Pope Francis speaks in St. Peter’s Square Oct. 15, 2022. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Rome Newsroom, Nov 22, 2022 / 12:30 pm (CNA).
Why did Pope Francis dismiss the entire leadership of the Church’s worldwide charity arm Tuesday?
What role will Pier Francesco Pinelli play as temporary administrator of Caritas Internationalis, appointed by papal decree on Nov. 22?
A key date to understanding the move and how it aligns with the pope’s broader reforms is Oct. 15, 2022.
On that day, Pope Francis received in audience at the Vatican Father Giacomo Canobbio and delegates of Bain Capital. The financial investment firm is where Pinelli previously worked. And Canobbio is the priest who, without announcement, was appointed by Pope Francis to the role of commissioner of the Pontifical Lateran University.
Both appointments are typical for the pontiff and his preferred modus operandi: Pope Francis sends an inspection or appoints a commissioner whenever he wants to reform something.
The papacy of commissioners
There were no apparent reasons for appointing a commissioner to Caritas Internationalis — just as there were no apparent reasons for appointing a commissioner at the Pontifical Lateran University.
However, Pope Francis has previously ordered a number of inspections.
Bishop Claudio Maniago was made the inspector of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, after which the pope appointed Archbishop Arthur Roche as prefect of the dicastery. Next, Bishop Egidio Miragoli inspected the Congregation of the Clergy, which was still in progress when the pope appointed the Korean bishop Lazzaro You Heung-sik — later created cardinal— as prefect of the dicastery.
At the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis appointed several commissions.
One such body was the commission of reference on the administrative-economic structures of the Holy See, known by its Italian acronym COSEA. Another was CRIOR, the commission for studying the Institute of Works of Religion reform, commonly known as the Vatican Bank.
Their work, once completed, resulted in the extensive overhaul of the Vatican’s financial departments and the new Institute of Works of Religion statutes, promulgated in 2019.
However, the appointment of a commissioner in Caritas Internationalis has another clear precedent: the inspection of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development.
The inspection took place in July 2021 and was led by Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago. The team also included Sister Helen Alford, vice-rector of the Pontifical Angelicum University, an ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences; and Pinelli, the new administrator of Caritas Internationalis.
Pinelli’s profile
A trained engineer and experienced manager, Pinelli has worked with several institutions as well as a consultant for management and investment firms.
According to Vatican rumors not officially confirmed but provided to CNA from multiple sources, Pinelli was also involved in restructuring what is now the Dicastery for Integral Human Development.
A press release from the dicastery said Pinelli was an engineer “with a more humanist than technical way of proceeding” and that he was “formed in Ignatian spirituality,” a man who “from an early age was active as a volunteer working with recovering drugs addicts, in development cooperation, support for missionary works, and catechesis.” The statement also noted that he is married with three children and three grandchildren.
The release also emphasized that “in 33 years of work,” Pinelli had gained managerial experience in different sectors, including a large energy company.
Having worked both as a project manager for energy companies and as a management consultant for Bain, Pinelli also has experience working with religious and secular works and institutions, according to the release.
Obviously, his formation and positions in some Jesuit institutions may have played a role. It seems likely that Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, the current prefect of the dicastery, had a word in involving him and others.
However, it is still hard to assess which issues are at stake. It seems clear that the pope wants to reform Caritas Internationalis, including its statutes and bylaws.
Founded in 1951, the Catholic confederation is made up of 162 charitable organizations based in 200 countries around the world. Its headquarters are located on Vatican territory in Rome, and the Vatican oversees its activity.
According to Czerny’s dicastery, “no evidence emerged of financial mismanagement or sexual impropriety”; however, “deficiencies were noted in management and procedures, seriously prejudicing team spirit and staff morale.”
Pinelli’s task
The reform of the statutes will be the first task of the new commissioner.
Pinelli will be assisted by Maria Amparo Alonso Escobar, Caritas Internationalis’ head of advocacy, and by Jesuit Father Manuel Morujão, who will provide personal and spiritual accompaniment to Caritas employees, according to Pope Francis’ decree.
In May 2023, the next Caritas Internationalis general assembly is expected to be held in Rome, with the appointment of the new president, general secretary, and treasurer. By then, the reform process will likely be completed.
Caritas Internationalis will undergo a review “in order to improve its management norms and procedures — even while financial matters have been well-handled and fundraising goals regularly achieved — and so better to serve its member charitable organizations around the world.”
However, a reform of the statutes already took place in 2019 and was approved by the pope with a rescript of Jan. 13, 2020.
As for the change of the statutes of Caritas Internationalis, it was simply a matter of passing the competencies from the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, which no longer exists, to the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, which has absorbed its functions.
As for the rules of procedure, these changes were not communicated. But they generally accepted some of the requests approved by the Caritas General Assembly, which envisaged encouraging the presence of women within the highest representative bodies and including two young people in the same representative bodies.
In particular, there was talk of the Representative Council of the federation, abbreviated with the name RE.CO., the acronym for Representative Council. These indications have now been implemented and will become operational.
The structure of Caritas Internationalis was thus “adjusted” and adapted to the reform of the Curia.
