Brasilia, Brazil, Mar 21, 2018 / 01:58 pm (ACI Prensa).- A Catholic bishop, five priests and other administrative officials in the Brazilian state of Goiás have been arrested on accusations of embezzling more than two million reales (about $600,000) from the Catholic Church.
Bishop José Ronaldo of the Diocese of Formosa was among those arrested March 19, as part of operation “Caiaphas.” Among other findings, the operation discovered 70,000 reales (about $21,000) in cash in a cabinet with a false bottom. The cabinet belonged to Fr. Epitácio Cardoso Pereira, in the Planaltina township.
In wake of these developments, Pope Francis on March 21 appointed the Archbishop of Uberaba, Paulo Mendes Peixoto, as apostolic administrator of the diocese.
According to prosecutors, the embezzled money comes from tithes, donations, stipends for baptisms and weddings from churches. Authorities said the diversion of money has been going on since 2015 when the bishop took possession of the Diocese of Formosa.
Judge Fernando Oliveira Samuel said that the money “was systematically diverted by order of José Ronaldo and also approved by the rest of the clerics.”
According to authorities, legal wiretaps suggested that Bishop Ronaldo and four other priests purchased a ranch to raise livestock and a store where lottery tickets are sold.
“In addition to that, it is possible that the vehicles acquired by the diocese were intended for Fr. Moacyr Santana’s personal use in the city of Posse,” the judge added.
The public prosecutor in charge of the case, Douglas Chegury, said that similar irregularities occurred when Bishop Ronaldo was in the Diocese of Janauba.
Authorities began investigating the current case in December 2017 when members of the faithful complained that monthly expenses for the bishop’s residence had gone from 5,000 reales ($1,520) to 35,000 reales ($10,600) since Bishop Ronaldo assumed the diocese.
Consequently, the local faithful requested an open disclosure of the diocesan accounts. When the bishop refused, they said they would boycott church collections until the measure was taken.
Bishop Ronaldo claimed at the time that there were "no improprieties" and that he did not take any of the money collected.
ACI Digital, the Portuguese language sister agency of CNA, repeatedly sought the reaction of the Diocese of Formosa but did not receive a response by press time.
The Secretary General of the Brazilian Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Leonardo Steiner, issued a press release March 20 stating that “In face of the jailing of the bishop of the Diocese of Formosa in Goiás State, the Brazilian Bishops’ Conference expresses its solidarity with the clergy and faithful of the diocese, reminding the brother bishop that justice is to abandon oneself, trusting in the merciful will of God.”
“The truth of the facts must be established with justice and transparency, considering the good of the particular church and the bishop,” the conference said.
The bishops of Brazil asked ”all the faithful of the Church to remain united in prayer to be true witnesses to the Gospel.”
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Lima, Peru, Jun 19, 2017 / 10:40 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Holy See Press Office announced Monday that Pope Francis will travel to Chile from January 15 to 18 and Peru from January 18 to 21, 2018.
In Chile the Holy Father will visit the capital of Santiago, as well as Temuco and Iquique. In Peru, he will visit the capital city of Lima, as well as Puerto Maldonado and Trujillo.
“The program of the trip will be published in due course,” the Vatican statement said.
The Archbishop of Lima and Primate of Peru, Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, affirmed in a press conference on Monday that “the Holy Father receives daily invitations from countries around the world. He has (chosen) to come to Peru and Chile. This makes us think of the enormous affection he has for our country.”
The Pope “comes as a pilgrim of peace, justice, unity. It is an excellent opportunity for the whole Peruvian family to seek the best, knowing that the Pope brings a message of reconciliation and mission, that the Church is open to (everyone),” he added during the press conference, held in the headquarters of the Peruvian Bishops’ Conference in Lima.
“I call on you so that together we can prepare well for the presence of the Pope that will be a before and after in the history of the country,” he concluded.
The President of Peru, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski reiterated the archbishop’s comments, saying that the Holy Father’s visit “will mark a before and after” for Peru.
“I think this visit is going to be an immense success,” he added.
