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Vatican asks Instagram to investigate “Like” by Pope Francis’ account

November 20, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 20, 2020 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- The Vatican said that no one in the Holy See “liked” a racy photograph while logged in to Pope Francis’ Instagram account, and has requested that Instagram open an investigation into how or why such a “like” appears to have happened.

“We can rule out that the ‘like’ comes from the Holy See, which has turned to Instagram for explanations,” the Holy See Press Office told CNA Nov. 18.

On Nov. 13, it was widely reported and observed that Pope Francis’ verified, official Instagram account, “Franciscus,” had “liked” a racy photo of model and streamer Natalia Garibotto.

In the picture, Garibotto is wearing a lingerie outfit that resembles a school uniform, and her mostly-uncovered posterior is visible in the picture.  

The photo was no longer liked on November 14, shortly after CNA requested comment from the Holy See’s Press Office. At the time, the office declined to speculated about what could have happened.

Pope Francis does not run his own social media accounts, which are overseen by a team.

It is unclear which devices are used to update the pope’s Instagram and Twitter accounts, and it is also unclear if those who are responsible for updating the pope’s accounts also use personal social media accounts from the same devices. Instagram allows for multiple accounts to be logged in on a single device.

Pope Francis does not follow anyone on his Instagram account, and has 7.3 million followers. Garibotto has 2.3 million followers.

Garibotto’s management and publicity firm, COY Co., used the papal account’s like for publicity purposes, posting on its account Friday that the firm had “received the POPE’S OFFICIAL BLESSING.”

On her personal account, Garibotto posted a photo featuring the same outfit in the picture liked by the pope’s account, and directed people to sign up for a subscription to her website.

“On this very day I was blessed, you could be too,” she wrote, along with the address of her site. Subscribers to her website receive “sexy content, follow back on socials, [the ability to] chat with me directly, monthly cash prize giveaways, signed Polaroids, and more!”

 


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Pope Francis urges Passionists to help ‘the crucified of our age’

November 20, 2020 CNA Daily News 5

Vatican City, Nov 20, 2020 / 04:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis urged members of the Passionist order Thursday to deepen their commitment to “the crucified of our age” as they mark the 300th anniversary of their founding. 

In a message to Fr. Joachim Rego, superior general of the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ, the pope challenged the order to focus on helping the poor, the weak and the oppressed.

“Do not tire of accentuating your commitment to the needs of humanity,” the pope said in the message issued Nov. 19. “This missionary calling is directed above all towards the crucified of our age — the poor, the weak, the oppressed and those discarded by many forms of injustice.” 

The pope sent the message, dated Oct. 15, as the Passionists prepared to launch a Jubilee year celebrating the foundation of the order by St. Paul of the Cross in Italy in 1720.

The Jubilee year, whose theme is “Renewing our mission: gratitude prophecy, and hope,” will begin on Sunday, Nov. 22, and end on Jan. 1, 2022.

The pope said that the order’s mission could only be strengthened by an “inner renewal” among the Passionists’ over 2,000 members, present in more than 60 countries. 

“The implementation of this task will require a sincere effort of inner renewal on your part, which derives from your personal relationship with the Crucified-Risen One,” he said. “Only those crucified by love, as Jesus was on the cross, are able to help the crucified of history with effective words and actions.” 

“In fact, it is not possible to convince others of God’s love only through a verbal and informative proclamation. Concrete gestures are needed to make us experience this love in our own love that is offered by sharing the situations of the crucified, even totally spending one’s life, while remaining aware that between the proclamation and its acceptance in faith there is the action of the Holy Spirit.”

At 10.30 a.m. local time on Nov. 22, the Passionist Jubilee will begin with the opening of the Holy Door in the Basilica of Sts. John and Paul in Rome, followed by an inaugural Mass. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin will be the principal concelebrant and the event will be livestreamed.

The Jubilee year will include an international congress, on “The wisdom of the cross in a pluralistic world,” at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome on Sept. 21-24, 2021.

