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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“We should meet abuse by forbearance. Human nature is so constituted that if we take absolutely no notice of anger or abuse, the person indulging in it will soon get tired of it and stop” – Mahatma Gandhi
With Pope Francis, yes, shun that anger within the soul that is self-destructive…but as for Gandhi’s wisdom, apparently Hitler and Stalin didn’t get that memo; nor in Nigeria, Boko Haram and now their splinter groups–they’re not tired yet.
As for the complete example of Christ, Christian charity and civility are certainly one thing, yes, but a footnote here on sometimes-conflated groveling by Christians, which is quite another. Josef Pieper observes Christ and then quotes Aquinas:
First PIEPER: “Christ drove the money-changers from the temple with a whip, and when the most patient of men stood before the high priest and was struck in the face by a servant, he did NOT turn the other cheek, but answered: ‘If there was harm in what I said, tell us what was harmful in it, but if not, why dost thou strike me?’” (Jn 18:23).
Then AQUINAS in his commentary on St. John’s Gospel:
“Holy Scripture must be understood in the light of what Christ and his saints have actually practiced. Christ did not offer his other cheek, nor Paul either. Thus to interpret the injunction of the Sermon on the Mount [turning the other cheek, Mt 5:39] LITERALLY is to misunderstand it. This injunction signifies rather the readiness of the soul to bear, IF IT BE NECESSARY, such things and worse, without bitterness against the attacker. This readiness our Lord showed, when he gave up his body to be crucified. That response of the Lord was useful, therefore, for our instruction” (Pieper, Fortitude and Temperance, 1954).
Aquinas’ “De Malo” (on evil/sin in general and on capital sin in particular) is not online, but Catholics would surely benefit from reading it. He distinguishes anger’s formal (reason/intellect/will) element from its material element (emotional response to the sense experience of pain or injury judged to be an injustice).
Reason– will–spiritual act–should control our anger so that we seek to correct injustices with due regard to the law (eternal, natural, man-made, etc.) which limits or allows correction.
To desire vengeance against sin (particularly our own) is a virtue. To desire and to take vengeance on another outside ordered LAW (to do away with the sin of another by doing away with another) is not within the individual’s freedom of law, so fomenting the emotion and acting on a desire for vengeance beyond that allowed o by law becomes a serious sin. Aquinas points out the beatitude of Jesus’ response to injustice but notes that men’s venial sins of anger are forgiven as we ask for forgiveness and forgive injuries received while uttering the Our Father.
Aquinas quotes scripture as justification for his many arguments. Ephesians 4:26 – ‘If you are angry, do not sin’ makes clear [says Aquinas] that anger is not [always] a mortal sin but is sometimes judged as reasonable and just. 2 Chronicles 2:15 – Elisha cursed a group of young boys (justifiably) and then two bears mauled them. The cursing because of extreme anger was not judged a mortal sin. Aquinas quotes Augustine’s City of God to note that Christian teaching does not consider whether one is angry but WHY. He quotes Gregory the Great and Aristotle. He disputes commonly accepted errors in Stoic philosophy on anger.
Oxford Univ. Press published the book “On Evil” in 2003. Discussion on anger is on pp. 371-387. Notes by Brian Davies.
[Today I heard the rumor that Francis has brain tumors.]
“People may think that anger in the face of opposition is due to a sense of justice for a good cause. But in reality, most of the time it is nothing other than pride, united with weakness, sensitivity, and impatience” (Francis). Our Lord says something quite similar to Catherine of Siena in her Dialogues. His intellectual, spiritual talent is evident here in his counsel on dealing with anger. If you accessed his spiritual commentaries when in Argentina shown on EWTN
it would be even more evident.
The pity and the problem is the transition, a different spirit, as supreme pontiff of the Church, not simply his demeaning behavior, explosions of anger and so forth, rather what’s perceived as guile. Subterfuge in nudging an agenda that effectively undermines the Catholic doctrine, the well known dual orthodox heterodox messaging. If it were an attempt to soften doctrine when exception occurs it would be more amenable. The difference is his disassembling of the very nature of permanency. Examples: On conscience and suggestion of absolute inviolability, “we are called to form conscience not to replace it” [Amoris 37]; On the mutability of all moral principles, “the further we descend into details the principle will be found to fail” [Amoris 304 in comment on ST 94, 4]; On mitigation Francis quotes catechism 2352 on masturbation suggesting that habit mitigates grave sin, whereas the Catechism refers to the young and immature not the adult engaged in adultery [Amoris 302]. Similarly the misleading comment on Aquinas in ST 94, 4 who comments on the Natural Law, Whether it is universally the same for all people he references difference among peoples, cultures that abrogate natural law either due to ignorance, or sin. The principle doesn’t change, rather it’s the people who wrongly observe the natural law who are subject to failure.
This modality of commenting on doctrinal principles is deceptive in Amoris, as elsewhere. At best a lack of intelligence, at worst intentional. Without offering judgment on the conscientious state of the man, that interior knowledge of the soul is exclusively God’s purview, we must make judgment on what is itself manifest to us. Knowledgeable of these evident errors that are necessarily within our purview, we’re indeed required to make judgment. Whereas, we err, perhaps gravely, if we correctly assume that since we cannot judge the man’s soul, we are obliged not only to refrain from judging him, but are also obliged to condone his errors by mistakenly affording them the benefit of our doubt, simply because they are the work of the Roman Pontiff.
From bouncer to Papa. It is well documented by reliable sources that his little flare-ups are quite regular! Some hold to the opinion that he might have done better in the former, rather than ;the latter.