(ZENIT News / Rome, 11.25.2025).- On November 18, Cardinal Raymundo Damasceno Assis, who at 88 years old has far surpassed the age at which most high-ranking prelates retire from public office, submitted his resignation as Pontifical Commissioner for the Heralds of the Gospel and their associated societies, Virgo Flos Carmeli and Regina Virginum. The request came after eight years of service and amid a growing conviction that the time had finally arrived to conclude his mission.
However, what seemed like the natural end of a chapter took an unexpected turn. Three days later, on November 21, the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life responded with a concise message: the Cardinal should «wait a few months» before leaving his post. As far as the response is concerned, there is no indication that Pope Leo XIV was consulted about this refusal. This is not a minor point, since Pontifical Commissioners are usually appointed directly by the Pope, and their work ends when he relieves them of their duties. The fact that no audience was recorded between the Prefect, Sister Simona Brambilla, and the Holy Father in the brief interval between the resignation and the Dicastery’s letter has fuelled speculation as to whether the Prefect’s refusal had the Pope’s approval.
The episode comes at a delicate moment. A recently published book –The Commissariat of the Heralds of the Gospel: A Chronology of Events 2017–2025 –, has exposed what the authors consider a long list of grievances that arose during the intervention: blocked vocations, suspended ordinations, restrictions on internal life, financial and moral burdens, and a climate of suspicion, which some legal experts close to the Heralds describe as punitive despite the absence of formal charges. The book also highlights a lesser-known front: a wave of civil lawsuits, allegedly instigated during the Apostolic Visitation, which ultimately failed in court, all resolved in favour of the Heralds.
The situation is further complicated by a scenario some consider plausible: that Cardinal Damasceno may also have submitted his resignation directly to the Pope. If the Holy Father were to accept it, while the Dicastery simultaneously rejected it, the Vatican could face an institutional dissonance rarely seen in recent decades, a possible sign of a procedural irregularity.