In Chile, the Apostolic Nuncio, Bishop Ivo Scapolo, announced the news, accompanied by Archbishop Santiago Silva, President of the Episcopal Conference of Chile (CECh), Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati, Archbishop of Santiago, and Bishop Fernando Ramos, General Secretary of the CECh, who will be the General Coordinator of the papal visit.
In the announcement Bishop Fernando Ramos affirmed that “the Pope is an important person as Peter’s successor, and his word and testimony are always intended to (announce) the person of Jesus.”
“In his visit he will help the church to reaffirm our following of Jesus,” he added.
The announcement comes a few months ahead of Pope Francis’ upcoming trip to Colombia in September.
The Church’s first Latin American Pope has already visited several countries in South and Central America, including Brazil in 2013, Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay in 2015, and Cuba and Mexico in 2016. He has yet to visit his home country of Argentina as Pope.
The last Pope to visit Chile and Peru was Pope John Paul II, who made pastoral trips to Peru in 1985 and 1988, and Chile in 1987.
Rodrigo Iván Cortés, president of the National Front for the Family, described Claudia Sheinbaum’s victory as “very bad news for life, family, and freedoms.” / Credit: EWTN Noticias/Screenshot
ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 5, 2024 / 18:50 pm (CNA).
Various pro-life, pro-family, and lay leaders of the Catholic Church in Mexico have reacted with concern to the election of Claudia Sheinbaum as president of the country.
Rodrigo Iván Cortés, president of the National Front for the Family, described Sheinbaum’s victory as “very bad news for life, family, and freedoms.”
For the pro-family leader, Sheinbaum represents continuity with the same progressive agenda of the outgoing administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Citing the growing legalization of abortion and use of gender ideology throughout the country, Cortés explained that “the López Obrador regime culminated in a culture of death, of ideology, not only of gender confusion but also of socialist populist indoctrination.”
However, in an interview with “EWTN Noticias,” EWTN’s Spanish-language news program, Cortés emphasized that just as people didn’t vote for López Obrador because of his position on abortion, gender ideology, or for freedoms to be canceled, people didn’t vote for Sheinbaum for those same reasons. What happens, he indicated, is that “when they come to power, they implement [that agenda].”
For Juan Dabdoub, president of the Mexican Family Council (ConFamilia), there are “two important factors” that would explain Sheinbaum’s victory in the presidential elections.
The first, he told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, is that in Mexico there is “a poor political culture, which makes a large majority of the people manipulable.”
A second factor, Dabdoub noted, is that “Mexican Catholicism has failed in something extremely important that Pope St. John Paul II already pointed out: ‘A faith that does not create culture is a useless faith.’”
In a Jan. 16, 1982, speech, John Paul II said: “A faith that does not become culture is a faith that is not fully accepted, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived.”
For the president of ConFamilia, “Mexico has stopped being a country of practicing Catholics and has become one of simply baptized people; and when a Catholic doesn’t live his faith in the outside world, that is, outside his home and his parish, those who dominate the world take control.”
Dabdoub considered Sheinbaum’s victory to be “a brutal threat” to the defense of life, family, and freedoms, since she has “a radical progressive agenda.”
‘Formation and serious work are needed’
For Father Hugo Valdemar, who for 15 years headed the communications office of the Primatial Archdiocese of Mexico when Cardinal Norberto Rivera led the archdiocese, “Catholics must learn that social media are not enough to really influence; serious formation and work are needed, otherwise everything remains up in the air.”
“The big problem is that we haven’t been seriously forming the laity, and nothing is being done to do so,” he told ACI Prensa. However, he noted that with a Sheinbaum administration, “the Church is not in danger. I don’t see an adverse climate, much less persecutory, and Christian values have been violated for a long time.”
What’s next in the battle for life and family?
Pilar Rebollo, director of the Steps for Life platform, pointed out that Sheinbaum’s election “means much more work” for pro-lifers: “It requires us to be united, it requires us to be coordinated,” anticipating possible “frontal attacks on what we know as our values that are foundational.”