There will also be a number of opportunities to gain indulgences throughout the year, including by visiting the founder’s birthplace of Ovada in the northern Italian region of Piedmont.

The Passionists trace their origins back to Nov. 22, 1720, the day that Paul Danei received the habit of a hermit and began a 40-day retreat in a small cell in the Church of San Carlo in Castellazzo. During the retreat, he wrote the Rule of “The Poor of Jesus,” which laid the foundations of the future Congregation of the Passion.

Danei took the religious name Paul of the Cross and built up the order that would come to be known as the Passionists because of their commitment to preaching the Passion of Jesus Christ. He died in 1775 and was canonized in 1867 by Pope Pius IX.

Passionists wear a black habit with the distinctive emblem over their hearts. The Passion Sign, as it is known, consists of a heart with the words “Jesu XPI Passio” (the Passion of Jesus Christ) written inside. There are three crossed nails beneath these words and a large white cross at the top of the heart.

In his message to Passionists, the pope quoted from his 2013 apostolic exhortation “Evangelii gaudium.” 

“This significant centennial anniversary represents a providential opportunity to move towards new apostolic goals, without giving in to the temptation to ‘leave things as they are,’” he wrote. 

“Contact with the Word of God in prayer and reading the signs of the times in daily events will enable you to perceive the creative presence of the Spirit whose outpouring over time, points out the answers to humanity’s expectations. No one can escape the fact that today we live in a world where nothing is the same as before.”

He continued: “Humanity is in a spiral of changes that call into question not only the value of the cultural currents that have enriched it so far, but also the intimate constitution of its being. Nature and the cosmos, subject to pain and decay due to human manipulation, take on worrying degenerative traits. You too are asked to identify new lifestyles and new forms of language in order to proclaim the love of the Crucified One, thus giving witness to the heart of your identity.”


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Vatican bishop: Ethics committee will guide future investments

November 19, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Nov 19, 2020 / 07:30 am (CNA).- A Vatican bishop said this week that a committee of outside professionals is being created to help keep Holy See investments both ethical and profitable.

Bishop Nunzio Galantino, president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), said Nov. 19 that statutes for a new “Investment Committee” were waiting to be approved. 

The committee of “high-profile external professionals” will work with the Council for the Economy and the Secretariat for the Economy to “guarantee the ethical nature of investments, inspired by the social doctrine of the Church, and at the same time, their profitability,” Galantino told the Italian magazine Famiglia Cristiana.

Earlier this month, Pope Francis asked that investment funds be moved out of the Secretariat of State and into APSA, Galantino’s office.

APSA, which functions as the Holy See’s treasury and sovereign wealth manager, administers payroll and operating expenses for Vatican City. It also oversees its own investments. It is now in the process of taking over the financial funds and real estate assets which were, until now, administered by the Secretariat of State. 

The 72-year-old Galantino said in the interview that the Vatican’s new law on the awarding of contracts was “an important step forward, then. But that is not all.”

“Transparency, fairness and oversight stop being meaningless words or reassuring proclamations only when they walk on the legs of honest, capable women and men who truly love the Church,” he said.

Galantino has led APSA since 2018. In October this year, he was forced to deny claims that the Holy See was heading for financial “collapse.”

“There is no threat of collapse or default here. There is only the need for a spending review. And that is what we’re doing. I can prove it to you with numbers,” he said, after a book alleged that the Vatican might soon be unable to meet its ordinary operating expenses.

In an Oct. 31 interview with the Italian newsaper Avvenire, Galantino said that the Holy See did not use money from Peter’s Pence or the pope’s discretionary fund to cover its losses in the controversial purchase of a London building, but that the sum came from the Secretariat of State’s reserves.

No “plundering” of accounts intended for charitable purposes had taken place, he insisted.

Galantino said that “independent estimates” put the losses at 66-150 million pounds ($85-194 million) and he acknowledged that “errors” had contributed to the Vatican’s losses. 

“It will be up to the [Vatican] court to decide whether it was a matter of errors, imprudence, fraudulent actions, or something else. And it will be for the same court to tell us if and how much can be recovered,” he said.


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