Vatican cites immunity in refusal to send French court summons to CDF prefect

Vatican City, Mar 13, 2019 / 10:15 am (CNA).- On the sixth anniversary of Pope Francis’ election Wednesday, the Vatican’s chief spokesman said Francis will continue to lead the Church as a synodal “field hospital” in the year ahead.

Pope Francis “has a vision of an ‘outgoing’ Church and a ‘field hospital’ Church,” Alessandro Gisotti, interim director of the Holy See Press Office told Vatican Media March 13.

“The outgoing Church presupposes that you walk … and ‘synodal’ means walking together,” he continued.

Gisotti connected Pope Francis’ vision of the Church, from the beginning of his pontificate, as a field hospital to the Vatican’s recent sex abuse summit on the protection of minors.

“With the meeting on the protection of minors we have seen a Church that has the courage to bind the wounds of women and men of our time,” Gisotti said.

The Vatican spokesman reaffirmed that last month’s Vatican summit necessitated concrete follow-up on the global issue of the protection of minors. This next phase will include the publication of a motu proprio, a handbook from the Congregation on the Doctrine of Faith with a series of regulations, and a task force with experts that can consult bishops’ conferences on the issue of child protection.

“Many had some doubts that it was appropriate to hold this meeting, while the Pope in this regard showed courage and also, in my opinion, a prophetic courage, because for the first time – in the face of a terrible scandal that puts at risk not only the credibility, but in some respects the very mission of the Church – he convoked all the presidents of the episcopates,” Gisotti said.

Vatican Media Editor Andrea Tornielli also said that pope’s sixth year will be “marked at the beginning and the end by two ‘synodal’ events,” the Vatican sex abuse summit and the special Synod on the Amazon respectively.

“But a look at the past year cannot ignore the re-emergence of the abuse scandal and the internal divisions that led the former nuncio Carlo Maria Viganò last August to publicly demand the resignation of the Pope for the management of the McCarrick case, just as Francis celebrated the Eucharist with thousands of families in Dublin proposing the beauty and value of Christian marriage,” Tornielli wrote in an Italian editorial on the eve of the pope’s anniversary.

“The Church, as Pope Francis reminds us today, is not self-sufficient precisely because she too recognizes herself as a beggar asking for healing, in need of mercy and forgiveness from her Lord and she bears witness to the Gospel to many wounded men and women of our time,” he said.

“Perhaps never before as in the troubled year just gone by, the sixth of his pontificate, has the Pope who presents himself as ‘a forgiven sinner,’ testified to this essential and most relevant fact of the Christian faith,” he continued.

The pope spent the sixth anniversary of his election as the 265th successor of St. Peter on a weeklong Lenten retreat with members of the Roman curia, held outside of Vatican City.

At the retreat Wednesday, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re told Pope Francis and 64 members of the Roman curia that “we are asking that the Lord be your light, support and comfort in your task of confirming your brethren in faith, of being the foundation of unity, and of showing everyone the way that leads to heaven.”

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CNA Staff, May 29, 2020 / 02:30 pm (CNA).- Tens of millions of euros have been frozen in Swiss banks as part of the investigation into a Vatican property investment, according to a Swiss media report. Swiss authorities have also forwarded documents to Vatican prosecutors, as part of an investigation into investments made by the Holy See Secretariat of State.

On May 23, NZZ am Sonntag reported that Holy See prosecutors sent Swiss authorities a formal request for help examining the Holy See Secretariat of State’s investment of more than $300 million in a luxury London property development.

“The Federal Office of Justice received a request for legal assistance in this matter,” spokesman Raphael Frei told NZZ. “With a diplomatic note dated April 30, 2020, the Federal Office sent the Vatican a first part of the requested documents.” 

The newspaper also reported that its sources had confirmed tens of millions of euros have been frozen in several Swiss banks as part of the investigation.

Vatican investigators are examining the Secretariat of State’s purchase of the building at 60 Sloane Avenue, London.  In October 2019, four officials at the department were suspended following a raid by Vatican gendarmes in which they seized files and computers. A further raid on a former senior official at the secretariat was conducted in February.

CNA has reported that that deal was at least partially financed with loans from several Swiss banks, including Credit Suisse and BSI.

BSI was the subject of a damning report by Swiss banking authorities in 2016, which found that the bank was in “serious breaches of the statutory due diligence requirements in relation to money laundering and serious violations of the principles of adequate risk management and appropriate organization.” The bank was ordered into an extinctive merger with EFG Group in 2017, on condition that no BSI officer retain a management role.

Credit Suisse acknowledged to NZZ that it was involved in the investigation, but said that it was not the subject of any accusation by either Swiss or Vatican authorities. 

“Credit Suisse is not the subject of the Vatican’s investigation, but is working with the authorities in compliance with the applicable regulations,” said bank spokeswoman Anitta Tuure.

The London building was purchased by the Secretariat of State in stages, over a period of years, from Italian businessman Raffaele Mincione, who at the time was managing hundreds of millions of euros of secretariat funds.

When it sold to the secretariat 30,000 of 31,000 shares in the project, Minicone’s holding company retained the 1,000 voting shares needed to control the holding company which owned the building. Mincione eventually offered to part with those, at greatly inflated prices.

