Vatican

Vatican City, Nov 27, 2019 / 05:37 am (CNA).- Pope Francis Wednesday appointed an auditor and Italian banking consultant as president of the Financial Information Authority (AIF), the Vatican’s internal financial watchdog.

Carmelo Barbagallo, 63, is a consultant in the areas of banking, financial supervision, and the Single Supervisory Mechanism. He was previously head of the banking and financial supervision department of the Bank of Italy.

The appointment comes as the Vatican’s financial watchdog is struggling to assert its credibility. The previous president of the AIF, René Brüelhart, resigned his position Nov. 18.

Although the Vatican press office characterized the departure as the end of “a five year term,” Brüelhart had not been appointed for a fixed period, and he made it clear he had resigned.

Shortly thereafter, Marc Odendall, a member of the AIF board, resigned as well, saying that the Egmont Group, through which 164 financial intelligence authorities share information and coordinate their work, had suspended the AIF.

Odendall told the Associated Press that the AIF had been effectively rendered “an empty shell” and that there was “no point” in remaining involved in its work.   

On Oct. 1, Vatican gendarmes raided the offices of the Secretariat of State and the AIF.

Subsequently, a total of five employees and officials were suspended and blocked from entering the Vatican, including Tommaso Di Ruzza, the director of the AIF.

Aboard the papal plane from Tokyo to Rome Nov. 26, Pope Francis confirmed that Di Ruzza is still suspended, despite a press release from the AIF last month that affirmed the agency’s full confidence in him and expressed hope that the matter would be “clarified soon.”

Di Ruzza was suspended because of suspected “bad administration,” the pope said, adding 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.”

On the papal flight, the pope was also questioned about wider issues facing the AIF, which was recently suspended by the Egmont Group, through which 164 financial intelligence authorities share information and coordinate their work.

While the concerns of the Egmont Group were “a bit disturbing,” Francis said, the group is not an official international body and issues of sovereignty had to be considered.

Egmont is a “private group,” the pope noted, adding that “MONEYVAL will carry out the scheduled inspection for the first months of the next year, it will do it.”

Barbagallo, who was born in Catania in Sicily, has worked for the Bank of Italy since 1980.

During his military service he worked in Italy’s Guardia di Finanza (Finance Guard) before continuing to work in economics and financial security.

“I am honored to have received this appointment, aware of the full weight of the moral and professional responsibility it carries,” Barbagallo told Vatican News Nov. 27.

He said he will bring his 40 years of experience in the areas of banking, finance, and supervision of the European banking system, adding that he believes “the AIF will be able to give its own contribution in its role as a supervisory authority, so that the fundamental values of fairness and transparency of all the financial movements in which the Holy See is engaged may continue to be affirmed and recognized.”

“I intend to reassure the international system of financial information that all cooperation will be given in full respect of the best international standards,” he said.

The AIF was established by Benedict XVI in 2010 to oversee suspicious financial transactions; it is charged with ensuring that Vatican banking policies comply with international financial standards.

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Hiroshima, Japan, Nov 24, 2019 / 05:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis prayed for peace Sunday at the site of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, where he called for an end to war and the threat of nuclear weapons.

“How can we propose peace if we constantly invoke the threat of nuclear war as a legitimate recourse for the resolution of conflicts?” Pope Francis said Nov. 24 in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park.

“May the abyss of pain endured here remind us of boundaries that must never be crossed. A true peace can only be an unarmed peace,” the pope said.

On August 6, 1945 American armed forces dropped a uranium atomic bomb dubbed “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, Japan killing an estimated 80,000 people instantly.

More than 90% of Hiroshima’s buildings were destroyed by the blast. By the end of 1945, the death toll rose to 140,000 with people developing intestinal bleeding and leukemia from the residual radiation that followed.

“In a single plea to God and to all men and women of good will, on behalf of all the victims of atomic bombings and experiments, and of all conflicts, let us together cry out: Never again war, never again the clash of arms, never again so much suffering,” Pope Francis said after a moment of silence for the victims of Hiroshima.

“Indeed, if we really want to build a more just and secure society, we must let the weapons fall from our hands,” he said.

Pope Francis quoted Gaudium et Spes, which states that “peace is not merely the absence of war … but must be built of ceaselessly.” He added that the lessons of history show that peace is the fruit of justice, development, solidarity, care for our common home, and promotion of the common good.

“I am convinced that peace is no more than an empty word unless it is founded on truth, built up in justice, animated and perfected by charity, and attained in freedom,” he said.

Within a week of the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the Japan announced its unconditional surrender brining World War II to a close on August 15, 1945.

Peace Memorial Park, located on the epicenter of the atomic explosion, opened ten years after the bombing. The Japanese parliament named Hiroshima a “city of peace” in 1949.

“I felt a duty to come here as a pilgrim of peace, to stand in silent prayer, to recall the innocent victims of such violence, and to bear in my heart the prayers and yearnings of the men and women of our time, especially the young, who long for peace, who work for peace and who sacrifice themselves for peace,” Pope Francis said.

“With deep conviction I wish once more to declare that the use of atomic energy for purposes of war is today, more than ever, a crime not only against the dignity of human beings but against any possible future for our common home,” he said.

The pope repeated: “The use of atomic energy for purposes of war is immoral, just as the possession of atomic weapons is immoral, as I said two years ago. We will be judged on this.”

Earlier on Sunday, Pope Francis visited the site of the atomic bombing in Nagasaki where he denounced the ‘unspeakable horror’ of nuclear weapons

“The Catholic Church is irrevocably committed to promoting peace between peoples and nations,” the pope said in Nagasaki.

“Peace and international stability,” he stated, “are incompatible with attempts to build upon the fear of mutual destruction or the threat of total annihilation.”

Twenty survivors of the Hiroshima bombing attended the ceremony. Among them was Kojí Hosokawa, who was less than one mile from the epicenter of the bombing and the only survivor in his building. He is now 91 years old.

“Although there is little time left for me, I believe that passing on the experience of Hiroshima to
the next generation is the final mission assigned to us A-bomb survivors,” she shared at the pope’s peace meeting.

Pope Francis addressed the survivors in Hiroshima: “Here I pay homage to all the victims, and I bow before the strength and dignity of those who, having survived those first moments, for years afterward bore in the flesh immense suffering, and in their spirit seeds of death that drained their vital energy.”

“We cannot allow present and future generations to lose the memory of what happened here,” Pope Francis said.

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