Archbishop Paglia says priests can be present at assisted suicide

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 31, 2020 / 12:30 pm (CNA).- New details have emerged about the links between the two Italian businessmen at the center of the Vatican financial scandal.

In the months before Gianluigi Torzi was asked by the Holy See to act as middle man for the final purchase of the London property at 60 Sloane Ave. from Raffaele Mincione, a company owned by Mincione secured a multi-million-euro loan from a company controlled by Torzi.

Last month, Torzi was arrested by the Vatican and charged with a range of financial crimes. The following day, Vatican-state media accused Mincione of a “conflict of interest” in his management of investments for the Secretariat of State.

The Financial Times reported on July 30 that in January, 2018, Sunset Financial, a Malta based company controlled by Torzi, provided a 26.4 million euro line of credit to Pop 12 Sarl., a Luxembourg company owned by Mincione.

Corporate filings in Luxembourg, examined by CNA, show that the credit line, from which Mincione’s company borrowed nearly 14 million euros in January 2018, was secured against an investment in the Italian Banca Carige.

The filings also show that in 2018, Pop 12 paid Torzi’s company more than 700,000 euros for the arrangement of the loan and for other “legal consulting fees” related to its Carige shares.

In February 2018, Mincione’s company borrowed an additional 12 million euros from a line of credit extended Global Prime Partners, Ltd (GPP), a European prime broker. The line of credit was secured with the same collateral as the credit line from Sunset Financial: the Carige bank shares. 

According to filings by Pop 12, since the GPP credit line was secured against “all the Carige shares held by the company,” the Sunset debt was subordinated to the GPP debt – meaning that, if necessary, Torzi could be repaid only after GPP.

Over the course of 2018, the share value of Carige collapsed, and Pop 12 reported a loss of nearly 17.5 million euros on the value of 24.9 million euro holding in the bank, leaving it unable to cover the loans from GPP and Sunset.

In November 2018, Torzi was asked by the Vatican Secretariat of State to broker the final purchase of the London building from Mincione.

Corporate filings in Luxembourg examined by CNA show that weeks after the final sale of the building to the Vatican, Mincione loaned millions of euros from his Athena Capital Real Estate and Special Situations Fund 1 (through which he owned and sold the building) to Pop 12 to repay part of the loan from GPP, which, because of the company’s debt structure, made it more likely Pop 12 could eventually repay its debt to Torzi’s company.

Both men have denied that the Pop 12 – Sunset loans played in Torzi’s role in the Vatican’s purchase of the London building from Mincione.

A spokesman for Mincione told CNA that “the suggestion that any commercial relationship between Pop 12 and Sunset Financial had any influence on the Vatican’s decision to appoint Mr Torzi as agent, is entirely wrong.”

CNA asked Mincione if Torzi, or Sunset Financial Ltd., were involved in Pop 12 securing the line of credit from GPP, and if there was any discussion, professional or social, between Torzi and Mincione of the Vatican’s investment in the London property prior to November 2018.

Mincione’s spokesman characterized the dealings between Pop 12 and Sunset as “a very usual commercial arrangement” and said “it doesn’t seem necessary for us to respond to [these] points.”

Details of the pre-existing business relationship between Mincione and Torzi come nearly two months after Torzi was arrested by Vatican authorities on charges of “extortion, embezzlement, aggravated fraud and self-laundering,” in relation to his part in the deal.

Following Torzi’s arrest, Mincione said that Torzi’s involvement in the London deal came at the instruction of the Secretariat of State without any input from him.

Speaking to ADN Kornos in June, Mincione said Torzi was a “counterpart,” not a “partner,” and characterized their personal connection casually as “two Italians in London.”

While dismissing their personal acquaintance, saying they knew each other slightly since their offices were off the same square in London, Mincione also told AN Kornos that he had in his possession a photograph of Torzi with Pope Francis. A similar image was subsequently released online.

The building at 60 Sloane Avenue was bought by the secretariat in stages between 2014-2018 from Mincione, who at the time was managing hundreds of millions of euros of secretariat funds. CNA has previously reported that Mincione also invested Vatican funds in other companies and projects owned by or connected to him.

The Vatican cut ties with Mincione in 2018, acquiring the whole of the London property and withdrawing its remaining investment with Athena, asking Torzi to broker the final transfer of ownership, which he did using his own Luxembourg holding company, Gutt SA, as a pass-through, earning Torzi some 10 million euros in the process.

Before Torzi’s arrest, CNA reported that Fabrizio Tirabassi, a lay secretariat official who oversaw investments, was appointed a director of Torzi’s company while the businessman was finalizing the Vatican’s purchase of the London property from Mincione.

On June 6 this year, Vatican News described Mincione’s management of Vatican investments as “speculative” and a “conflict of interest.” Later that month, Mincione, through two of his companies, filed lawsuits against the Secretariat of State and the holding company which controls the London building, and which he sold to the secretariat.

Earlier this month, Vatican prosecutors, working with Italian authorities, executed a search and seizure warrant against Mincione. Italian media reported that Mincione, accompanied by his lawyers, presented himself to police by prior arrangement, who seized electronic devices, including cellular phones and iPads.

Vatican action against Mincione was the latest development in a 18-month-long ongoing investigation into financial dealings by the Secretariat of State.

A series of raids by Vatican authorities, beginning in October last year, have resulted in the suspension of several serving and former employees at the secretariat, including Tirabassi, as well as Msgr. Alberto Perlasca, whose home and office were raided earlier this year.

[…]

Vatican City, Oct 17, 2018 / 08:40 am (CNA).- While Chinese Bishop Joseph Guo Jincai is new to the Vatican’s Synod of Bishops, he has served three terms as a deputy to the National People’s Congress in Beijing.

