Tiananmen Square to St. Peter’s: Who are the Chinese bishops at the synod?

Vatican City, Jun 28, 2017 / 03:57 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday Pope Francis said that following Christ means taking a path contrary to that of the world, and being prepared to suffer because of this; though we have hope because of God’s constant presence.

“Persecution is not a contradiction to the gospel, but is part of it: if they persecuted our Master, how can we hope that we will be spared the struggle?” he said June 28.

“However, in the midst of the whirlwind, the Christian must not lose hope, thinking he has been abandoned. Jesus reassures his disciples saying, ‘Even the hairs of your head are all counted.’ As much as to say that none of the sufferings of man, even the most minute and hidden, are invisible to the eyes of God.”

“God sees, and surely protects; and will give his ransom.”

Pope Francis continued his catechesis on the theme of Christian hope during the weekly general audience Wednesday in St. Peter’s Square. This time he reflected on the counter-cultural life of the Christian, which will mean withstanding persecution on some level, and for some, even martyrdom.
 
“Christians are therefore men and women ‘against the current,’” he said. “It is normal: since the world is marked by sin, manifested in various forms of egoism and injustice, those who follow Christ walk in the opposite direction.”

As Christians we do this “not for a contrary spirit, but for loyalty to the logic of the Kingdom of God, which is a logic of hope, and is translated into a way of life based on the directions of Jesus,” he continued.

“Christians must therefore always find themselves on the ‘other side,’ on the other side of the world, that chosen by God; not persecutors but persecuted; not arrogant, but gentle; not conmen, but submissive to the truth; not imposters, but honest.”

The first indication of a life lived based on this logic is poverty, the Pope said. In fact, he emphasized, “a Christian who is not humble and poor, detached from wealth and power and above all detached from himself, does not look like Jesus.”

Following this way has its difficulties and struggles, of course, the Pope said. But in difficulty, we must remember that Jesus is with us, and he never leaves his disciples alone.

“This fidelity to the way of Jesus – a way of hope – unto death, will be called by the first Christians with a beautiful name: ‘martyrdom,’ meaning ‘testimony,’” he said.

The early Christians could have chosen a different name for this act, like ‘heroism,’ ‘abnegation,’ or ‘self-sacrifice,’ but instead they chose this one, Francis said.

Martyrs are not selfish, living for themselves. “They do not fight to assert their own ideas, and accept that that they have to die only for loyalty to the gospel,” he said, which is the only “force” or strength the Christian uses.

In his catechesis, Francis recalled that Jesus warned us that he sends us “as sheep in the midst of wolves.” And the Christian does not have weapons or claws against these wolves. He or she may need to be cautious, even shrewd at times, he said, but violent never.

A Christian travels through life with the essentials for the journey, but with a heart full of love, he said, because true defeat for the Christian isn’t poverty, it’s to fall into the temptation to respond to evil with evil.

There is, in fact, “Someone” among us who is stronger than evil, he said.

But martyrdom is not even “the supreme ideal of Christian life,” Francis continued, because above all there is charity, that is, the love of God and of neighbor.”

Reflecting on charity, the Apostle Paul says: “If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

This is why it Christians are disgusted by the idea that suicide bombers might be called “martyrs,” the Pope explained. “These do not know the martyrs – there is nothing in their end that can be brought closer to the attitudes of the children of God.”

The martyrs of yesterday and even of today had hope that no one and nothing could separate them from the love of God. So we ask that God gives us this same strength to be his witnesses, he concluded.

“He gives us the opportunity to live Christian hope especially in the hidden martyrdom of doing well and with love our duties of every day.”

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Vatican City, Oct 24, 2019 / 04:00 am (CNA).- The head of the Vatican’s central bank appeared to admit this week to a transaction that could be a violation of European regulatory commitments, namely a loan of 50 million euros to finance the purchase of a struggling Italian hospital.

Sources say a controversial grant from the U.S.-based Papal Foundation was requested in order to balance the central bank’s books after the hospital was unable to repay the money.

In a statement Tuesday, Bishop Nunzio Galantino, head of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), acknowledged that the Vatican’s central bank loaned 50 million euros to finance the purchase of the Italian hospital, the Istituto Dermopatico dell’Immacolata (IDI), even though APSA is prohibited from making loans that finance commercial transactions, by policies put in place to exempt it from external oversight.

The loan was made in 2015 to the non-profit Fondazione Luigi Maria Monti, a partnership between the Vatican Secretariat of State and the Congregation of the Sons of the Immaculate Conception, the hospital’s previous owners, under whose management the hospital was driven to bankruptcy following a series of embezzlement scandals that led to multiple prosecutions and debts of more than 800 million euros.

