Vatican City, Aug 6, 2020 / 06:49 am (CNA).- Pope Francis on Thursday named 13 new members to the Council for the Economy, which oversees Vatican finances and the work of the Secretariat for the Economy.
Among the six women and one man appointed as new members of the Vatican’s top financial oversight body, are high-level experts in banking, finance, asset management, and international law from Spain, Italy, and Germany, as well as a former member of the British cabinet.
The Council for the Economy was established by Pope Francis in 2014 as part of his program of financial reform. According to its statutes, the body “supervises the administrative and financial structures and activities” of the Roman Curia, institutions of the Holy See, and Vatican City State.
Previously, the members of the economy council, overseen since its creation by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, consisted of eight cardinals, six laymen, and a priest secretary.
The cardinals newly named to the council by Pope Francis are Joseph Tobin, Archbishop of Newark; Anders Arborelius, Bishop of Stockholm; Peter Erdo, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest; Odilo Pedro Scherer, Archbishop of Sao Paulo; Gerald Cyprien Lacroix, Archbishop of Quebec; and Giuseppe Petrocchi, Archbishop of L’Aquila.
Cardinal Tobin is the second American cardinal to be appointed to the body, joining Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston.
Among the new lay members are German law professor Charlotte Kreuter-Kirchhof and Maria Kolak, president of the National Association of German Cooperative Banks.
Maria Concepcion Osacar Garaicoechea is president of the board of Azora Capital and Azora Gestion, SGIIC, an independent investment manager. Eva Castillo Sanz is on the board of directors of Spanish bank Bankia and elevator manufacturer Zardoya Otis.
Ruth Mary Kelly served as Great Britain’s Secretary of State for Education under Tony Blair, and later worked for HSBC Global Asset Management. She is currently pro vice chancellor for research and enterprise at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, a role she will leave at the end of the month.
Leslie Jane Ferrar was treasurer to Charles, Prince of Wales, from January 2015 until July 2017. Among other non-executive and trustee roles, she has been a trustee of the Archdiocese of Westminster for 19 years and non-executive director of real estate investment trust company Secure Income REIT for six years.
The seventh new lay member, Alberto Minali, resigned May 29 after three years as CEO of Italian insurance company, Societa Cattolica di Assicurazioni. According to Italian newspaper Il Corriere del Veneto, Minali is in a legal battle with his former company for compensation of 9.6 million euros for alleged “lack of a just cause” in removing his control of the bank. The company says the claim is “unfounded.”
Minali also previously worked as chief investment officer of the asset management group Eurizon.
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Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, who died at the age of 24 in 1925, is beloved by many Catholic young people today for his enthusiastic witness to holiness that reaches “to the heights.” / Public Domain
Bishop Yao Shun of Jining and Bishop Yang Yongqiang of Zhouchun (right) of the People’s Republic of China at the Synod on Synodality at the Vatican in October 2023. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, Oct 8, 2024 / 13:30 pm (CNA).
The Synod on Synodality, meant to be a moment of encounter and dialogue for the global Church, has provided a venue for Catholic bishops from mainland China and Taiwan to meet together.
Bishop Norbert Pu is the Catholic Church’s first bishop born in Taiwan. The 66-year-old bishop of Chiayi is a delegate in the nearly monthlong synod assembly as a representative of the Chinese Regional Bishops’ Conference of Taiwan.
In an interview with CNA, Pu said he is most looking forward to getting to know the different bishops, cardinals, and synod delegates from other parts of the world gathered at the Vatican for the second session of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of Bishops.
Bishop Norbert Pu speaks to CNA at the Vatican, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. Credit: EWTN News
Pu noted that he had already met with the two bishops from mainland China taking part in the synod and plans to meet with them again.
“It’s very important to dialogue with them, to respect each other. I think it’s good … not only for the Chinese, for the whole Church,” the Taiwanese bishop said.
Bishop Antonio Yao Shun of Jining, the first bishop consecrated in China under the terms of the Sino-Vatican agreement, represented the Church in China at the synod assembly in October 2023 along with Chinese Archbishop Joseph Yang Yongqiang before the two suddenly departed early without explanation.
Yao has said that many of the participants in last year’s synod assembly “showed interest in the development of the Church in China, eager to know more and to pray for us.”