As a member of China’s legislative body, Bishop Guo publicly supported an amendment to eliminate presidential term limits and enshrine “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” in the Chinese Constitution in March 2018.

Weeks after his excommunication was lifted last month as a part of an agreement between China and the Holy See, Bishop Guo garnered attention in Rome as one of the first Chinese bishops to ever participate in an ecclesial synod, along with Bishop Yang Xiaoting of Yan’an.

Pope Francis opened the synod with a greeting for the two Chinese arrivals, saying that “the communion of the entire episcopate with the Successor of Peter is yet more visible thanks to their presence.”

The two Chinese bishops took part in the synod on young people, the faith, and vocation.

Young people in China face unique challenges in relation to faith. For example, due to a change in the Chinese government’s religious oversight earlier this year, it is now illegal for anyone under 18 years old to enter a church or religious building.

Bishop Guo told Chinese state media  that he did not see any conflict between his role as a legislator and a bishop as the National People’s Congress convened last March.

“My position as a national legislator will not and cannot affect my religious service, as China implements the principle of separation of church and State,” Guo told the state-sponsored newspaper Global Times.

The Global Times reported that Guo went on to say that Catholics must adapt to socialist society in order to survive and develop in China, and a fundamental requirement for this is to be patriotic.

This echoes President Xi Jinping’s repeated comments that all religion in China must “Sinicize” or adapt to Chinese culture and society as defined by the state. In 2016, Xi told Chinese Communist Party leaders that they must “resolutely guard against overseas infiltrations via religious means.”

For decades, China’s 12 million Catholics have been split between an underground Catholic Church in full communion with the Holy See, sometimes subject to government persecution, and the government-run Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, whose bishops are appointed by the Communist government and have sometimes been ordained without papal approval.

Bishop Guo serves as secretary-general for the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China (BCCCC). Bishop Yang, the other Chinese synod delegate, serves as its vice-president.

This Chinese “episcopal conference” was deemed illegitimate in Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 letter to Catholics in China because it is “governed by statutes that contain elements incompatible with Catholic doctrine.” It is unclear whether the Sept. 22 agreement between the Holy See and China recognized the Chinese government’s bishops’ conference as legitimate.

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said the objective of the September accord is “not political but pastoral” and will allow “the faithful to have bishops who are in communion with Rome but at the same time recognized by Chinese authorities.”

Yang was ordained a bishop with both papal approval and government recognition in July 2010. The Yan’an bishop studied theology in Rome, obtaining a doctorate in 1999.

“As the family made up of husband and wife is always united, so is the Church, which is one, holy, catholic and apostolic. In Italy, in China or in other countries, the love of Christ is always the same. Pope Francis, who knows very well our situation in the Catholic Church in China, does not want to leave us, does not want to separate us from the universal Church,” Yang said at a Roman parish on Oct. 7, SIR, a news agency sustained by the Italian bishops’ conference, reported.
 

“I still ask you for help for this Church in China. Our Church is like a child, it is not very mature, so we need your accompaniment, your help and your prayer, always in the love of the Lord,” Yang continued after celebrating Mass at Santa Maria ai Monti.

Before leaving the synod early on Oct. 15 without explanation, the two Chinese bishops had the opportunity to speak with Pope Francis and invite him to visit China.

Guo and Yang stayed in Vatican City’s Santa Marta guesthouse, where “we could live together in daily life with the pope,” Bishop Guo told Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops conference, in an interview published Oct. 16.

“We could speak with familiarity as children with their father. He told us that he loves us, loves our country and always prays a lot to Christians in China,” Guo continued.

[…]

Vatican City, Oct 21, 2018 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- A bishop from Lebanon shared at the 2018 Synod of Bishops how his online catechesis program in Arabic has helped him to unite young Catholics across the Middle East.

“Thanks to the web I am able to connect many young people from the Middle East. We’ve also had conversions of young people who have recognized Jesus through our social presence,” Bishop Joseph Naffah said at the a Vatican press conference Oct. 19.

Synod fathers from Africa, South America, and the Middle East spoke Friday about their hopes for the future of evangelization and catechesis in a digital age.

Bishop Naffah is the auxiliary bishop of the Maronite Catholic eparchy of Joubbé, Sarba, and Jounieh in Lebanon.

For five years Naffah has been running an online catechetical program that connects over 500 Arabic-speaking Catholic students in conversations about the faith.

Students in the online program include youth in prison, as well as young people with disabilities.

“I’ve been moved in particular by one person who is totally paralyzed,” Bishop Naffah said.

While positive about the potential of online catechesis, the Maronite bishop also expressed concern that there are websites that contain false Catholic teaching online.

Naffah sees a need for a mechanism for Vatican approval of catechesis and teaching shared online, such as a special office to monitor Catholic webpages and then certify sites that accurately reflect the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Bishop Kofi Fianu of Ho, Ghana has also found success connecting with young people in Africa through the daily online Bible reflections that he shares with them.

“From this apostolate of digital reflections I have been in contact with many of the youth,” said Bishop Fianu. “They interact with me. They ask questions about what I have written in the reflection.”

“All of us, first of all, we the bishops, clergy need to be real ministers of the word. When we are able to drink deeply into the word of God, when we are on fire for this word, we can transmit it faithfully and more actively to the youth and the rest of the members of the Church,” Fianu continued.

Father Valdir Jose Castro from Brazil said that young people know the language and the grammar of the world of social media and are crucial in assisting the Church to reach out and open the doors.
 
“The Church needs to study in depth and improve its understanding of technology and the internet in particular so as to discern how she should live there and where fertile soil can be found,” Father Castro said.

The internet is a venue where the Church can encourage young people to be “protagonists in evangelization, not just the beneficiaries.”

[…]