Pope Francis meets with members of the Meter association in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall, May 15, 2021. / Vatican Media.
CNA Staff, May 15, 2021 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis told an anti-pedophilia group Saturday that its work is “more necess… […]
St. Peter’s Basilica. / Bohumil Petrik/CNA
Vatican City, May 15, 2021 / 03:00 am (CNA).
In 2015, facing scandals in the healthcare sector, Pope Francis established a Pontifical Commission for the Activities of the Public Juridical Persons of the Church in the Healthcare Sector. The board of the Commission was renewed in June 2020. However, there is no trace of the Commission in the Annuario Pontificio.
The absence of the commission is striking, especially considering it has a dedicated page on the Vatican website. Even so, it is not among the organs listed in the Roman Curia page on the Vatican website.
The commission was designed as an organ of the Roman Curia, attached to the Secretariat of State and its regulations. The commission’s objective was to control and supervise how the health facilities managed by religious congregations manage money and assets.
The Ccmmission was established in 2015, following a series of scandals that affected some Catholic healthcare facilities.
The most important is known that of the crack of the IDI, the Dermopathic Institute of the Immaculate, which had found itself 800 million euros in debt due to systematic embezzlement of funds by some administrators and had had to declare bankruptcy in 2012. In 2015, the Secretariat of State acquired the hospital, pulling it out of the bankruptcy administered by the Italian state, through a for-profit partnership with the religious order that had owned and managed the hospital.
Recently, the Fatebenefratelli Hospital on Tiber Island risks being sold after another financial crash.
Not to mention the case of the Camillians, an order that manages 114 hospitals in the world, founded by St. Camillus de Lellis in the 16th century with the specific task of “giving complete service to the sick person” and “being a school of charity for those who share the mission of assistance to the sick.”
In 2013, Fr. Renato Salvatore, superior of the Camillians, was arrested because he organized the kidnapping of two Camillians friars to be re-elected as general superior. Fr. Salvatore wanted to secure the re-election to keep control over the Hospital of Santa Maria della Pietà in Casoria, near Naples.
When Pope Francis established the commission in 2015, he stressed that its aim was that of “contributing to the more effective management of activities and the conservation of assets while maintaining and promoting the charism of the founders.”
The board of the commission was appointed in 2015 and renewed in June 2020. The president is still the same: Monsignor Luigi Mistò, president of the Holy See’s Health Assistance Fund, is president.
Msgr. Segundo Tejado Muñoz, the undersecretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, joined the commission to replace Msgr. Jean-Marie Mupendawatu, who was secretary of the Pontifical Council for Healthcare Workers until its suppression and absorption into the integral human development dicastery.
Out Mariella Enoc, president of the Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital board, owned by the Holy See. Still, Giovanni Barbara, professor of commercial law, a consultant to Mariella Enoc, joined the Commission.
Other members: Renato Balduzzi, full professor of Constitutional Law at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan and former Minister of Health in the Monti government; Fabrizio Celani, national president of the Catholic Association of Healthcare Workers; Maurizio Gallo, entrepreneur in the consulting and institutional relations sector and also involved in the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation; and Saverio Capolupo, tax magistrate.
On Feb. 16, 2019, Pope Francis appointed Capolupo as a consultant for the Vatican City State, particularly for the structures provided for by the state’s legal system in economic, tax, and fiscal matters. Capolupo, among other things, was called to chair the Luigi Maria Monti Foundation, which manages the IDI, after the foundation had been led for a concise period by a son of the Congregation of the Immaculate Conception who had founded the hospital, Father Giuseppe Pusceddu.
Sister Annunziata Remossi, an official of the Congregation of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, was confirmed as secretary of the commission. At the same time, Fr Marco Belladelli, ecclesiastical assistant of the Catholic Union of Italian Pharmacists, was appointed director of the Commission Office, “With the right to participate, with voice and vote, in the activities of the same.”
All names that stood to testify how the commission’s work should continue and continue with experts.
There are various hypotheses for why the commission is not included in the Pontifical Yearbook, all speculations.
The first is that being an active commission until the pope decides otherwise is not considered an organ of the Curia in all respects, even though the statutes say the opposite.
The second is that the Vatican does not want to publicize the commission’s work too much, considering that it must intervene in challenging and complex situations.
The third is that the commission is not considered active because the meetings have almost not taken place – according to a source familiar with the commission, the board met twice and virtually after the new membership was announced.
However, it remains a mystery why such an organ is not present in the 2020 pontifical yearbook.
U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry. / Public domain.
Vatican City, May 14, 2021 / 13:00 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis will meet Saturday with U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, who is also a keynote speaker at a Vatican conference on fi… […]
Pope Francis meets with members of the Scouts Unitaires de France at the Vatican, May 14, 2021. / Vatican Media.
CNA Staff, May 14, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis urged scouts Friday to “spread light and hope” wherever they go. Addressing m… […]
Pope Francis attends the ‘General State of the Birth Rate’ event in Rome, May 14, 2021. / Vatican Media.
