Month: June 2018

Vatican City, Jun 14, 2018 / 10:27 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After spending more than a decade in private collection in Atlanta, a copy of a 1493 letter written by Christopher Columbus about his experience in America has been returned to its rightful place in the Vatican library.

Columbus penned the letter to Spanish King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1493 after returning from his voyage to America, describing what he saw during his travels.

The “Columbus Letter,” unofficially titled “Letter about the Recently Discovered Islands,” was then translated and manually printed into Latin, and several copies were distributed throughout Europe. Around 80 authentic copies still exist today.

One of the oldest copies of the 8-page letter, written in small, fine print, was given to the Vatican in 1921 as part of the “De Rossi Collection,” which consisted of rare books and manuscripts given to the Vatican at the request of bibliophile Giovanni Francesco Rossi upon his death in 1854.

At some point, though it is not known exactly when, the letter was stolen. It was not until 2011 that a rare book and manuscript expert became aware that the copy in the Vatican Library collection was a forgery after closely examining details in the stitching, chain lines and page size.

The expert then contacted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Homeland Security Investigations about the possible theft.

Vatican officials were informed, and the forged letter was examined by more experts, including specialists from Princeton University, who confirmed that the letter was a fake.

The original copy of the Vatican’s letter was eventually traced back to David Parsons, an actuary from Atlanta, who had purchased it for $875,000 from a rare book dealer in New York City in 2004, unaware that it had been stolen from the Vatican.

In 2013 Parsons sent his letter to the expert who originally caught the forgery, and after closely examining it, the expert found it to be authentic.

It was confirmed in 2016 that the “Columbus Letter” Parsons owned had been sold to the New York book dealer he bought it from by notorious Italian book thief, Marino Massimo De Caro, who is currently serving a 7-year sentence in Italy for the theft of roughly 4,000 ancient books and manuscripts throughout Italy.

After further comparative analysis was done on both the original letter and the forgery, it was confirmed in April 2017 that Parsons’ letter had in fact been stolen from the Vatican Library, and that the theft had to have taken place sometime before 2004.

In August of that year, investigators contacted David Parsons’ widow, Mary Parsons, and presented her with evidence of the theft and forgery. She agreed to part with the letter, renouncing all rights, title and interest, so that it could be returned to its original home in the Vatican Library.

The letter formally exchanged hands June 14, when U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Callista Gingrich presented it to Vatican Archivist and Librarian, Archbishop Jean-Louis Bruguès, O.P. and the Library’s Prefect, Bishop Cesare Pasini, inside the Vatican Library.

During the hand-off, Gingrich called the letter “a priceless piece of cultural history,” and said she was honored to return the letter to “its rightful owner.”

She noted that U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents since 2007 have returned more than 11,000 artifacts and pieces of art from over 30 countries as part of an ongoing investigation into the illegal sale of stolen books and manuscripts.

To date, Gingrich said, HSI has repatriated both paintings and manuscripts to Austria, Italy, France, Germany and Poland, among others, and have recovered ancient artifacts from different regions, including Europe, South America, Asia and the Middle East.

In addition to the letter recovered from Parsons, HSI has recovered and returned two other Columbus Letters as part of their ongoing investigation into the sale of stolen books and manuscripts. The two additional Columbus Letters that were confiscated have been returned to the Riccardiana Library in Florence, and the Library of Catalonia in Barcelona.

As a gesture of gratitude to Mrs. Parsons for agreeing to part with her late husband’s treasured “Columbus Letter,” the U.S. Embassy earlier this week hand-delivered a personal note from Mrs. Parsons to the pope.

In remarks during the repatriation ceremony, Archbishop Bruguès voiced gratitude to all involved in recovering the letter, which he said is “a priceless artifact of cultural history which today has found its way back to its home.”

He said the library was “surprised” to find out their copy was a fake, and noted that while it is still unknown when the original letter was taken, the technique used in the forgery, called “stereotyping,” was a common during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and reproduces not only the visual characteristics of the original, but also the tactile characteristics.

“We are extremely grateful to be able to reinsert this volume in its rightful place in De Rossi’s collection,” he said, adding that the letter “will remain at the disposal of researchers who come from around the world to study the collections of the Vatican Library.”

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Vatican City, Jun 14, 2018 / 05:52 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his message for this year’s World Day of the Poor, Pope Francis challenged Catholics on their attitude toward the impoverished, asking whether they really listen to and love the needy, or engage in charity only to please themselves.  

“The condition of poverty cannot be expressed in a word, but becomes a cry which crosses the heavens and reaches God. What does the cry of the poor express if not their suffering and solitude, their delusion and hope?” the pope said in his message.

