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.”
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When you have Pope Francis sending a messenger to Cardinal Mueller during his Mass to leave off the Mass and come rightaway to speak to the Pope. The urgency? well only to be told that he needs to pull back on a sexual abuse investigation into UK Archbishop Murphy O’Connor. I think you could cut Cardinal Mueller a bit of slack. Can anyone work with Pope Francis?
Louise , You ask:
“ Can anyone work with Pope Francis ? “
Clearly NO. unless you too are a bare-faced “ Liar” like he- as one Cardinal labeled him – correctly. This Pope is the opposite to what Jesus asks of us:
“ Let your Yes be yes and your NO be no.”
The opposite approach, as mastered by Pope Franciis, is the modus operandi of
“..that little hiss that only comes from Hell.”
That’s the kind of company our Pope keeps.
Any one now who is afraid to say our Pope is a LIAR needs to take their head out of the sand. If not YOU are as guilty as he.
WHEN YOU HAVE the likes of Mc Carrick , Cupich and Wuerl as your best friends — well , ‘Birds of a feather flock together’ Get this scoundrel of a Pope outa there.
Burn Rome if we have to.
Michael what really chaps my a s is Francis inability to explain himself and answer the two surviving dubia Cardinals when plenty of time for heretical priest and fellow jesuit Jim Martin. Cardinal Zen waits with pilgrims for an audience. After Mr mccarrick helps turn over Catholic Chinese to dictator communist jiji ping. Crazy goings on and no clarification ever.
C Altieri states it perfectly. As devoted to orthodoxy as Cardinal Müller is he’s similarly devoted to a false sense of loyalty to command. When the moment of truth arrived he failed himself and the Church and no amount of defensive diatribe v the heroic witness of Archbishop Viganò will dilute his failure. To the contrary. At least he remains one of the few outspoken proponents of Apostolic Tradition.
Failure or not at least he spoke, too many good bishop say nothing. I believe francis is more like Perron than Perron.
I have great respect for Cardinal Muller but he is wrong in stating that nobody has a right to call on the Pope to resign.
If the Pope refuses to change course and continues on in his efforts to stonewall, obstruct any real attempts to curb abuse, and continues to promote corrupt bishops, then sadly the only conclusion to be drawn would be that he is part of the problem, not the solution, and it would in such a case be in the best interest of the Church that he step down.
The Fundie trolls are using the Holy Father’s silence and inaction as an excuse to trash our faith on social media and elsewhere.
More concerning than fundamentalist trolls denigrating Holy Mother Church is the insulting and decidedly UN-merciful silence that this pope is insisting upon as a response to not only the Dubia but towards the faithful. And beyond that: his silence and inaction is tantamount to giving each victim of McCarrick, et al, a papal middle finger. Unconscionable behavior on the part of Pope Francis.
The article begins by showing that Pope F us doing exactly what McCarrick and Danneels and their post-Catholic cabal have planned for decades: “change the Church in 5 years” (said McCarrick at Villanova”). It is being done by electing one of their own co-disbelievers, and then cementing their take-over by promoting Cardinals at 3-4 times the rate of the previous Popes, and make sure that they are all pro-sodomizing clericalist sycophants like “Cardinals” Cupich, Tobin and Farrell.
Counterfeit.
Cardinal Mueller is right – there is a process for dealing with these things. The church has been around for a coupple thousand years and during that time it has put in place the mechanisms to deal with all problems. The problem comes about, however, when the men in the offices who are supposed to deal with these things are evil or corrupt or have different agendas. Then we land in the time of the Borgias, which is where we find ourselves. We have this corrupt Pope, this corrupt set of Vatican officials, etc. Therefore the process cannot work. It is the only weakness of the church. But I would rather have that then all the check and balances of a political entity.
Critics of Mueller, consider this possibility…
To tell the truth clearly, completely and without compromise, while also threading the needle at the level of a very imperfect world…this just might be the wisdom of being “sly as a snake and [yet] innocent as a dove”, both. Christ admonishes us to do both, together, not one or the other. Christ wants us to be neither impulsive nor milquetoast.
