News Briefs

Vatican City, Apr 28, 2018 / 04:06 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Last night Pope Francis began individual meetings with three survivors of clerical sexual abuse from Chile following a major apology earlier this month. The encounters, which have no time limit, will go on throughout the weekend and on Monday.

The survivors – Juan Carlos Cruz, James Hamilton and Andres Murillo – were invited by the pope to stay at the Vatican’s Saint Martha guesthouse, where he has lived since his election in 2013.

In an April 27 statement from the Vatican, spokesman Greg Burke said there will be no official communique on the encounters, as Francis’ primary intention is “to listen to the victims, ask them for forgiveness and respect the confidentiality of these meetings.”

“In this climate of trust and of reparation for suffering,” Bruke said, “the desire of Pope Francis is to allow those invited to speak for as long as needed, such that there are no fixed schedules or predetermined content.”

Cruz, Hamilton and Murillo were each victims of abuse carried out by Chilean priest Fernando Karadima, who in 2011 was found guilty by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of sexually abusing several minors during the 1980s and 1990s, and sentenced to a life of prayer and solitude.

The pope invited the three men to come to the Vatican after receiving a 2,300 page report from Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, who is highly regarded as the Vatican’s top abuse investigator and who traveled to the United States and Chile in February to investigate allegations of cover-up.

Initially the investigation was centered around Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno, who was appointed to the diocese in 2015 and who has been accused by Cruz and several others of not only covering up Karadima’s abuses, but at times also participating.

Allegations were also made against three other bishops – Andrés Arteaga, Tomislav Koljatic and Horacio Valenzuela – who Karadima’s victims accuse of also covering the abuser’s crimes.

While on the ground Scicluna interviewed some 64 people, most of whom were victims, but the scale of the investigation went beyond Barros. It is said to be much more extensive, including details from other cases, such as the Marist Brothers, who are currently under canonical investigation after allegations of sexual abuse by some of the members surfaced in August 2017.

Pope Francis had previous defended Barros, saying he had received no evidence of the bishop’s guilt, and called accusations against him “calumny” during a trip to Chile in January.

However, after receiving Scicluna’s report, Francis issued a major “mea culpa” April 11, saying he had made “serious errors in the judgment and perception of the situation, especially due to a lack of truthful and balanced information.”

He invited Cruz, Hamilton and Murillo to meet with him privately at the Vatican, and summoned all of Chile’s 32 bishops to Rome in the third week of May, where they will discuss the conclusions of Scicluna’s report as well the pope’s own conclusions on the matter.

In recent comments made to the New York Times, Cruz, who will meet with Francis Sunday, said he is looking forward to speaking with the pope with “an open heart” and hearing what the pontiff has to say.

Above all, Cruz said he wants to convey “the pain and suffering of so many people,” many of whom, he said, suffered more than he has, and “I’ve suffered a lot.”

Cruz said at times he has been made at Pope Francis, but does not want to be. Though understands that “people make mistakes,” Cruz said he still grapples with the fact that the pope didn’t act sooner, and that for him, the meeting will be a waste “if it doesn’t result in concrete actions.”

“And firing a few bishops won’t do the trick,” he said, voicing hope that Barros will be relieved from his post in Osorno.

But despite the disappointment and “shattered” vision of the pope that he has going into the meting, Cruz said the pope is still the pope, and “I hope we all get some kind of healing out of this, for ourselves.”

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Liverpool, England, Apr 28, 2018 / 12:07 am (ACI Prensa).- Ailing toddler Alfie Evans, whose plight has tugged at the world’s heartstrings throughout the past week, died in the early hours of Saturday morning after being removed from life support.

In an April 28 Facebook post, Alfie’s father, Tom Evans, said: “My gladiator lay down his shield and gained his wings at 02:30…absolutely heartbroken. I love you my guy.”

Just shy of two years old, Alfie had been in what physicians described as a “semi-vegetative state” due to a mysterious degenerative neurological condition that doctors at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, England have not been able to properly diagnose. He had been hospitalized since December of 2016.

Although Italian officials earlier this week granted Alfie citizenship and a Vatican-linked hospital offered to take the toddler for further diagnosis and treatment, UK courts repeatedly refused to allow the transfer, ruling that it is not in the child’s best interest.

With permission of the court, but against the will of Alfie’s parents, Tom Evans and Kate James, the hospital earlier this week removed Alfie’s ventilator and withheld food and water from the child.

Although the toddler was only expected to live for a few minutes, he was able to breathe on his own for a number of hours, until doctors administered oxygen and hydration. They later administered nutrition as well, after the boy went almost 24 hours without food, according to Alfie’s father.

Life support was again removed from Alfie after a last-minute appeal by his parents was struck down Wednesday. After the ruling, the toddler’s parents released a statement thanking the doctors and hospital staff who cared for their son, saying they wanted to “build bridges” with Alder Hey.

Rallies in support of Alfie’s parents have been held throughout the week in London, Washington, D.C., New York and the Vatican, with pilgrims gathering to pray the rosary in St. Peter’s Square each night leading up to the toddler’s death.  

Pope Francis has also been outspoken about supporting the child’s parents.