However, the statutes of Caritas Internationalis remained confirmed in the structure as Pope Benedict XVI reformed them in 2012. Those statutes strengthened the collaboration between Caritas Internationalis and the Holy See and clearly outlined the competencies of the Vatican Secretariat of State.
Not only that: the new structure of Caritas Internationalis gave greater coordination to departments and bodies connected to the Holy See, which also concerned doctrinal aspects.
The rationale behind Benedict XVI’s reform
It is noteworthy that the 2012 reform was part of a more extensive project by Benedict XVI to accomplish Pastor Bonus’s provisions fully.
Pastor Bonus was the apostolic constitution that regulated the functions and tasks of the Curia offices, and Praedicate Evangelium now replaces that.
However, the reform came after a governance crisis. In 2011, the Secretariat of State did not approve the renomination of the former secretary general, Lesley-Anne Knight. (However, her work was praised by the president of Caritas Internationalis at the time, Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodriguez Maradiaga.) As a result, she was replaced by Michel Roy, a Frenchman who worked with Secours Catholique — the Caritas in France.
Knight’s non-confirmation also stemmed from the new approach given with the subsequent reform of Caritas Internationalis.
It was an approach that derived from the formulation of Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate. In the encyclical, Benedict XVI stressed that human development and foreign aid could not be separated from the demand for truth. The encyclical also pointed to the fact that many international organizations were promoting abortion, contraception, sterilization, and euthanasia.
This was an approach that Knight did not fully share, as she publicly explained to the media at the time.
While some approved of Knight’s departure, others were disappointed. Despite a robust generational change in Caritas Internationalis in recent years, these divisive feelings may have lingered in the background and fueled some complaints about “management and procedures.”
What will the new reform look like?
The tone of the dicastery’s press release suggests that the reform will be more managerial. But, above all, it is a substantial change in philosophy from the reform of Benedict XVI.
In short, it could be another paradigm shift by Pope Francis, comparable to some degree to his restrictions of the Traditional Latin Mass.
From this point of view, Pope Francis has identified several people to help complete his changes to the Church’s structure.
In carrying out the reform, the pope does not hesitate to demote someone like Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, current president of Caritas, who now finds himself mandated to “liaise” with Pinelli and his staff for the upcoming general assembly.
Tagle was rumored to be appointed the next prefect of the Dicastery of Bishops. Even if these rumors were to be confirmed, Tagle’s public image has now been compromised by the Caritas decision. This will also weigh in a future conclave.
Pope Francis, however, is completing his goals. As he said in one of his homilies in the days of the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020 — and also in a meeting with the Candia Foundation in April — he remains critical of humanitarian organizations that do good work but spend 60% of their budget on wages. The pope called on them to keep costs to a minimum, “so that most of the money goes to the people.”
[…]
Echoes of the “seamless garment” argument.
Very clear echos…and that’s the way he intended.
(Or whoever wrote this for him.)
There is an immense moral and salvific difference between, the right to life, to be born, and the right to quality of life after one is born. Abortion is a demonic evil to the most innocent and helpless and their sacred right to life, for all those all in the other issues, the right to life has been given, so morally, this is a lesser evil from this sacred reality going forward, as they have not lost the greatest and primary right to life. The greatest mistreatment or disregard, indifference, for those who have life but are not being murder, is not an equal moral evil, ever. Equal sacred dignity of each person does not mean all evils are morally equal. There always remains difference in kind and in degree. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, send us the Holy Spirit and true love for the Eternal Father’s Life and Love! Alleluia, Amen!
From another author: Pope Saint John Paul II wrote similarly in his 1988 apostolic exhortation, The Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the World (Christifideles Laici). “The inviolability of the person, which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights — for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture — is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition of all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination . . . “
But then again, since there is no hell, what do we care? 🙂
Who told you there is no hell?
Watch “Did Pope Francis Say Hell Does Not Exist? – ” on YouTube
https://youtu.be/sRn5cx5UEj4
D’accordo.
Will read the entire document, but that paragraph is an absolute howler. I will have to review if Benedict XVI said anything comparable re: migration. But the pope has made the patriarchate of Rome irrelevant to the future of Europe.
Saint Benedict, as in the founder of the Benedictines, not Pope Benedict.
Yes, and? The point is whether Benedict XVI (or John Paul II) said anything comparable to Pope Francis with respect to migration, or whether Francis stands out among recent popes in this regard.
Lost me at “migrants”, Your Holiness.
“The purport of the Holy Father’s remarks in the quoted lines is that Christians are called by the faith they received in their Baptism and compelled by the promise of eschatological judgment to care for the least of their brothers and sisters.”
We cannot know if Muslim migrants are our brothers and sisters IN CHRIST as we can only judge by their words and behavior, and not their souls. Caring for migrants does not require that they be allowed entry into a state, much less be given citizeship.
“in which a prominent figure with some legitimate pretense to moral leadership ”
Ha! you nailed that.
Trash this encyclical and stick with St Teresa of Avila, St Therese of Lisieux , St Francis de Sales et al.
Imbibe from a pool proved toxic?
Why?
For what purpose?