Vatican City, May 14, 2021 / 05:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis urged Europeans on Friday to reflect on what they treasure, and whether they consi… […]
Some things never change. Throughout history, the worldly minded have made war on the Church, fulfilling the promise of Christ that those who had persecuted Him would also persecute those who followed Him. Nowhere is […]
Argentine President Alberto Fernández meets with Pope Francis at the Vatican, May 13, 2021 / Vatican Media.
CNA Staff, May 13, 2021 / 08:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis received Argentine President Alberto Fernández in a private audience Thursday for … […]
View of St. Peter`s Basilica from the roof of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross on April 1, 2015. / Bohumil Petrik/CNA.
Vatican City, May 12, 2021 / 13:00 pm (CNA).
As the trial for alleged abuse inside a Vatican youth seminary continu… […]
Pope Francis’ general audience in the San Damaso Courtyard of the Apostolic Palace, May 12, 2021. / Daniel Ibañez/CNA.
CNA Staff, May 12, 2021 / 05:25 am (CNA).
Pope Francis said Wednesday that persistent prayer can lead to miracles “because pra… […]
The dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. / Luxerendering/Shutterstock.
CNA Staff, May 11, 2021 / 09:00 am (CNA).
The Vatican has told the bishops of England and Wales that it is amending the Code of Canon Law so that “crimes against minors are considered under a different title than crimes against the obligations of celibacy on the part of clerics.”
The Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts shared the information in a letter dated April 19, responding to the English and Welsh bishops’ request for adjustments to canon law concerning clerical sexual abuse.
In the letter, addressed to bishops’ conference president Cardinal Vincent Nichols, it said: “After review of the information and recommendation Your Eminence submitted to this Pontifical Council, I am pleased to inform you that the concerns you have expressed have already been taken into consideration in the revision of Book VI of the 1983 CIC [Code of Canon Law], which is currently in process.”
“In the revised Book VI of the 1983 CIC, crimes against minors are considered under a different title than crimes against the obligations of celibacy on the part of clerics. The revised title will be ‘Crimes against the life, dignity and freedom of man’ and will include a canon that is specific to crimes against minors.”
The letter, received by Nichols on April 23, was signed by the Pontifical Council’s president Archbishop Filippo Iannone and secretary Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta.
The English and Welsh bishops made their request to the Vatican in a letter dated March 15.
The correspondence between the bishops and the Vatican was published on the bishops’ website on May 9. It was included in a 21-page document detailing how the Catholic Church has responded to the seven recommendations of a highly critical independent report on child abuse within the Church in England and Wales.
In the report, published on Nov. 10, 2020, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) urged the bishops to “request that the Holy See redraft the canonical crimes relating to child sexual abuse as crimes against the child.”
The recommendation related to Canon 1395 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law.
Under the subheading “Delicts against special obligations,” the second part of the canon says: “A cleric who in another way has committed an offense against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, if the delict was committed by force or threats or publicly or with a minor below the age of sixteen years, is to be punished with just penalties, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state if the case so warrants.”
The English and Welsh bishops raised detailed concerns about the phrase “against the sixth commandment” — “contra sextum” in Latin — in their letter to the Vatican.
The letter, signed by Cardinal Nichols and bishops’ conference general secretary Canon Christopher Thomas, said that while the term “contra sextum” was part of canonical tradition, “it is no longer adequate to meet the demands of a contemporary canonical approach to sexual offenses against minors and their equivalent in law.”
The bishops suggested that the term was difficult to reconcile with other aspects of canon law, was only recently used by the Eastern Catholic Churches, and was a source of confusion for civil authorities.
Referring to a vademecum “on certain points of procedure in treating cases of sexual abuse of minors committed by clerics,” issued by the Vatican last year, the letter said: “It seems reasonable that the categories delineated in Section I of the Vademecum of 16 July 2020 could be used to formulate a delict [a crime in canon law] without making use of the term ‘contra sextum.’”
“The Bishops’ Conference feels that this would be a significant step to rectifying the very real problems and consequent misunderstandings that its officers are faced with when engaging with colleagues in the civil authorities.”
The English and Welsh bishops also asked that the “reformulated delict” be placed “into a discrete category of offenses against minors, and their equivalents in law, and their dignity.”
In their 21-page document, the bishops outlined how they were responding to IICSA’s six other recommendations, which included mandatory safeguarding training for those working with children or abuse victims and the publication of a national complaints policy related to safeguarding cases.
The document, dated April 30, was prepared by the Catholic Council for the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.
In an introduction to the text, council chair Nuala O’Loan, wrote: “The Catholic Church is committed to this work and will continue to develop its structures and processes so that the Church is a safe place for all who worship in, or engage in any way with, it.”
“This report marks a significant step on the continuous journey of improvement.”
© Catholic World Report