Vatican City, Aug 2, 2017 / 09:32 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After hosting a discussion earlier this summer, the Vatican office for justice has outlined several goals and action points in their plan to fight corruption, which will be a central focus for the upcoming year.
On June 15 the International Consultation Group for justice, corruption, organized crime and mafias, part of the Vatican dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, organized an “International Debate on Corruption.”
The event, hosted in collaboration with the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences, drew some 50 participants from all over the world, including anti-mafia and anti-corruption magistrates, bishops, Vatican officials, representatives from the U.N. and various States, heads of movements, victims and ambassadors.
As a result of that meeting, the consultation group has issued a joint text July 31 highlighting their priorities and providing 21 goals and actions points they hope to accomplish in the coming year.
In the text, the group noted that among Pope Francis’ monthly prayer intentions for 2018 is the petition “that those who have material, political or spiritual power may resist any lure of corruption,” to which the month of February will be dedicated.
“Corruption, prior to being an act, is a condition,” they said. “Hence the need for culture, education, training, institutional action, citizen participation.”
To encourage this, the group said that from September of this year on, they will place a special focus on anti-corruption efforts, and plan to formulate different definitions of “corruption,” which was mentioned in a book-length interview with Cardinal Peter Turkson titiled “Corrosione,” or “Corrosion.”
Published the same day as the June 15 debate on corruption, the book was presented during the event and features a forward by Pope Francis, who called corruption a “form of blasphemy” and a “cancer that weighs our lives.”
According to the text, the group “will not just come up with virtuous exhortations, because concrete gestures are needed.” To educate means having credible teachers, they said, “even in the Church.”
As an international network, the group and the Church itself will work “with courage, resolution, transparency, spirit of collaboration and creativity.”
The group insisted that “anyone seeking alliances to obtain privileges, exemptions, preferential or even illegal pathways, is not credible.”
“If we decide to follow this behavior, we can all run the risk of becoming unsuitable, harmful and dangerous,” they said, adding that those “taking advantage of their position to recommend people who are often not recommendable – both in terms of value and honesty – are not credible.”
“Thus, the action of the Consultation Group will be educational and informative, and will address public opinion and many institutions to create a mentality of freedom and justice, in view of the common good.”
Consequences arising as a result of corruption are not often recognized, they said, noting that “one is unaware that an act of corruption is often at the base of a crime.”
Because of this, the group aims to intervene and “fill this gap, especially wherever, in the world, corruption is the dominant social system.”
With the help of bishops’ conferences and local churches, members will also dedicate themselves to investigating a global response to the “excommunication of the mafia” and other similar criminal groups, as well as “the prospect of excommunication for corruption.”
Pope Francis himself said in a June 2014 visit to Calabria, a region plagued by mafia activity, called the local criminal branch, known as the ‘Ndrangheta, “adorers of evil” and said that those who have chosen this path “not in communion with God. They are ‘excommunicated,’” as an invitation to conversion.
Another objective the group will pursue is to “develop the almost-lost relationship between justice and beauty,” since “our extraordinary historical, artistic and architectural heritage will be a formidable element supporting educational and social actions against all forms of corruption and organized crime.”
They will also seek to promote a political mindset which, in their words, is capable of “enlightening actions towards civil institutions, to ensure that international treaties are effectively enforced and laws are standardized to best pursue the tentacles of crime, which go well beyond state borders.”
To this end, the principals of both the Palermo and Merida Conventions against transnational organized crime and corruption will be studied.
Peace and the relationship between peace processes and various forms of corruption will be another area of study, since corruption “also causes a lack of peace.”
“A movement, an awakening of consciences, is necessary,” the group said. “This is our primary motivation, which we perceive as a moral obligation. Laws are necessary but not sufficient.”
Key areas of focus, then, will be education, culture and citizenship, they said, stressing that “we need to act with courage to stir and provoke consciences, shifting from widespread indifference to the perception of the severity of these phenomena, in order to fight them.”
[…]
Were yours truly the ghost writer for Pope Francis, a framing that I might propose would include the following themes (ranked as shown). It’s not only that an updating might be needed, but also that Laudato Si was a bit rough because it was admittedly accelerated to coincide with the politics of the Paris Climate Accord.