For sixties slop?
We are five years by this landfill. Let us wake up and stop the pretense. We endure a Roman Catholic brand of Stockholm Syndrome. It is unfaithful to offer credence, deference, to a pontificate which has abused the authority of the Chair of St. Peter hawking fraudulence. The broken clock is on target twice a day. It is useless to regard it. Fix it or replace it. The clock won’t do it by itself.
It’s true that the dignity of the human person is implicated whenever we address the status of the unborn or the immigrant or the refugee. And the Christian certainly must not neglect either. But as a matter of law, and as a matter of politics that shapes the law, the two issues are very different and equating them only leads to confusion.
With abortion, many nations and states permit the killing of the unborn. I’m not aware of any nations or states that permit the killing of immigrants. Rather, if discovered, immigrants may be deported back to where they came.
It is part of the Church’s mission to boldly and prophetically state moral principles, such as “Thou shalt not kill.” Sometimes, as with abortion, this necessarily entails an overlap into the realm of politics, since the present law violates this inviolable commandment. But this is not the norm. More often. the practice of politics does not involve the application of clear moral principles, but the prudential application of those principles to particular circumstances. With immigration policy, the Church can offer no principle as to how many immigrants a particular country should admit. This requires prudence, and is rightly left to the laity to apply these moral principles through politics. The Church should, of course, help to shape the moral framework underlying the political debate about immigration, but equating the Church’s role in opposing unjust abortion laws with the Church’s much different role regarding immigration policy is false, and appears designed to confuse, or even to provide cover to those who would support unjust abortion laws but take a lenient view of immigration policy.
“It is possible to receive the Holy Father’s Exhortation in a spirit of docility, and then to hear it saying things needful of our hearing, with a view to serious self-critical reflection and practical application.”
Well then. I take it that when it comes to “immigrants”, the Holy Father actually means legal immigrants. For the word “immigrants” strictly means legal. And “undocumented” ones really are “illegal aliens.”
So then. Be kind to immigrants, the legal ones. They follow our laws, file their papers, pay the fees, are vetted strenuously by authorities, prove that they will not be a social or economic burden to society, that they are healthy and have no criminal records, that they are willing to assimilate into the wider culture, learn to speak English, and respect the host country. And they are made to wait up to 20 years for the permission to enter.
Whereas illegal aliens should stop sneaking through the back door and stealing citizens’ rights, privileges, and benefits that don’t belong to them. Illegal invasion is a sin against the Seventh Commandment.
Got it.
Worth noting though that refugee =/= illegal immigrant.
One need not reaD very far into GAUDETE ET EXSULTATE to see that it is more of the same from Francis. In paragraph four we read a quote from Revelation 6:10 which reads: “I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne; they cried out with a loud voice, ‘O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge?” Omitted from verse 10 was: “…and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?” Why?
I fear this pope cannot have informed himself much on this religion of Islam.
Another political tract from the commisar…er….Pope.
There is much to consider in this quotation of Pope Francis about migrants and it must be considered in the context of the words of Jesus to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless. Here, the Pope appears to mean only those who are fleeing for their lives. However, it is simply unfortunate that a Pope starts a sentence with, “we often hear it said that…” Such a statement smacks of gossip and factionalism and there is the assumption that those who say it are automatically uncaring about migrants (in this case). If Pope Francis and his counselors did not have such a difficult time with fairness (and intrinsic truths) they might understand that the very pro-life Catholic also shows up quite a bit at food pantries etc.; yet the “pro-lifer” knows that for the one Catholic that will pray outside an abortion clinic there are twenty Catholics that will ladle-out chicken noodle at a soup line.
The problem that Francis ignores is with so many ‘migrants’ being young, military aged young men. With Islam’s goal of a world caliphate, this seems more like an invasion than a refugee.
The aborted unborn would have liked to weigh in on this topic!
“The plain, painful fact of the matter is that each of us can only do so much. Some of us will be committed to one cause or a few, others of us to another, or others. Where and when we can support each other, we ought to do so. Where and when we cannot, we must be out of each other’s way. We cannot allow our dedication to one cause under the impetus of charity and in true service of the Gospel to lead us to despise another, still less into denigration of our fellows, who are in the service of that other cause or causes. We shall disagree from time to time over how best to serve the Gospel. We cannot build the kingdom by destroying and devouring one another.” YES!
I appreciated this piece very much. I’ve read the document and found it to be—for me—thought-provoking and a cause for introspection. But I was feeling overwhelmed. I felt it was indicating that we must actively care for each of these groups. But I knew that a) that’s physically impossible, and b) the importance of discerning how God wants you to specifically serve Him was omitted. I know from experience that if you start doing what you assume God wants you to do without praying for guidance to discern God’s will, then you can get overextended and lose energy and motivation because you’re not in God’s will. I appreciate this article’s message affirming my reaction and confirming that some of us are called to serve in certain areas, while others are called to serve in others, that we should help each other where we can and not tear apart those called to serve other causes (so long as those causes are in line with Church teaching; if not, then such a call can not be from God). Thank you to the author for taking a worry off my mind! I’m thankful I was lead to this article!