The pope, who met with Alfie’s father last week, has offered public prayers for Alfie and his family several times, including at a general audience and in several Twitter posts.

“Moved by the prayers and immense solidarity shown little Alfie Evans, I renew my appeal that the suffering of his parents may be heard and that their desire to seek new forms of treatment may be granted,” he said on Twitter Monday.

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Vatican City, Apr 27, 2018 / 06:20 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican’s annual financial report this year showed that monitoring systems put into place nearly five years ago continue to be effective, however, there is still room to grow in terms of prosecution for questionable activities.

In comments to journalists during a May 27 press briefing, Rene Bruelhart, president of the Vatican’s Financial Intelligence Authority (AIF), said the report for 2017 shows “a clear commitment from our side to continue to report in the most transparent way possible on our activities.”

Two keywords that can sum up the AIF activities for 2017, he said, are “consolidation and normalization,” particularly in terms of implementing a sustainable regulatory and reporting system, as well as growing relations with domestic and international bodies.

Bruelhart, a Swiss lawyer, was tapped to head the AIF after it was established by Benedict XVI in 2010 to supervise the Vatican’s financial activity and prevent and counter money laundering.

Carried forward under Francis, the AIF works alongside other financial entities in the Vatican, such as the Secretariat for the Economy and the Council for the Economy, both of which were established by Pope Francis as part of his ongoing reform of the Roman Curia.

With full autonomy the AIF also monitors and reviews actions carried out by the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See (APSA), which oversees the Vatican’s real estate, and the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), more often referred to as the “Vatican bank.”

Bruelhart was present alongside AIF director Tommaso Di Ruzza at a May 27 press briefing on the AIF’s 6th annual report, which covered 2017 and summed up their continued efforts to build relationships with other states and crack down on suspicious financial activity within the Vatican.

Most notably, the report detailed that it was the AIF which first flagged the diversion of significant funds from the Vatican’s Bambino Gesu Children’s hospital to renovate Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone’s apartment in Rome.

The case exploded in the media, and in October 2017 the former president of the hospital, Giuseppe Profiti, and former treasurer, Massimo Spina, were been charged with the illicit use of hospital funds in the amount of 422,005.16 euros ($480,600.58) to refurbish the flat.

In total for 2017, 150 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) were filed with the AIF, compared to last year’s 207. The reason for the decrease, according to AIF Director Tommaso Di Ruzza, is that the quality of the entity’s reporting system has improved, “showing a growing awareness and strengthening of the control functions of the reporting subjects.”

Of the 150 flagged transactions, 8 were submitted by the AIF to the Vatican Office of the Promoter of Justice during 2017, of which nearly all involved potential financial crimes with foreign individuals or entities either within or in connection with a foreign jurisdiction.

The potential crimes flagged include international fraud, including fiscal fraud and market abuse.

In only one case did the Vatican tribunal freeze an account after a questionable cross-border transaction amounting to roughly 1,757 euro, or $2,122, which took place in 2016, which the AIF said it had flagged and submitted in 2015.

According to the report, none of the activities or transactions reported in 2017 were related to terrorism.

Since 2015, the AIF has presented some 54 reports to the Promoter of Justice. When asked why there has not been a higher number of cases prosecuted in the Vatican courts, which in the past has been identified as an area of weakness, Bruelhart said it will take time to adequately develop the system put into place, and is up to the Promoter of Justice to determine how to act on reports submitted by the AIF.

It is unclear how many of the 54 transactions flagged and sent to the Promoter of Justice have been looked into or investigated. However, “it’s important to remember where we’re coming form,” Bruelhart said, noting that the current system has been built only within the past 5-6 years, and new entities have been established, including the secretariat and council for the economy.

“It has been a new world” for the Promoter of Justice, he said, adding that in his view, the chain of activities that has taken place “has moved in the right direction” and “a lot of progress” has been made.

Noting how the first conviction took place just last year, he said “work is ongoing” in this area, and he expects to see more progress in the future.

“There is a very good dialogue with the office of the promoter of justice,” he said, adding that “it’s about building a dialogue together,” but ultimately the office is the only one responsible for what they decide to do.

Responding to criticism that the Vatican’s financial reform has made little progress, Bruelhart pointed to all the steps that have been taken so far in the past six years, saying if each of them are broken down, one can see that “a lot has been done in a very very short amount of time.”

Change, he said, takes time and at times one needs to take a step back to fully appreciate the progress and continue to go forward. “Its a process, but there is life in this process,” he said.

In addition, the AIF in 2017 also cracked down on transparency and accountability for donations made for institutional and charitable purposes, as well as interactions with what they have dubbed “high risk states” which do not have proper monitoring systems in place.

The crack down on transactions for charity and donations comes after a law was introduced Nov. 22, 2017, on the “Registration and Supervision of Non-Profit Organizations.”

The AIF also signed an additional 19 Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with foreign counterparts, bringing the bringing the number to 57, and exchanged information in some 282 cases.

In an April 27 press release on the AIF report, Di Ruzza stressed the importance of these relations, saying that “considering the potential risks linked to the universal projection of the Holy See, international cooperation is pivotal.”

These type of cross-border agreements are designed to crack down on money laundering and tax evasion, ensuring that the IOR does not become a tax haven.

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