1. A restored DISTINCTION between the, yes, interrelated “human ecology” (e.g., the family) and the “natural ecology,” more than is provided by the conflated “integral ecology” (only the merged family of man?). Example, the moral equivalence between aborting our own children, the de facto triaging of ecological vulnerable human populations, and the abortion of the planet as our common home (our global amniotic sac).
2. The Catholic Social Teaching as the application of universal MORAL VIRTUES rather than as any ideology (the negation of all ideology!): prudential judgment (caution despite and even because of scientific uncertainty), courage (political), temperance (both personal and cultural), and fortitude.
3.An eye to the Church’s direct responsibility as the dark side of progressive modernity unfolds, by recalling a broad definition of “the preferential option for THE POOR”: “This option is not limited to material poverty, since it is well known that there are many other forms of poverty, especially in modern society—not only economic, but cultural and spiritual poverty as well” (Centesimus Annus, 1993, n. 57).
4. More HONEY less VINEGAR: More credit/encouragement to those kinds of programs well underway, or only partially, to preserve what is being lost or fix what is out of balance: conservation (whether Teddy Roosevelt’s national part initiative, or the transnational/public-private Nature Conservancy), environmental impact analyses (in the U.S. since 1969), or sometimes the corporate triple-bottom line (profit, loss, social/environmental factors).
5. A more developed message on the inseparability of the CST PRINCIPLES of Solidarity/ Subsidiarity (see again Centesimus Annus on human initiative/ethical markets, nn. 32, 44). Acknowledgment of knotty problems—details within the domain of those responsible for the common good (Vatican II)—in navigating uneven economic burdens and disjointed “politics” between the developed nations and India, and Marxist regimes.
#4 “…Teddy Roosevelt’s national parks [not “part”] initiative…” now totaling 52 million acres or 80 thousand square miles (0.08 million). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_parks_of_the_United_States From the internet, the Nature Conservancy operates in over seventy countries and the goal for 2030 is to have preserved 650 million hectares or 2.5 million square miles, a land area twice the size of India.
By comparison, the total land surface area of the earth is 197 million square miles, of which about one-third is devoted to agriculture and about another one-fifth to urbanization.
Was Francis of Assisi a borderline idolater? Or were the writings, fairytale ditties like the sermon to the fishes, the converted maneater wolf of Gubbio, the poem Brother Sun Sister Moon the pious inventions of adherents?
There are only two examples of alleged documents written by Saint Francis, one, to Leo of Assisi praising God. This first letter was a parchment, hand written on both sides. The other was a letter written to Bro Leo on his scruples regarding the Gospels.
Francis’ writings were redacted by his first followers. Francis insisted they be copied exactly as written. There’s reliable evidence they were not. Words were changed to ‘polish’ the image of the saint. Other letters, one to Elizabeth of Hungary, were lost (Franciscan Tradition: Francis of Assisi: Early Documents – The Saint. Armstrong, Regis, O.F.M. Cap.|Hellmann, J.A. Wayne, O.F.M. Conv.|Short, William, O.F.M.|Francis of Assisi, Saint, 1181-1226).
My purpose is not to denigrate the beloved saint, or to criticize Pope Francis for quoting him, although I do have misgivings following Pachamamma in the Sanctuary of St Peter’s, and the emphasis on the environment to the negligence of more concrete moral issues.
My purpose is to expose the real possibility of a more manly Francis, one who seriously followed Christ, prepared to reject the world, suffer the darkness of Mankind’s sins on Mount Alverna and receive the stigmata. Leaving us a legacy more consistent with that of saint Paul the Apostle, and Christ. Not however to totally diminish the possibility of his affinity with nature, rather to realistically temper it
Fr. Peter: Please do your research and read about the now exposed (and personally admitted) “Pachamama” drama as having been staged by Taylor Marshall of which he monetized a lot. Please stop spreading this smear campaign against Pope Francis.
Theodore Misiak set the standard for social as well as ecological justice in ‘The fruits of environmentalism and of social justice’. “We cannot have social justice without virtuous people”. For the environment and human ecology the standard is similar, We invariably cannot have just human ecology without virtuous people. That was brought home to me when flyfishing on pristine Canadice Lake NY. Smallest of the Finger Lakes Canadice is a watershed for Rochester.
