Vatican City, Mar 24, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- The Vatican’s financial watchdog will soon get a new director responsible for its supervision unit. Carmelo Barbagallo, president of the Vatican Supervisory and Financial Information Authority […]
Washington D.C., Mar 24, 2021 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- Gov. Ralph Northam (D-Va.) signed a bill Wednesday ending the death penalty in Virginia, making the commonwealth the 23rd state to abolish the practice.“Signing this new law is the right thing to do,” No… […]
CNA Staff, Mar 24, 2021 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Scotland’s supreme civil court ruled on Wednesday that the Scottish government’s blanket ban on public worship is unlawful.Judge Lord Braidoverturnedthe ban on March 24 in response to a challenge by 27 faith l… […]
Many Catholic writers have been explaining, examining, and encouraging devotion to Saint Joseph ever since Pope Francis declared a “Year of Saint Joseph” in December of 2020. As the March 19th annual solemnity in honor […]
Rome Newsroom, Mar 24, 2021 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- Slovenian authorities have reportedly filed preliminary charges against an Italian woman on suspicion of laundering funds illegally obtained from the Vatican through Slovenian-registered companies.
According to Slovenian daily Večer, criminal investigators in the capital city of Ljubljana have filed the preliminary charges against Marogna and a Slovenian citizen they think may have been working with her.
Marogna is expected to face a Vatican trial for alleged embezzlement after she was accused of misappropriating Vatican funds from payments of more than 500,000 euros (around $600,000) she received from the Vatican’s Secretariat of State through her Slovenia-registered company in 2018 and 2019.
The accusation is that funds intended for humanitarian purposes were used for personal expenses, including stays at luxury hotels and purchases of designer label handbags.
According to Večer, Slovenian investigators have found that Marogna in 2019 transferred up to 575,000 euros to several Slovenia-based companies before spending it or transferring it to other accounts.
Večer reported March 22 that Slovenian police, in cooperation with the Office for the Prevention of Money Laundering and foreign security authorities, froze 175,000 euros in one company’s account and carried out a house search on a Slovenian citizen suspected of cooperating with Marogna in laundering money.
Marogna has claimed that she worked for the Secretariat of State as a security consultant and strategist. She acknowledged receiving hundreds of thousands of euros from the Vatican but insisted that the money was for her Vatican consultancy work and salary.
Media have claimed that the payments were made under the direction of Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the former sostituto of the Secretariat of State and a fellow Sardinian. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Marogna was arrested in Milan last year on an international warrant issued by the Vatican through Interpol. She was released from jail 17 days later and in January the Vatican announced it had dropped its request for Marogna’s extradition from Italy just as Italian judges were due to rule on it.
The Vatican also said in January that the trial against Marogna for alleged embezzlement would begin soon.
According to the Sardinia Post, in February Marogna lodged a complaint in the Brescia prosecutor’s office for alleged crimes committed against her in connection with her arrest.
She reportedly claimed that she was “deprived of freedom unjustly” from the day of her arrest until the lifting of the obligation to register her presence with Milan police in mid-January.
Marogna submitted the complaint through her new legal representation, after her previous lawyers, who specialize in corporate criminal law, parted ways with her in early February.
She also appealed to the Court of Review of Milan last month against the seizure of her cellphone as part of the Vatican investigation against her.
The smartphone is reported to have been recently sent to Vatican investigators after being in the possession of Italian investigators since October.
Washington D.C., Mar 24, 2021 / 10:00 am (CNA).- An activist Chicago priest has pledged to return to some form of parish ministry while he remains under investigation by the archdiocese for three different allegations of sexual abuse.
“Ove… […]
Vatican City, Mar 24, 2021 / 09:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis appointed Wednesday Juan Carlos Cruz to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
Cruz, a Chilean survivor of clerical sex abuse, will sit on the Vatican commission for three years.
“I am very grateful to Pope Francis for trusting me with this appointment. I deeply appreciate it,” Cruz wrote on his Twitter account following the announcement on March 24.
“This renews my commitment to continue working to end the scourge of abuse and for so many survivors who still do have justice.”
Cruz joins the existing members of the commission. Fifteen of their appointments were renewed for a year by the pope.
The Vatican Commission for the Protection of Minors was established by Pope Francis in March 2014 as a papal advisory body to improve the Church’s norms and procedures for the protection of children and vulnerable adults.
Cruz is a survivor of sexual abuse by Fr. Fernando Karadima, who in 2011 was found guilty by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of sexually abusing minors in the 1980s and 1990s.
Pope Francis met with Cruz and other victims of Karadima in April 2018 in a meeting at the Vatican in which the pope apologized for previously defending Chilean Bishop Juan Barros, who was accused of covering up Karadima’s abuse at the time of the pope’s trip to Chile earlier that year.
Cruz later said in an interview that he had spoken about his homosexuality during his private meeting with the pope, and said that Francis had told him to accept himself and his same-sex attraction because God made him that way.
Last week, before his appointment to the pontifical commission, Cruz spoke out in criticism of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith’s (CDF) ruling that the Catholic Church cannot give liturgical blessings of homosexual unions.
Cruz told the Associated Press on March 15 that people would leave the Catholic Church “if the Church and the CDF do not advance with the world.”
Since the pontifical commission’s establishment, the advisory group has been headed by Cardinal Seán O’Malley of Boston with U.S. Msgr. Robert Oliver as its secretary.
In the Vatican’s March 24 announcement, the membership of Msgr. Luis Manuel Alí Herrera, Fr. Hans Zollner, Sr. Jane Bertelsen, Sr. Arina Gonsalves, Sr. Kayula Lesa, Sr. Hermenegild Makoro, Ernesto Caffo, Gabriel Dy-Liacco, Benyam Dawit Mezmur, John Owen Neville, Nelson Giovannelli Rosendo dos Santo, Hanna Suchocka, Myriam Wijlens, Sinalelea Fe’ao, and Teresa Kettelkamp Morris were renewed.
Vatican City, Mar 24, 2021 / 08:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis issued a letter Wednesday cutting the salaries of some Vatican employees as a way to contain costs after the institution’s budget projected a deficit of $60 million in 2021.
The pope sai… […]
There is no need to belabor the awfulness of the year of lockdowns, shutdowns, and other downers that began in mid-March 2020. Among the failures that will bear serious scrutiny going forward are those of […]
Rome Newsroom, Mar 24, 2021 / 07:00 am (CNA).- Cardinal Charles Maung Bo committed Wednesday to ongoing support for Burma’s protest movement, provided that it remains “non-violent and peaceful.”
In a statement issued by the archdioce… […]
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