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Who might be Cardinal Sarah’s successor?

February 25, 2021 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Feb 25, 2021 / 04:44 pm (CNA).- After Robert Cardinal Sarah’s retirement as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments, the big question around the Vatican is who will take his place.

Informed sources say that Pope Francis would be looking at three possible options.

The first would be that Pope Francis would raise Archbishop Arthur Roche, 70, from the congregation’s secretary to its prefect.

Archbishop Roche was appointed Secretary of the Congregation for the Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments by Benedict XVI in 2012. Before, he was president of the British International Commission on Liturgy from 2002 to 2012. He also served as auxiliary bishop of Westminster from 2001 to 2002, coadjutor Bishop of Leeds from 2002 to 2004, and Bishop of Leeds from 2004 to 2012.

During Pope Francis’ pontificate, he has been a go-between Pope Francis and Cardinal Sarah in liturgical issues. He was entrusted with writing a commentary to the motu proprio Magnum Principium, which shifted the responsibility of translating liturgical texts to bishops’ regional and national conferences. The comment came out along with the publication of the motu proprio.

In 2019, Pope Francis appointed Archbishop Roche as a member of the team to examine the appeals on delicta graviora, the gravest crimes dealt by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which includes the sexual abuse of minors.

The second option is Bishop Claudio Maniago of Castellaneta. Maniago, 62, has been president of the Italian Bishops Conference’s Commission on liturgy since 2015. In that position, he oversaw the new translation into Italian of the Roman Missal, which included a new version of the Our Father.

Pope Francis appointed Bishop Maniago as a member of the Congregation for Divine Worship, and in 2016.

The third option would be Bishop Vittorio Viola of Tortona. A member of the Order of Friars Minor, Viola, 55, has been a bishop since 2014.

Pope Francis picked Viola as bishop, raising him from his position of president of the Assisi Caritas. He had also been the Custodian of the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels in Assisi. He got to know Pope Francis during the pope’s visit to Assisi on Oct. 4, 2013, when he sat next to him during a lunch with the poor.

Viola was ordained a priest by Bishop Luca Brandolini, one of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini’s closest collaborators.

Viola is also a good friend of Bishop Domenico Sorrentino of Assisi, who was secretary of the Congregation for the Divine worship from 2003 to 2005.

Pope Francis reportedly appreciated how Bishop Viola handled the parishes’ re-organization in Tortona, and he showed strong decision-making skills. Bishop Viola was among the candidates to take over the position of Archbishop of Genoa. Pope Francis opted for a Conventual Franciscan in Genoa, Fr. Marco Tasca. But rumors insist that the pope had already decided to call Viola to the Vatican.


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Books

“The Best Books I Read in 2020”

December 16, 2020 CWR Contributors 18

Dear Readers, “No man can be called friendless,” wrote Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “who has God and the companionship of good books.” This year has been marked by many troubles, strains, and trials. It has been […]

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News Briefs

Swiss bishops: Same-sex marriage proposal ‘fraught with difficulties’

December 9, 2020 CNA Daily News 3

CNA Staff, Dec 9, 2020 / 04:48 pm (CNA).- The Catholic bishops of Switzerland are voicing opposition to a legal measure that would legalize same-sex marriage in the country, calling the proposal “fraught with numerous administrative, legal and ethical difficulties.”

The Swiss senate on Dec. 1 passed a bill entitled “Marriage for All,” which had been debated in the Swiss parliament since its introduction by the Green Liberal Party of Switzerland in 2013. It would legalize same-sex marriage and pave the way for allowing same-sex couples to avail themselves of sperm donation, facilitated citizenship for partners, and co-adoption rights.

Switzerland has recognized civil unions for same-sex couples since 2007, following a 2005 referendum.

While affirming the importance of “equality in terms of civil rights and social benefits” for self-described LGBT people, the bishops noted that differentiation between civil unions and the institution of marriage does not amount to discrimination.

“[T]he Catholic Church is primarily entrusted with the sacrament of marriage. She celebrates before God the union of man and woman as a common, stable and reproductive life laid out in love,” the Swiss Bishops’ Conference said in a Dec. 4 statement.

“This is why [we are] convinced, also with regard to civil marriage, that the use of the term ‘marriage’ should not be extended to any connection between two people regardless of their gender. Such a use of the term would bring about an equality that, in [our] opinion, cannot exist.”

The “Marriage for All” bill will continue to be debated throughout the winter parliamentary session.

Among the reasons the bishops gave for opposing the measure is that same-sex couples would need to resort to reproductive medicine techniques such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) and surrogacy in order to have children, which are morally illicit.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2008 issued an instruction that laid out guidelines for treatment assisting with infertility, writing that medical techniques regarding fertility must respect the right to life and to physical integrity of every human being from conception to natural death, the unity of marriage, and the requirement that “the procreation of a human person be brought about as the fruit of the conjugal act specific to the love between spouses.’”

The CDF also noted that even in modern IVF treatments, the number of embryos sacrificed in order to achieve pregnancy remains high, and embryos with defects may be discarded altogether. Moreover, IVF disassociates procreation from the personal marital act of a husband and wife, which in itself is ethically unacceptable.