“How it is that this cry, which rises to the presence of God, is unable to penetrate our ears and leaves us indifferent and impassive?” he asked, saying the World Day of the Poor is a call “to make a serious examination of conscience in order to understand if we are really capable of hearing them.”

Francis stressed the importance of being silent in order to really listen to those in need, saying that speaking too much of oneself will make a person deaf to the voice and the cry of the poor.

The pope expressed concern that at times initiatives aimed at helping the poor, which in themselves are “meritorious and necessary,” are carried out with an intention “more to please those who undertake them than to really acknowledge the cry of the poor.”

“If this is the case, when the cry of the poor rings out our reaction is incoherent and we are unable to empathize with their condition. We are so entrapped in a culture which obliges us to look in the mirror and to pamper ourselves that we believe that a gesture of altruism is sufficient without compromising ourselves directly.”

Pope Francis’ message, titled “This poor man cried and the Lord heard him,” is based on Psalm 34 and was published June 14 in anticipation of the second World Day of the Poor, which he instituted at the close of the Jubilee of Mercy.

The event now takes place throughout the world on the 34th Sunday of ordinary time, which this year falls on Nov. 18.

In his message, Pope Francis said that when it comes to serving the poor, “the last thing we need is a battle for first place.”

Rather, one must humbly recognize that it is the Holy Spirit who inspires people to be a concrete sign of God’s closeness, since he is the one who opens eyes and hearts to conversion.

The poor, he said, “have no need of protagonists, but of a love which knows how to hide and forget the good which it has done.” The true protagonists, he said, “are the Lord and the poor. He who desires to serve is an instrument in God’s hands in order to make manifest His presence and salvation.”

Pointing to St. Paul’s affirmation in the First Letter to the Corinthians that “the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you,’” Francis said this phrase goes not only for the different charisms of the Church, but it also goes for the poor and vulnerable in society.

True disciples of Christ, then, must not harbor “sentiments of contempt or pietism towards the poor,” but instead are called “to honor them, giving them precedence, out of the conviction that they are a real presence of Jesus in our midst.”

Francis also highlighted three verbs used by King David, the author of psalm 34, which are “to cry,” “to answer” and “to free.”

Not only are Christians called to hear the cry of the poor, but they must also answer, he said, noting that God’s answer to the poor is highlighted throughout salvation history.

“God’s answer to the poor is always an intervention of salvation in order to heal the wounds of body and soul, restore justice and assist in beginning anew to live life with dignity,” he said, adding that this response is also an appeal for believers to do the same.

The World Day of the Poor is “a small answer” which the entire Church gives to poor people throughout the world as a sign of solidarity and shared concern, he said, and stressed the importance of having a personal encounter with those in need.

“It is not delegated power of which the poor have need, but the personal involvement of as many hear their cry,” he said, adding that “the concern of believers in their regards cannot be limited to a kind of assistance – as useful and as providential as this may be in the beginning – but requires a loving attentiveness which honours the person as such and seeks out his best interests.”

Pope Francis also spoke of the need to free the poor from the causes of poverty, which are frequently rooted in “selfishness, pride, greed and injustice.”

“These are evils as old as man himself, but also sins in which the innocents are caught up, leading to consequences on the social level which are dramatic,” he said.

To help migrants escape pride and injustice, then, means to free them from “the snare of the fowler” and to “subtract them from the trap hidden on their path, in order that they might proceed expeditiously and look serenely upon life.”

Like the poor blind man Bartimaeus from Mark’s Gospel who was sitting on the side of the road begging when Jesus passed by, many poor people today are also sitting by the road waiting for someone to come and listen to their needs, just as Jesus did for Bartimaeus, Francis said.

“Unfortunately, often the opposite happens and the poor are reached by voices rebuking them and telling them to shut up and to put up.”

These voices, the pope said, are “out of tune” and are guided by “a phobia of the poor, considered not only as destitute, but also as bearers of insecurity and instability, detached from the habits of daily life and, consequently, to be rejected and kept afar.”

By distancing oneself from the poor, one also distances themselves from God, he said, and urged greater solidarity on the part of Catholics through initiatives such as sharing a meal with the poor and needy.

Pope Francis closed his messaged saying it is often the poor who “undermine our indifference, which is the daughter of a vision of life which is too imminent and bound up with the present.”

Only by becoming rich before God, putting material wealth in secondary place, can a person truly grow in humanity and become capable of sharing with others, he said, and urged both consecrated persons and laity to “make tangible the Church’s response to the cry of the poor.”

“The poor evangelize us, helping us to discover every day the beauty of the Gospel,” he said. “Let us not waste this opportunity for grace.”

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