The synod also provided an opportunity for the bishops from the People’s Republic of China to spend time with the bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal Stephen Chow.
During last year’s synod assembly, the cardinal and the two bishops even took a brief trip together to Naples where they offered Mass at the Chiesa della Sacra Famiglia dei Cinesi (Church of the Holy Family of the Chinese), a church built in 1732 as part of an institute founded by Pope Clement XII to train Chinese seminarians and teach missionaries the Chinese language to help with the evangelization of China.
A new synod delegate from China
For this year’s assembly, Yao has been replaced by Chinese Bishop Vincent Zhan Silu of Mindong diocese in China’s southern Fujian province.
Zhan Silu, 63, was formerly excommunicated for having been ordained a bishop without a papal mandate in Beijing in 2000. His excommunication was lifted in 2018 when the Vatican signed a historic provisional agreement with the Chinese government on the appointment of bishops.
When Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich was asked why Yao had been replaced by Zhan Silu, the relator general of the synod replied: “The Secretariat of State communicated the names to us, but we have no other information on the matter,” according to Asia News.
Without Yao, Archbishop Yang, 54, is the synod veteran among the two Chinese bishops. Since participating in last year’s synod assembly, Yang has been transferred to the Archdiocese of Hangzhou, a move that took place “within the framework of dialogue” of the provisional agreement with China, according to the Vatican. The change elevated him to the rank of archbishop.
Yang was ordained a bishop with Vatican approval in 2010 and served as the bishop of Zhoucun in mainland China’s Shandong Province from 2013 to June 2024.
He participated in the 2023 National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a political advisory body that is part of the Chinese Communist Party’s united front system, where it was decided that the Catholic Church should integrate its thought with the party and unite more closely to Xi Jinping, according to the official website of the Catholic Patriotic Association.
Zhan Silu and Yang are among the 368 voting delegates taking part in the second synod assembly at the Vatican Oct. 2–27.
The synod is taking place amid the ongoing dialogue between Beijing and Rome on the appointment of bishops. The Vatican has yet to announce if it renewed its provisional agreement with China, which is expected to have been renewed this fall for the third time since it was first signed in 2018.
Vatican-Taiwan relations
During the first week of the assembly, some synod delegates took a break from the day’s meetings to join in the celebration of Taiwan’s 113th National Day at a reception organized by the Embassy of the Republic of China to the Holy See just down the street from St. Peter’s Basilica.
Cardinals and others enjoy a celebration of Taiwan’s 113th National Day at a reception organized by the Embassy of the Republic of China to the Holy See in Vatican City, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. Credit: Embassy of the Republic of China to the Holy See
Vatican City State is the only remaining country in Europe that recognizes Taiwan as a country.
The Holy See has had formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, formally called the Republic of China (ROC), since 1922, while the Church has not had an official diplomatic presence on the mainland People’s Republic of China (PRC) since it was officially expelled by Beijing in 1951.
The island of Taiwan, fewer than 110 miles off the coast of China and home to a population of more than 23 million people, has maintained a vibrant democracy with robust civil liberties despite increased pressure from Beijing regarding the island’s status.
Unlike mainland China — where images of Christ and the Virgin Mary have been replaced with images of President Xi Jinping, according to a report released last week — Catholics in Taiwan enjoy religious freedom, which is enshrined in its constitution.
More than 10,000 people attended the National Eucharistic Congress in Taiwan last weekend, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Pope Francis sent a message to the congress, writing that he hoped it would “arouse in the hearts of the Christian faithful a true worship and love of the Eucharist.” The congress in the Diocese of Kaohsiung was the fifth Eucharistic congress held in Taiwan since 2011.
Bishop Pu told CNA that the congress presented an opportunity to let more people in Taiwan know about the Eucharist and its central importance to the Catholic faith.
“We hope we can always maintain this formal and good relationship with the Vatican. Because for Taiwan, this is very important. We hope that the world will see this because Taiwan is a democratic and free country, respected by other nations,” Pu said.
Vatican City, Feb 6, 2019 / 03:23 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis said Wednesday that his recent trip to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates was a step forward in Catholic-Muslim dialogue and promoting peace among religions.
Giving voice to the voiceless is an act in world-building.