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Pope Francis adds feast of Our Lady of Loreto to Roman Calendar

October 31, 2019 CNA Daily News 1

Vatican City, Oct 31, 2019 / 06:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis has decreed that the feast of Our Lady of Loreto be included in the Roman Calendar as an optional memorial to be celebrated on December 10.

“This celebration will help all people, especially families, youth and religious to imitate the virtues of that perfect disciple of the Gospel, the Virgin Mother, who, in conceiving the Head of the Church also accepted us as her own,” Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, stated in the decree published Oct. 31.

With the decree, the optional memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Loreto must appear in all calendars and liturgical books for the celebration of the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours.

Catholic pilgrims travel to the small Italian town of Loreto to stand inside the Holy House of Mary, preserved in a basilica, in which traditional holds the Virgin Mary was born, raised, and greeted by the Angel Gabriel at the Annunciation.

“This shrine recalls the mystery of the Incarnation, leading all those who visit it to consider ‘the fullness of time,’ when God sent his Son, born of a woman, as well as to meditate both on the words of the Angel announcing the Good News and on the words of the Virgin in response to the divine call,” states the decree signed on Oct. 7, the feast of the Holy Rosary.

The Holy House of Mary in Loreto, Italy, has been a popular pilgrimage site since the Middle Ages with Galileo, Mozart, Descartes, Cervantes, St. Therese of Lisieux, and many popes and saints visiting throughout history.

Historic documentation shows that the Holy House of Mary was brought from Palestine to Italy in the 13th century.

“In the Holy House, before the image of the Mother of the Redeemer and of the Church, saints and blesseds have responded to their vocation, the sick have invoked consolation in suffering, the people of God have begun to praise and plead with Mary using the Litany of Loreto, which is known throughout the world,” it states.

With the decree, the Vatican released the readings and prayers for the annual Dec. 10 celebration of Our Lady of Loreto. The reading for the Liturgy of the Hours comes from St. John Paul II.

Pope Francis visited the Holy House in Loreto earlier this year on the Solemnity of the Annunciation, during which he called Loreto “a privileged place where young people can come in search of their vocation.”

“It is necessary to rediscover the plan drawn by God for the family, to reaffirm its greatness and irreplaceability in the service of life and society,” Pope Francis said in Loreto March 25.

“The Holy House of Mary is the ‘home of the family,’” he said during his visit, noting that “in the delicate situation of today’s world, the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman takes on an importance and an essential mission.”

In a homily in 1995, St. Pope John Paul II called the Holy House of Loreto, “the house of all God’s adopted children.” He continued:

“The threads of the history of the whole of humankind are tied anew in that house. It is the Shrine of the House of Nazareth, to which the Church that is in Italy is tied by providence, that the latter rediscovers a quickening reminder of the mystery of the Incarnation, thanks to which each man is called to the dignity of the Son of God.”

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Becciu says $200 million London property deal was ‘accepted practice’

October 30, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Oct 30, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- Cardinal Angelo Becciu has denied any impropriety in a real estate investment made with Vatican funds and insisted that he only acted in the best interests of the Holy See.

In an interview with Italian media published Tuesday, the former deputy at the Holy See’s Secretariat of State rejected any wrongdoing in the authorization of a $200 million property deal to develop a building in London. 

Responding to what he called “slanderous charges” that he had “played with and tampered with the money of the poor” in the 2014 transaction, the cardinal defended the investment, saying it was “accepted practice.”

Speaking to ANSA, the cardinal said “My conscience is clear and I know I have always acted in the interest of the Holy See and never in my personal one. Those who know me well can attest to that.”

Becciu served as “sostituto,” or second-ranking official at the Secretariat of State from 2011-2018, when Pope Francis named him a cardinal and moved him to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.

The interview came in response to media coverage of an ongoing investigation by Vatican criminal and financial authorities into a 2014 $200 million investment made through Athena Capital, a Luxembourg investment fund, which financed a stake in the development of a luxury apartment project in London.

Details of the investment were first reported by the Financial Times earlier this month. The money was taken from Swiss bank accounts under the control of the Secretariat of State and kept separately from other curial accounts held at the Vatican.