Rebollo also emphasized the importance of serving underserved and vulnerable populations, which, she considered, were key to Sheinbaum’s victory. This, she said, must be done “not out of a desire for numbers but zeal for souls, a desire to [heal] wounds, zeal for humanity, to see Christ in others.”
It should be noted that all three candidates for president — Sheinbaum, Xóchitl Gálvez, and Jorge Álvarez Máynez — backed the legalization of abortion and the LGBTQ policy agenda, so Mexican voters had no real alternative to vote for a pro-life and pro-family candidate.
Sheinbaum is the first person of Jewish ancestry to be elected to Mexico’s presidency. In February of this year, she visited Pope Francis at the Vatican, where she asked him to bless a rose wrought in silver by a Mexican artisan. She later presented it to the rector of the Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.
Jason Poblete of the Global Liberty Alliance anticipates that Claudia Sheinbaum will govern under the shadow of the current president and his leftist party. Credit: EWTN News Nightly/Screenshot
During her campaign, Sheinbaum was seen wearing a skirt bearing the image of the revered Virgin of Guadalupe. According to Jason Poblete of the Global Liberty Alliance, Sheinbaum also wore a rosary around her neck at a public event. He and others suggested that this was an act of demagoguery intended to appeal to Catholics, who comprise approximately 78% of the country’s population.
Sheinbaum, 61, holds a doctorate in physics specializing in energy and taught at Mexico’s National Autonomous University. Her political militancy began during her student years, joining a group that became the founding youth movement of the socialist Party of Democratic Revolution. She later joined the ruling Morena party. She has been described as a climate activist, having been part of a Nobel Prize-winning commission advising the United Nations on climate change.
Sheinbaum’s tenure as Mexico City mayor was marked by progressive initiatives. For example, the World Economic Forum, led by Klaus Schwab, noted that as mayor she ended public school policy requiring gender-appropriate uniforms for children. Sheinbaum said: “The era when girls had to wear a skirt and boys had to wear trousers has been left behind; I think that’s passed into history,” and added: “Boys can wear skirts if they want and girls can wear pants if they want.”
While she did not raise the issue during her campaign, Sheinbaum’s Morena party is a firm supporter of abortion. The newly-elected congress will be seated in September, one month before Sheinbaum’s inauguration, thus allowing incumbent president López Obrador an opportunity to push through his legislative initiatives.
Poblete told “EWTN News Nightly” that the 2024 election may have led to a Morena majority in Mexico’s Congress, which has vowed to amend the constitution in order for Mexican Supreme Court justices to be elected by popular ballot, thereby confirming partisan control of the heretofore independent judiciary, which would rule on issues such as abortion and matters of gender ideology. He fears that Sheinbaum will govern under the shadow of the current president and his leftist party.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Migrant child has lunch at the Casa de Paso "Divina Providencia" in Cucuta. / David Ramos/ACI Prensa.
Lima, Peru, May 26, 2022 / 16:00 pm (CNA).
The Church has asked the governments of Colombia and Venezuela to resume their “truncated… […]
1 Comment
Sigh….words fail me because the Bishop’s conference is not calling for a visitation of all diocesan ledgers. Nor do the trending Francis mercy clichés from Bishop Steiner dissuade me from sensing a slap on the wrist and a bonding of all miscreants not in the sievelike prison system of Brazil but at next year’s Miss Bumbum contest in Sao Paulo which the faux communists of China are now imitating. Brazil. Five hundred years of leavening by the Church…yet there are still “uncontacted tribes”….pass the Caipirinha.
Sigh….words fail me because the Bishop’s conference is not calling for a visitation of all diocesan ledgers. Nor do the trending Francis mercy clichés from Bishop Steiner dissuade me from sensing a slap on the wrist and a bonding of all miscreants not in the sievelike prison system of Brazil but at next year’s Miss Bumbum contest in Sao Paulo which the faux communists of China are now imitating. Brazil. Five hundred years of leavening by the Church…yet there are still “uncontacted tribes”….pass the Caipirinha.