Consider the next conclave–and a likely divided vote that won’t budge. Then comes the search of a compromise candidate. Who might the most likely and graced selection be, but one who has actually told the truth and yet done nothing factional that the radical and mostly mediocre coalition can point to in self-referential horror and dissent?
Think chess, not checkers. Cardinal Muller is a very good man, a son of the Church, and he also knows how to maneuver, yet without manipulating. A cardinal among vultures.
I am a vigorous supporter of Archbishop Vigano. I am also a staunch admirer of Cardinal Muller. And I think the latter’s recent publicized interviews were a real service to the Church. Altieri has it wrong.
The problem we are facing is not “clericalism” or lack of “transparency” or “involvement of the laity” (God spare us all from that curse).
It really IS up to the cardinals to confront the Supreme Pontiff. Four of them authored dubia, which the Pope has refused to answer. Muller clearly stated in the interviews that a moment of crisis has come.
If memory serves, Cdl. Müller also criticized the dubia Cardinals for going public. If he had his way, we would know nothing about the dubia. I think there is a little too much concern on Cardinal Müller’s part about what he considers proper and not enough concern about the train wreck in progress and the utter failure of normal Church processes and authorities to address it.
In my line of work we make mistakes and try our best to learn from them making corrections as needed as to enable the process to run more smoothly – But darn it if historical-technological context and economic shifts don’t catch up with even the best managed institutions. I am with Samton909, no human institution is booboo-free but 2,000 years as a continuous institution with an overall track record of relatively smooth succession of new executives and administrations as in the Vatican would be remarkable; if it were only a human institution. But the success of the Vatican is ultimately a testimony to workings of the Holy Spirit and the collective body of believers which continue to support our Holy Mother Church. In works, in deeds, in faith and unity in our love for Jesus Christ – we can weather this storm and continue to be the Catholic, all-embracing “Way” for all of mankind.
Nothing is as it appears.
We really don’t know anything but the tidbits we are fed via the media.
In these times, light is dark and darkness light.
Good is evil and evil, good.
Perhaps Pope Francis has adopted a personal modus operandi of keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.
Then again, who really knows for sure?
I have reached the point that I neither trust nor depend on anyone.
I look to our Lord Jesus to deliver us from this evil.
Anything else is smoke and mirrors.
Peter what you propose as well as Samton is reasonable. Taking a difference perspective based on what is transpiring in the Church is addressed by Dr Conor Sweeney on this website. He presents a strong case for the real possibility of the following: For the majority the possible presence of the “Lawless one” [2 Thess 2] possessing the Chair of Peter is too difficult to process. The dilemma within the dilemma is they are confounded and hold to the belief that this Pontiff is capable of redirection. Or that resolution will somehow occur by silence and political propriety. Therefore the appeal to reasonable politics and waiting. If one finds the evidence points toward realization of the unimaginable then the only viable option is open repudiation.
I have been rather dismayed to see that Francis Cardinal Arinze, once a lion against the traitors, seems to have been defanged.
Regardless of ‘who’ Pope Francis is the most cogent justification for Archbishop Viganò’s breaking convention and why Cardinal Müller would better serve the Church by doing the same is laid out by Vatican theologian Msgr Nicola Bux in his Nov 29 address at a Rome Conf on the Pontificate of Pope Francis and the New Paradigm. Edward Pentin NCR remarked, “He [Msgr Bux] went on to refer to words of Eugenio Scalfari, who said after one of his interviews with the Pope, that Francis was pushing for a ‘change’ in the ‘concept of religion and divinity’ that would result in a ‘cultural change’ that would be difficult to modify. ‘If that were to happen,’ Msgr. Bux warned, ‘the consequences would be catastrophic’” (Pentin NCR). Fr Spadaro SJ made precisely the same assertion much earlier with the confidence that such cultural change once assumed would be unchangeable. Already homosexuality now widely considered a social norm is so deeply entrenched in civil society and apparently becoming so within the Church and advanced by Synodality evident in the Pontiff halting investigation in the US changing the Feb Synod’s focus from adult homosexual networking among hierarchy and presbyters to child abuse. And handcuffing the bishops. Patient strategic waiting and confidentiality during the current state of affairs [forgive me] is a fool’s option.