“The ethical implications of reproductive medicine and the rights of the child are profound,” the Swiss bishops noted.

“Not addressing these effects in order to facilitate equality today without distinguishing between heterosexual and homosexual couples could tomorrow lead to an already accepted principle being accepted unconditionally.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that those who identify as LGBT “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.”

The Catechism elaborates that homosexual inclinations are “objectively disordered,” homosexual acts are “contrary to the natural law,” and those who identify as lesbian and gay, like all people, are called to the virtue of chastity.

In a 2003 document approved by St. John Paul II and written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith taught that “respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.”

Even if civil unions might be chosen by people other than same-sex couples, like siblings or committed friends, the CDF said that homosexual relationships would be “foreseen and approved by the law,” and that civil unions “would obscure certain basic moral values and cause a devaluation of the institution of marriage.”

“Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity,” the document concluded.

Benedict XVI in 2005 said that acceptance of various alternatives to marriage devalue the institution of marriage.


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Pope Francis approves overhaul of Vatican’s financial watchdog

December 5, 2020 CNA Daily News 2

Vatican City, Dec 5, 2020 / 07:35 am (CNA).- Pope Francis approved Saturday sweeping changes to the Vatican’s financial watchdog authority.

The Holy See press office announced Dec. 5 that the pope had ratified new statutes for the Financial Intelligence Authority, renaming the agency created by Benedict XVI in 2010 to oversee Vatican financial transactions.

The body, which ensures that the Vatican complies with international financial standards, will no longer be known as the Financial Intelligence Authority (Autorità di Informazione Finanziaria, or AIF). 

It will now be called the Supervisory and Financial Information Authority (Autorità di Supervisione e Informazione Finanziaria, or ASIF).

The new statutes also redefine the roles of the agency’s president and directorate, as well as establishing a new Regulation and Legal Affairs Unit within the organization.

Carmelo Barbagallo, the authority’s president, told Vatican News that the addition of the word “Supervisory” enabled the agency’s name “to be aligned with the tasks actually assigned to it.”

He noted that, in addition to carrying out its original functions of gathering financial intelligence and combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism, the agency had also supervised the Institute for the Works of Religion, or “Vatican bank,” since 2013. 

He said that the new unit would handle all legal issues, including regulation. 

“The tasks of defining the rules have been separated from those of exercising controls,” he said. 

He explained that the agency would now have three units: a Supervision Unit, a Regulation and Legal Affairs Unit, and a Financial Intelligence Unit. 

Barbagallo, whose role as president is significantly strengthened by the changes, said that one of the most important novelties was that in future the agency would be required to follow stricter rules on the appointment of new lay personnel. 

The watchdog will have to consult a body known as the Independent Evaluation Commission for the Recruitment of Lay Personnel to the Apostolic See, known by its Italian acronym, CIVA.

Barbagallo said this would ensure “a more extensive selection of candidates and a greater control in hiring decisions, avoiding the risk of arbitrariness.” 

The approval of the new statutes marks the end of a year of upheaval for the agency. At the start of 2020, the authority was still suspended from the Egmont Group, through which 164 financial intelligence authorities worldwide share information.

The agency was suspended from the group on Nov. 13, 2019, after Vatican gendarmes raided the offices of the Secretariat of State and the AIF. This was followed by the abrupt resignation of René Brülhart, the authority’s high-profile president, and the appointment of Barbagallo as his replacement. 

Two prominent figures, Marc Odendall and Juan Zarate, then resigned from the AIF’s board of directors. Odendall said at the time that the AIF had been effectively rendered “an empty shell” and that there was “no point” in remaining involved in its work.   

The Egmont Group reinstated the AIF on Jan. 22 this year. In April, Giuseppe Schlitzer was appointed director of the agency, succeeding Tommaso Di Ruzza, who was one of five Vatican employees suspended after the raid. 

During an inflight press conference in November 2019, Pope Francis criticized the AIF under Di Ruzza, saying that “it was AIF that did not control, it seems, the crimes of others. And therefore [it failed] in its duty of controls. I hope that they prove it is not so. Because there is, still, the presumption of innocence.”

The watchdog authority issued its annual report in July. It disclosed that it had received 64 suspicious activity reports in 2019, 15 of which it forwarded to the Promoter of Justice for possible prosecution. 

In its annual report, it hailed “the rising trend in the ratio between reports to the Promoter of Justice” and cases of suspicious financial activity.

The report came ahead of a scheduled inspection by Moneyval, the Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering watchdog, which has put pressure on the Vatican to prosecute breaches of financial regulations. 

Speaking after the release of the AIF’s annual report, Barbagallo said: “Several years have gone by since Moneyval’s first inspection of the Holy See and Vatican City State, which took place in 2012. During this time span, Moneyval has remotely monitored the many advances made by the jurisdiction in the fight to prevent money laundering and the financing of terrorism.”

“As such, the upcoming inspection is especially important. Its outcome may determine how the jurisdiction is perceived by the financial community.”

A report based on the inspection is scheduled for discussion and adoption at a plenary meeting of Moneyval in Strasbourg, France, on April 26-30, 2021.


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