The London investment, along with a nearly $50 million 2018 investment in the same property, has raised questions about the internal control of Vatican money held in international banks and investment vehicles, especially after repeated efforts to bring financial practices into line with international practices and standards.

On Tuesday, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said the investment was a one-off, and the fund in question appeared to be “well managed.” He said that he was working to clear up questions about the project.

“We are working to clear up everything. This deal was rather opaque and now we are trying to clear it up,” Reuters quoted Parolin as saying.

Becciu told ANSA that there is a difference between Vatican funds intended for the benefit of the poor and the proceeds of the annual Peter’s Pence collection taken up in every parish in the world and sent to Rome.

“It is accepted practice for the Holy See to invest in property, it has always done so: in Rome, in Paris, in Switzerland and also in London,” Becciu said, insisting that the deal was “regular and registered according to law.”

“In the Secretariat of the State we had a fund entitled ‘money of the poor’. And it was destined for the poor. If, on the other hand, for money of the poor they want to refer to Peter’s Pence, we have to clarify,” Becciu said.

“The Pence is not only for the pope’s almsgiving but also the funding for his Pastoral ministry,” Becciu said, suggesting that the Secretariat’s two investments in the luxury apartment development were an appropriate use of donated funds.

Becciu did not address his reported involvement in other complicated Vatican transactions during the interview.

On Oct. 29, CNA reported that Becciu was involved in a complicated series of events and financial transactions around the purchase of the Istituto Dermopatico dell’Immacolata (IDI), an Italian hospital that collapsed in 2013 under 800 million euros of debt through theft and fraud. 

As sostituto, sources told CNA, Becciu was the “driving force” behind requests for a $25 million grant from the U.S. based Papal Foundation, ostensibly to supply short-term liquidity to the hospital, but actually intended to help remove a 50 million euro bad loan from the books at the Vatican’s central bank, APSA.

While the balance of the grant was cancelled after pushback from Papal Foundation board members, $13 million dollars was initially sent to the Secretariat of State, though how the money was used has not been reported.

Becciu told CNA that although he had been involved in the purchase of the IDI by a partnership created by the Secretariat of State, “Cardinal Parolin assumed the office of Secretary of State [in 2013] and I no longer concerned myself with IDI.” 

In early 2019, Cardinal Parolin, wrote to the Papal Foundation saying the $13 million would be reclassified as a loan, rather than a grant, and would be repaid. 

Two sources within the Papal Foundation told CNA that the Vatican has proposed the loan be repaid through “discounts” applied each year to the list of grants requested of the Papal Foundation by Vatican offices and Catholic apostolates.

“The poor will end up paying the debt,” a source close to the Papal Foundation told CNA.

Becciu’s role in authorizing the $200 million investment, and the potential focus on his time at the Secretariat of State by Vatican investigators have placed his tenure there under renewed scrutiny. While there, he was responsible for the cancellation of an external audit of all curial finances, intended to centralize information and details of Vatican assets and funds held away from the Vatican and unavailable for scrutiny.

On October 1, Vatican prosecutors raided the Secretariat of State’s offices. Documents and devices were seized. Although the Vatican did not indicate what exactly had prompted the investigation, subsequent reporting has indicated the London property investment and Cardinal Becciu were being looked into.

The next day, a confidential memo was leaked announcing the suspension of five Vatican employees, including two officials: Msgr. Mauro Carlino, who oversees documentation at the Secretariat of State, along with layman Tomasso Di Ruzza, director of the Vatican’s Financial Intelligence Authority (AIF). Di Ruzza was subsequently cleared to return to work following and internal AIF investigation.

Becciu’s interview came two days after the same paper reported that Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte had been hired to consult on the deal in May, 2018, just weeks before taking office.

Conte has since distanced himself from the Vatican-backed deal and ensuing investigation.

On Monday, his office released a statement in response to the FT’s story saying “it should be noted that Mr. Conte only gave a legal opinion and was not aware of, and was not required to know, the fact that some investors were connected to an investment fund supported by the Vatican and now at the center of an investigation.”

