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.”
[…]
Christianity thrived in Iraq prior to the two US led wars against Saddam Hussein the first, the 1990 Gulf War, the 2nd the Invasion of Iraq under order of G W Bush, a war waged on allegation of Iraq’s possession of nuclear weapons, weapons that UN inspector general International Atomic Energy Agency Hans Blix Sweden insisted were not present, and were never found.
Iraq Deputy PM Tariq Aziz, a Catholic, had appealed to Pope John Paul II to exert his influence to prevent an invasion by the US against a weakened virtually helpless Iraq. John Paul was against both Iraq wars, particularly the 2nd. Destruction of Iraq and Hussein’s secular Bath Party opened the door for the creation of ISIS, initially former radicalized Iraq military. The war also ended the balance of power that kept Iran contained, and opened the way for Iran to assume nuclear capability, finances to promote Islamic terrorism.
War is not a Christ inspired policy. Nor is the war in Ukraine, a war that has had instigation and preparation for war with Russia by outside interests seeking to permanently weaken Russia. Pope Francis may not be right on many issues, however on the war in Ukraine, he had sense enough to see that Russia was provoked. Now, in a reverse scenario, the Catholic Church in Ukraine, and in Russia are under greater threat from the Russian Orthodox, which under Patriarch Kirill is a Putin ally. At this stage a negotiated compromise is the real solution, not the irrational proposal by some US military leadership and Europeans for a total defeat of the world’s greatest nuclear and delivery system power Russia.
“…a war that has had instigation and preparation for war with Russia by outside interests seeking to permanently weaken Russia”. This conclusion is doubtful in several respects. It is rather Putin’s own unique policies that have consistently manifested intentions to undermine sovereignty in Russia’s neighboring states of the Baltics, Georgia, etc. Out of the same policies and intentions emerged the ultimate Ukrainian invasion. In addition, it goes without saying, that anyone who understands the nature of Western political institutions, governmental systems and societal dynamics cannot fail to envisage the unlikelihood (sic. nonsensical idea) of say NATO seeking preemptively to “provoke” a war with Russia. It is of course, far more convenient for Putin and his Western supporters to disbelieve or belittle the significance of the fact that NATO is, and has always been, primarily a defensive rather than an offensive organization. This aspect alone betrays Putin’s exaggerated concerns about NATO (“outside interests”) as nothing more than pure fantasies empowering him to cement his own authoritarian inclinations.
NATO sought and continues to seek military alliance encirclement of Russia from Georgia to Ukraine, former Soviets that border Russia. It’s similar to the Soviet Union’s placement of nuclear ballistic missiles in Cuba. The Soviet’s removal of those missiles was due to a behind the scenes agreement for removal of previously placed US nuclear missiles in Turkey, which borders Russia.
Fr Morello, at the time of the Cuban missile crisis the Us had no hardened ICBM silos and the few systems available required lengthy setup and fueling times. Bombers were not armed and on continuous strip alert as was later the case. IRBM’s fired from Cuba would explode on target long before any counter action could even began. The Soviet situation was not comparable in any way. The vast expanse of the communist block ,which included China then, allowed their strategic forces to be stationed far beyond the range of what we had in Western Europe. The secret deployment to Cuba made their plans and intentions all too obvious. In any case how does one manage to encircle such a behemoth? Cuba was the start of an encirclement of the US which continues to this day.
[…It’s similar to the Soviet Union’s placement of nuclear ballistic missiles in Cuba]
I think it’s time for someone to tell Putin the following: that we are in the 2000s, and not in the 1960s; that he is by no means faced with the role Nikita Khrushchev of the Cuban Missile Crisis needed to play; that the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Empire both ended with the onset of the 1990s; that – among other things, instead of acting paranoid and constantly dispatching killers at home and abroad to liquidate his perceived enemies and actively waging aggression in Russia’s backyard and elsewhere, he should rather be investing his country’s vast resources in investigating into, and addressing the rampant issues of unhappiness and extremely low life expectancy among his citizens.
Fr. Morello, if you remember who Tariq Aziz was, you should be ashamed that he was a Catholic.
Father, you made an excellent observation. Thank you!
“Russia was provoked”?? Really, thanks for my laugh of the day.
In recent years Putin suspended the adoption of Russian orphans by citizens of others countries. EVERY major Russia city has an orphanage. Literally tens of thousands of children grow up in an institution, and then are thrown on their own at age 16 with no support. The predictable result: The girls turn to prostitution and the boys to theft, just to survive. Predictably, many end up jailed. Once, the daughter of a Russian military person living here in the US, told me that the Russian orphan boys often ended up in the military. They were considered especially desirable for that work since , as she told me, there would be no family to make a fuss about them if they were killed. I wonder of those orphans who could have used a good home provoked Putin too? Or did he just need more bodies for cannon fodder?
This is personal for me because the son my husband and I adopted more than 20 years ago was one such Russian orphan. My heart breaks for the orphans who never had the same chance at a normal family thanks to Putin.
