of their positions to see if there is not some possibility of being more effective, or having more mobility of jobs within the Vatican" and he laid out the possibility of "people going into early retirement".

Burke said Cardinal Marx confirmed that although the highest cost sustained by the Vatican is that of personnel, there is no intention to dismiss anyone.

The Press Office Director finally spoke of how the new Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, Paolo Ruffini, had spoken about reforms in Vatican Media - underscoring the importance of synergy and describing the criteria to be able to guarantee a unified strategy for communications.

He said that Ruffini also commented on the value of the different means of communication (radio, TV, web, social media) and on the unique richness of the Vatican's multi-linguistic media production.