To complete the sale, in 2018 the Secretariat of State enlisted the help of another businessman, Gianluigi Torzi, who acted as a commission-earning middleman for the purchase of the remaining shares. Torzi earned 10 million euros for his role in the deal.

Earlier this month, CNA reported that one of the five suspended employees, Fabrizio Tirabassi, who was charged with managing the secretariat’s investments, was made a director of a Luxembourg-registered holding company belonging to Torzi.  

Sources close to the Prefecture for the Economy told CNA that Tirabassi has been involved in managing several financial transactions at the secretariat that are now being examined by financial investigators at the Vatican.

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Pope Francis greets thousands of children and their families as he makes his way through St. Peter’s Square during the first World Children’s Day, Saturday, May 26, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, May 26, 2024 / 13:15 pm (CNA).

After an exuberant kick-off event on Saturday for the first World Children’s Day, Pope Francis gathered together with tens of thousands of children in St. Peter’s Square for Mass on this feast of the Holy Trinity. A piercing early summer sun moved everyone — from nuns to the boys’ choir — to shade their heads with colorful hats.

The creation of a World Children’s Day was announced by the pope on December 8, 2023, at the midday Angelus. The idea for it was suggested to the pope by a 9-year-old boy in an exchange shortly before World Youth Day in Lisbon. 

Among the special guests at the Mass was Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who together with her daughter Ginevra, met the Pope briefly before the Mass.

With this first event complete, Francis announced at the end of the festivities today that the next World Children’s Day will be held in September 2026.

The One who accompanies us

The Holy Father, smiling and clearly happy to be surrounded by children, completely improvised his homily, making it a brief and memorable lesson on the Holy Trinity.

“Dear boys and girls, we are here to pray together to God,” he began. But then counting on his fingers and enumerating, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he asked, “But how many gods are there?”As the crowd answered “one,” the pope praised them and started talking of each of the Persons of the Holy Trinity.

He began with God the Father — “who created us all, who loves us so much” — asking the children how we pray to him. They quickly answered with the “Our Father.”

Pope Francis went on to speak of the second person of the Trinity, after the children called out his name — Jesus — as the one who forgives all of our sins.

When he got to the Holy Spirit, the pope admitted that envisioning this person of the Trinity is more difficult.

“Who is the Holy Spirit? Eh, it is not easy …,” he said.

“Because the Holy Spirit is God, He is within us. We receive the Holy Spirit in Baptism, we receive Him in the Sacraments. The Holy Spirit is the one who accompanies us in life.”

Using this last phrase, the Pope invited the children to repeat the idea a number of times: “He is the one accompanies us in life.”

“He is the one who tells us in our hearts the good things we need to do,” the Pope said, having the kids repeat the phrase again: “He is the one who when we do something wrong rebukes us inside.”

The pope ended the homily thanking the children and also reminding them that “we also have a mother,” asking them how we pray to her. They answered “with the Hail Mary.” The pope encouraged them to pray for parents, for grandparents, and for sick children. 

“There are so many sick children beside me” he said, as he indicated the children in wheelchairs near the altar. “Always pray, and especially pray for peace, for there to be no wars.”

Applauding the grandparents

The pope frequently urges young people to seek out their grandparents, and the give-and-take of his homily gave the impression of a beloved grandpa surrounded by his grandkids. He insisted that the kids quiet down for the time of prayer.

When the Mass concluded, and after praying the midday Angelus, the pope summarized the lessons of the homily: “Dear children, Mass is over. And today, we’ve talked about God: God the Father who created the world, God the Son, who redeemed us, and God the Holy Spirit … what did we say about the Holy Spirit? I don’t remember!”

The children needed no further invitation to answer loudly that “the Holy Spirit accompanies us in life.” Joking that he couldn’t hear well, the Pope had them say it again even louder, and then prayed the Glory Be with them.

The pope also asked for a round of applause for all the grandparents, noting that at the Presentation of the Gifts, a grandfather had accompanied a group of children who brought forward the bread and wine.

Dreaming and dragons 

After the closing procession, Italian actor Roberto Benigni took the stage for a lively and inspirational monologue that combined good humor and life lessons. 

While Benigni is known especially to the English-speaking world for his role in Oscar-winning Life is Beautiful, in Italy he’s also known for his commentaries on important issues, combined with his exuberant humor.

“When I was a boy, I wanted to be pope,” he told the audience.

Urging the children to read — “Kids need to read everything!” — he paraphrased G.K. Chesterton who insisted that fairy tales are important: “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed,” Chesterton said.

“Dream!” Benigni urged the children. “It’s the most beautiful thing in the world. But I want to tell you a secret. You’ll tell me you know how to dream; you’ll say you just have to close your eyes, sleep, and dream. … No, no. I’ll tell you a secret — to dream, you don’t have to close your eyes. You have to open them! You have to open your eyes, read, write, invent.”

The actor emphasized the need to be peacemakers, saying that the Sermon on the Mount contains “the only good idea” that’s ever been expressed. War is the “most stupid sin,” he lamented.

“War must end,” Benigni insisted, going on to quote a famous author of children’s literature. “You will tell me: That is a dream, it is a fairy tale. Yes, it is, but as Gianni Rodari said, ‘Fairy tales can become reality, they can become true!’”

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