The hospital was purchased by the foundation while it was in state-administered insolvency. When it became clear that the APSA loan could not be repaid by hospital income, Vatican efforts were made to secure a $25 million grant from the U.S.-based Papal Foundation to the IDI, which would be used to cover the hospital’s debt to APSA.

Although the grant was requested to ease a short-term cash shortage at the hospital, multiple sources in Rome and the United States told CNA that the money was actually intended to help replace the funds loaned to finance the acquisition, removing the loan from the APSA balance sheet and avoiding more attention on the deal.

Lay members of the Papal Foundation had reportedly raised issues with the conferral of the grant, largely because details about the use and final destination of the funds were scant. Approval of the grant was ultimately pushed through the foundation’s board, over the objections of lay members, but dispersal of the funds was slowgoing as conflict enveloped the foundation’s board.

In April, a spokesman for the Papal Foundation told First Things magazine that “As The Papal Foundation Board responded to the grant request, a variety of interpretations of the true financial condition of the IDI and its sponsoring entities were presented.” 

“Among the elements of the discussion was the still unclear relationship of the religious congregation that originally sponsored IDI, the recently formed Fondazione Luigi Maria Monti, that was now considered responsible for what have been the properties of the religious congregation, and the IDI itself. Sorting out who was responsible for what part if any of the bankruptcy assessment was also a part of the Papal Foundation’s discussion. All of this discussion was made more difficult by conflicting interpretations.”

“At the December 2017 Board meeting, Cardinal [Donald] Wuerl presented the information made available to the public and that provided by the Holy See. Other interpretations were also offered. The Board voted to make the requested grant,” the spokesman said.

When the grant money stalled, APSA was forced to write off 30 million of the 50 million euro loan, wiping out APSA’s profits for the 2018 financial year.

Galantino was compelled to acknowledge the loan and the write-off following the Oct. 21 publication of a book that alleged that the Vatican was nearly insolvent.

The book, “Universal Judgment,” published by Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, claims to be based on more than 3,000 pages of leaked Vatican documents. It alleged that in 2018 APSA had failed to make a profit from the Holy See’s property and investment portfolio for the first time in its history.

Galantino, who has been president of APSA since June 2018, said the book did not reflect the real situation.

“In fact,” he said, “the ordinary management of the APSA in 2018 closed with a profit of over 22 million euros.”

He attributed reported losses on “an extraordinary intervention aimed at saving the operation of a Catholic hospital and the jobs of its employees,” in an apparent reference to the IDI loan and purchase.

While Galantino defended the project as an effort to preserve the hospital and save jobs, APSA’s involvement to underwrite a commercial acquisition appears to violate a 2012 commitment to stop acting as a private or commercial financial institution.

That commitment was the result of an on-site inspection by Moneyval, the Council of Europe’s Committee for combating money laundering and terrorist financing.

After the inspection, APSA agreed to stop providing services to individuals or taking part in commercial transactions, with these functions being transferred to the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), often referred to as the Vatican Bank, which maintains accounts for Vatican employees, individuals and religious groups. APSA was to be limited to administering the sovereign assets of the Holy See, meeting payroll and operational costs, and functioning as the national reserve bank of the Vatican.

In exchange for agreeing to step back from commercial activity, APSA was exempted from annual inspections by the Vatican’s Financial Intelligence Authority (AIF), whose efforts are assessed by Moneyval.

Following the changes to APSA’s remit, only the IOR, and not APSA, has been listed as a financial institution under the oversight of the Vatican’s Financial Intelligence Authority (AIF), whose efforts are assessed by Moneyval.

In 2014, Pope Francis issued new norms, transferring oversight and control of APSA’s remaining investment functions to the Prefecture for the Economy, then headed by Cardinal George Pell.

The AIF’s 2015 annual report concluded that since it is no longer an “entity that carries out financial activities on a professional basis,” “APSA stopped being a part of AIF’s jurisdiction at the end of 2015” – but in the same year APSA made the loan to purchase the IDI out of insolvency.

The 2015 AIF report which exempted APSA from further scrutiny said that “If APSA were to carry out financial activities on a professional basis, it would fall again under the jurisdiction of AIF which… must publish and update the list of subjects who must comply with the requirements set forth in [relevant law].”