Shocked when I learned that the Lake had to be dredged, drained for retrieval of barrels of deadly waste materials dumped years prior when regulations for waste disposal were insufficient. Although dumping in lakes was forbidden, industrial subcontractors weren’t concerned about poisoning people in Rochester. Cutting costs was more important.
Our planet, God’s beautiful gift, his assigning us as stewards hasn’t gone well. We can regulate with severe penalties but if there’s opportunity industrialists will likely exploit it. Our faith has wider repercussions than frequently realized. Laudato si’ 2 if well thought out can contribute to an environmental moral conscience.
Yes, Fr. Peter, we need to rescue St. Francis from this pontificate. The great repentant lover of Christ crucified is portrayed as a sixties hippy environmentalist frolicking in a bird bath. St. Francis loved all creation because he loved the Creator.
Have you read his last will and Testament? It is very beautiful. See page 65 the Franciscan Omnibus of Sources. The writings of St. Francis begin on page 44. https://archive.org/details/OmnibusOfSources/page/n825/mode/2up
I just watched and heard it narrated by the Franciscan Media Center India on YouTube. The narration and filming was excellent. The text appears an authentic representation of the saint.
Francis initially focuses on his love of priesthood, although we know out of his remarkable humility he remained a lay brother. He also left the Rule for the Order of Franciscans, which had to be modified because of its severity. There’s a collected ‘Works of the Seraphic Father St Francis of Assisi’. It doesn’t provide a publisher except that it was produced by the Order based on an 1848 Cologne Germany translation. It has the imprimatur of the Bishop of Birmingham England. It seems authentic.
Check out his writings in the Omnibus I linked. The Saint’s writings can’t be more than 100 pages. Try praying aloud his Praises and Prayers.
For the record, St. Francis was Ordained a Deacon to preach. For instance, he preached Christmas Mass at Greccio where he made the first crèche. St. Francis had such a reverence for the Eucharist he carried a broom around when he preached to clean the Churches in each town! He was constantly memorizing Scripture for prayer and share it through preaching. All of his writings are imbued with Scripture. God’s peace.
The earth, the air, the land and the water are not an inheritance from our fore fathers but on loan from our children. So we have to handover to them at least as it was handed over to us – Mahatma Gandhi
Spot on Dr. C. Gandhi has more to do with this pontificate than St. Francis.
“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”
Words also attributed to Chief Seattle (1786-1866), Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), and even the later Wendell Berry (1934-) and others. Of interest to some, Chief Seattle converted to Catholicism as a seasoned adult in 1848 (under the name Noah), and Oscar Wilde converted only very near his death; while Berry identifies as the “ultimate Protestant”.https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2014/08/19/the-ultimate-protestant-wendell-berry-same-sex-marriage-and-the-new-state-religion/
The saying is sometimes linked to Chief Seattle’s famous speech of 1854 (https://www.historylink.org/File/1427). The words do not appear there, but some of which reads this way about the indigenous peoples’ bond to nature:
“Your dead cease to love you and the homes of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb. They wander far off beyond the stars, are soon forgotten, and never return. Our dead never forget the beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its winding rivers, its great mountains and its sequestered vales, and they ever yearn in tenderest affection over the lonely hearted living and often return to visit and comfort them.”
Like her father, Chief Seattle’s eldest daughter, Kikisoblu (c.1820-1896, renamed Princess Angeline) was also baptized and remained a Catholic until her own death, and is buried in a Seattle’s Lake View Cemetery.
And we don’t need to be lectured about it from people whose motivation is to use the issue as a rationalizing cover to make support for mass murder of inconvenient life seem like a benevolent service to the planet.
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.
He long ago ran out of things to say. It’s now gotten to the point where he is issuing sequels to his own lousy originals. Christians are being murdered and persecuted in Nigeria, Pakistan, Nicaragua, Vietnam and many other countries (including, increasingly, Western “democracies”). Yet, this pope can’t write a letter to encourage the faithful who are under siege and condemn the evil regimes that are committing these crimes. To do so, of course, he would have to attack his allies and partners, like the CCP. So instead, he returns to repeat his pseudo-scientific claims about “climate change” and make equally bogus theological declarations about our moral obligation to submit to the Green Agenda.