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Pope Francis prays for stability in Iraq amid deadly protests

October 30, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Oct 30, 2019 / 05:18 am (CNA).- Pope Francis prayed Wednesday for Iraq, where 18 more people were killed and hundreds wounded Oct. 29 during political protests in Karbala.

“My thoughts turn to beloved Iraq, where protests during this month have caused numerous deaths and injuries,” the pope said during the general audience Oct. 30.

“I pray that those battered people will find peace and stability after so many years of war and violence, where they have suffered so much.”

There have been numerous anti-government protests across Iraq this month, with the last wave beginning Oct. 25. Since the beginning of the protests, government forces have used tear gas and bullets against protestors.

At least 88 protestors have been killed in the last five days and around 149 protestors died earlier this month, according to AP.

Protests are largely in response to government corruption and a lack of economic growth and proper public services. Protestors are calling for reform and for the resignation of the Iraqi government.

At his audience in St. Peter’s Square Oct. 30, Pope Francis expressed his condolences for the wounded, for all those who have died and for their families, adding that he invites the Iraqi authorities “to listen to the cry of the population that asks for a dignified and peaceful life.”

“I urge all Iraqis, with the support of the international community, to pursue the path of dialogue and reconciliation and to seek the right solutions to the challenges and problems of the country,” he said.

In his message for the audience, the pope reflected on the Acts of the Apostles chapter 16, when St. Paul experiences a vision in which a Macedonian begs him to “come over to Macedonia and help us.”

“The Apostle has no hesitations, he leaves for Macedonia, sure that it is God himself who sends him,” Francis said.

He explained that in this part of the Acts of the Apostles, when St. Paul stays in Philippi, a Roman colony in Macedonia, there are three important events which take place.

The first is the evangelization and baptism of Lydia and her family, he said. The second is St. Paul’s arrest together with Silas, and the third is the conversion and baptism of their jailer and his family.

In each of these, “we see how the Holy Spirit is the protagonist of the Church’s mission: it is he who guides the path of the evangelizers showing them the way to follow,” the pope said.

After Lydia’s conversion and baptism, she invites Paul and Silas into her home. With Christianity’s arrival in Europe, he said, there is “the beginning of a process of inculturation that endures even today.”

Pope Francis explained these episodes in terms of consolation and desolation. This moment with Lydia was a moment of receiving the Holy Spirit’s consolation, he said. When Paul and Silas are beaten and thrown into prison, they pass from consolation to a moment of desolation.

They were thrown into prison because they freed a slave girl from possession to an evil spirit which gave her the power of “fortune-telling.” After the exorcism, her master was angered that he could no longer earn a profit people who paid to have their fortune told by her.

The pope noted that even today there are people who will pay to have their palms read or to tell them their fortunes, something he witnessed as the archbishop of Buenos Aires in Argentina. “People believe in these things. And pay,” he said.

But in prison, instead of giving in to desolation, Silas and St. Paul pray and praise God with song, he said, “and this praise releases a power that liberates them: during the prayer an earthquake shakes the foundations of the prison, the doors are opened and everyone’s chains fall off.”

The jailer is going to kill himself, because the prison guards are supposed to pay with their lives if the prisoners escape, but Paul shouts out, “Do no harm to yourself; we are all here.”

Then, a miracle happens, Francis said. The guard asks what he must do to be saved, and the answer of Silas and St. Paul is: “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you and your household will be saved.”

The two men preach the Gospel to the jailer and his family, who welcome them into their home and wash their wounds, and later receive baptism.

“In the heart of the night of this anonymous jailer, the light of Christ shines and defeats darkness: the chains of the heart fall off and a joy never felt in him and in his family blossoms,” Francis said. “Thus the Holy Spirit began the mission.”

“We also ask the Holy Spirit today for an open heart, sensitive to God and hospitable to our brothers, like that of Lydia,” he said, “and a bold faith, like that of Paul and Silas, and also an opening of the heart, like that of the jailer who lets himself be touched by the Holy Spirit.”

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