Bishop Eleganti warns against ‘decline of the Petrine office’

 

AdVaticanum

Aug. 11, 2026

 Bishop Marian Eleganti has questioned whether increasingly informal papal encounters risk obscuring the distinct dignity and purpose of the Petrine office

Bishop Marian Eleganti has criticised the growing informality surrounding the papacy, arguing that private audiences with public figures risk obscuring the authority and distinct purpose of the Petrine office. The former Bishop of Chur made the criticism in a piece entitled the Decline of the Petrine Office?, which was published on 10 August on various Catholic blogs. 

The comments follow Pope Leo XIV’s private meeting with the American musician, poet and artist Patti Smith at the Apostolic Palace on 31 July. The 40-minute meeting, attended by Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro, was documented by official Vatican photographs and video. Pope Leo and Smith were both born in Chicago, and the encounter attracted attention because of Smith’s longstanding relationship with the Catholic Church and her previous meetings with Pope Francis.

Bishop Eleganti wrote that the meeting itself was apparently harmless and that he assumed the conversation consisted largely of courtesies rather than matters of significance for the Church. The circumstances of the meeting, however, led him to question why recent popes have increasingly engaged in informal encounters, spontaneous interviews and highly publicised meetings with figures from entertainment and culture.

The former Bishop of Chur argued that such appearances can reinforce the impression that the Pope is simply another figure within the international establishment rather than the holder of a unique ecclesial office. “In the end such a reception appears to many as a trivialisation of what these persons stand for,” Bishop Eleganti wrote. “In this way the pope himself obscures the position of the Church and even gives scandal to the faithful.”

More: https://x.com/realadvaticanum/status/2087090745224368400?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w