Its hard for me to imagine that so many Americans still have blinders on about Russia. No one wants war. Sometimes it is forced upon you. Peace at any price is not really peace. Its just capitulation.
Russian orphan management policy aside, Russia was indeed provoked to attack Ukraine. Putin has been very clear that he did not want to be surrounded by NATO countries. Ukraine even agreed to never join NATO. The West consistently ignored that concern and unabashedly NATO-ized Ukraine. It is correct that NATO is an organization for defense purposes. I know that fact firsthand as I served in Bosnia as a NATO peacekeeper. But was Putin provoked? Absolutely. Ask the question what would the US do if Russia and China massed on our southern border? Would the US perceive a threat? Of course it would. So too with Putin and Ukraine. With the exception of the Donbas region, Putin does not want Ukraine. He wants to neutralize a threat on his border.
The Germans wanted “lebensraum”( living space), and they had no problem killing the Poles to get it. Likewise the Russians always wanted an outlet to the sea. Hence the Russian theft of Crimea. That theft of territory was NOT provoked, and pretending many of the people living there were of Russian extraction does not provide grounds to seize territory belonging to another nation. As a sovereign nation, Ukraine is entitled to join NATO if it wants to. Otherwise it simply becomes a client state of Russia, jumping when Russia says so. The CURRENT war is simply step 2 in the Russian attempt to regain all its old territories. Its entirely possible you may not want to live next door to another nation. But as Jagger said ” You can’t always get what you want”. Taking what you want, or trying to push the natives of that area out of your way, often results in war.NATO is a defensive organization. That is bogus to suggest that the Russians were provoked.
OK, what about threats to our southern border ? Encirclement? Marxist governments now control Venezuela, Nicaragua(Rabibly anticatholic), and of course Cuba. Drug lords run Columbia, Much of Mexico, and now Haiti. All these countries contribute heavily (or beginning to ) to our so called “migration”. Oh yes, there are Chinese which travel in groups consisting entirely of military age males who wear the same clothes and carry the same backpacks. Last year the feds found that China had set up branches of its secret police in American cities to keep an eye on our ethnic Chinese. To complete the encirclement, back before the war on Ukraine Russia declared that it claimed the entire Arctic Ocean as its exclusive territory. Far more than enough Russian military bases are now concentrated near Alaska for us to hope to defend it during a larger war. Their bombers probe Alaskan airspace frequently.
LJ, so you made a East European adoption also! Our son is from Bulgaria; he turns 31 in July. His orphanage was in Varna which has the remarkable distinction of being the oldest continuously inhabited city on earth. There were older settlements but they no longer exist. Bulgarians don’t hate Russians but they don’t want to be ruled by Russians, least of all retread Stalinists. When Putin wanted to fly in troops to the Balkans during the troubles with Serbia Bulgaria and Romania made their position clear by denying him use of their airspace. Anyway LJ, it is good to encounter folks who have similar experiences. The principal of the elementary school my son attended had adopted two little Russian boys in better times. We Loved to go to the annual adoption agency picnic to meet and share experiences with other families. God bless you LJ.
Hello JJR. Bravo to you for your adoption as well! Traveling to Russia was one of the big and scary adventures of our lives. My husband and I grew up at the height of the cold war, doing “shelter under you desk drills” in grammar school. My operative feeling about Russians is that they cannot be trusted.Prior to our adoption, Chernoble had happened, and the American embassy in Moscow, through which we would have to process out, had been rocket mortar attacked a few weeks before we left the US to get our son. It was an unnerving process and we went not knowing how many weeks we would be stuck there to get all the papers and approvals signed.Aeroflot had been crashing on a regular basis at that time too. Barely 30, we made certain our wills were written before we left, so in the event of our deaths, our eldest son at home would be properly cared for. Upon meeting our Russian son for the first time,at 6 months old, a Russian doctor told us he would experience developmental delays and would likely have significant trouble learning to walk. It was, they said, our decision now to proceed with the adoption or refuse him. We said yes. He came home with us malnourished and with no vaccinations.
Over time we too went to the adoption agency gatherings and an adoptive parent support group. We still maintain touch with the two couples who traveled with us to the same orphanage to adopt.
Our son is 28 now. Has hit a few bumps in the road while growing up, but no more than any American child. He is musically gifted, graduated a competitive high school with honors and won several college scholarships. He is employed as a paramedic for a major hospital system, and has saved several lives. What a terrible waste if he had languished in an orphanage. Further, he would be of prime military age right now. I have few doubts that had he remained in Russia, he would have been conscripted into the Russian army, where doubtless his life would be at grave risk even as I write this, fighting a war in Ukraine.
My husband and I always consider our sons to be a great gift.We feel lucky they came into our lives.
Sorry, typo. We were almost 40 when adopting our second son. 30 when we did the first. I wish this site had a function which would allow the writer a chance to self correct.