The acknowledgement by Galantino that APSA was in 2015 engaged in prohibited lending activity casts doubt over reported progress in combating financial corruption in the Vatican, and suggests that it has been operating out of sight of Vatican and European financial watchdogs.

In 2016, Pope Francis partially reversed some of the 2014 reforms, returning control of its investment activity to APSA from the Prefecture for the Economy.

In his book released Monday, Nuzzi also claimed that, despite the 2012 commitment to Moneyval, APSA still has private numbered accounts for individuals on deposit. Such accounts at APSA have been linked to previous money laundering accusations and scandals in the Vatican, and their elimination was crucial to its exemption from AIF oversight.

Galantino denied these claims, saying that no funds were held, managed or invested for anyone or any body except Vatican departments and the Vatican City State.

“APSA has no secret or encrypted accounts” Galantino insisted on Tuesday, “anyone is welcome to prove the contrary.”

Definitive proof is unlikely to emerge, barring a decision by the AIF to reapply Moneyval’s anti-money laundering regulations and inspections to APSA – something which is itself highly unlikely in the current climate.

Three weeks ago, Tomasso Di Ruzza, head of the AIF, was himself suspended following raids carried out by Vatican police. On Oct. 23, the AIF issued a statement announcing his return to duty and insisting that an internal investigation had been conducted following the raid and that no wrongdoing had been discovered.

“Neither the Director nor any other employee of AIF improperly exercised his authority or engaged in any other wrongdoing,” the statement said.

“Accordingly, the Board of Directors reaffirms its full faith and trust in the professional competence and honorability of its Director and, moreover, commends him for the institutional work carried out in the handling of this particular case.”

The statement concluded by saying the AIF hoped any “potential misapprehensions” to the contrary would “soon be clarified.”

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View of St. Peter’s Basilica. / Bohumil Petrik/CNA.

Vatican City, Jun 11, 2021 / 09:00 am (CNA).

For the second time in months, Pope Francis has ordered an inspection of a top Vatican dicastery whose head will step down, revealing a modus operandi that might be replicated in other transitions.

The news of the inspection emerged days before the appointment of the congregation’s new prefect, the South Korean Bishop Lazarus You Heung-sik, on June 11.

Bishop Egidio Miragoli of Mondovì, in northern Italy, told priests of his diocese on June 7 that the pope had entrusted him with an inspection of the Congregation for the Clergy, responsible for the world’s diocesan priests and deacons.

Miragoli began the inspection last Wednesday, and he anticipated that the inspections would last “for the whole month of June” and commit him “from two to three days per week.”

He also said that the pope told him in a private meeting on June 3 about the scope of the inspection.

No official information on the inspection has been released.

According to a source close to the Congregation for the Clergy, the inspection “is conducted via interviews and talks with the Congregation officials.”

“Pope Francis wants to focus on tasks and roles of each member of the congregation, to decide how to better organize the staff for the new prefect,” the source said.

Bishop You succeeds Cardinal Beniamino Stella. One of the pope’s closest confidants, Stella turns 80 on Aug. 18, meaning that he will be five years older than the customary age for retirement. On June 11, the Vatican said that Stella would remain in the post until his successor takes office.

Miragoli has already begun the inspection and had one-to-one meetings with some of the congregation’s officials, the source said.

In March, Bishop Claudio Maniago of Castellaneta, southern Italy, inspected the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments. Also in that case, there was no official release about the inspection and the scope of the inspection was not revealed. Maniago reportedly concluded the inspection quite quickly.

The inspection began after Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Cardinal Robert Sarah, who had served as prefect of the congregation since 2014. Sarah resigned because he had turned 75, the age when a bishop is expected to retire.

According to the source, Pope Francis is willing to send an inspection any time a transition occurs in the Roman Curia.

“The next dicasteries to be inspected might be the Congregation for Bishops and the Congregation for the Eastern Churches,” he said.

The prefect of the Congregation for Bishops is Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who just turned 77. Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, will be 78 in November.

The source maintained that the inspections were “not intended as a punishment, but as a way to enact the curia reform.”

The reform, which has been under discussion ever since Pope Francis’ election in 2013, will change the composition of the curia, merge some dicasteries into others and tweak the statutes of each dicastery to better fit with the pope’s indications, with priority given to the notion of a “missionary Church.”

According to the source, Bishop Miragoli came to the pope’s attention while he was serving in the college for the examination of appeals in matters of delicta reservata (serious offenses) at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Pope Francis appointed Miragoli as a member of the college on July 29. 2019.

The college’s president is Archbishop Charles Scicluna, archbishop of Malta and adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

[…]