Ein guter Hirte und Bürokrat oder: Was macht einen kompetenten Bischof aus?

Abstract

A Good Shepherd and Bureaucrat or: What Makes a Good Bishop? Elite Recruitment as the Purpose of Roman Administrative Reform in the Late 17th Century Religious reforms characterized the Italian episcopacy during the 18th century. This article aims to show that these reforms were not so much driven by ideational issues but were the result of a lasting administrative reform. In 1676, Innocent XI had started a comprehensive process of bureaucratisation in the Roman Curia with the help of his auditor Giovanni Battista de Luca. Within this larger process, the pope appointed de Luca secretary of a new congregation that was supposed to select the most suitable candidates for Italian episcopal sees. Although this congregation was entitled to make decisions only in a few minor cases (since, in most Italian territories, the pope did not choose the new bishops) and although it worked only for about four years, it achieved long-term success. On the one hand, de Luca developed procedures that provided a permanent boost to the bureaucratisation process; on the other hand, he presented this new policy to a broad readership through his books. However, he did not describe his reforms as innovations but as a reconfiguration of the bureaucratic status quo in the Curia.