Wisconsin native and Guatemalan martyr: Br. James Miller to be beatified

Vatican City, Nov 3, 2018 / 07:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a Mass offered for the repose of the souls of bishops and cardinals who died this year, Pope Francis prayed for “the intercession of all those who lived unassuming lives, content to prepar… […]

Vatican City, Nov 27, 2020 / 07:00 am (CNA).- In a video message to a Catholic social doctrine conference on Thursday, Pope Francis said that remembering our baptism and the promise of eternal life can help us avoid the temptation to seek “utopia” in this world.

In the message released Nov. 26, he described a positive attitude in which believers are immersed in society yet live their baptism in the light of a future life with God.

“This attitude helps us to overcome the temptation of utopia, to reduce the proclamation of the Gospel to a simple sociological horizon or to get involved in the ‘marketing’ of various economic theories or political factions,” the pope said.

His video message was sent to participants in a Nov. 26-29 online “Festival of Social Doctrine.” The Italian event is in its 10th edition, with this year’s theme being “Memory of the Future.”

The goal of the festival is to be a “leaven in society” and “to create a place of discussion among Catholics engaged in work, in society and in public responsibility” who want to promote the common good.

Referring to the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, “Lumen gentium,” Pope Francis said that “living the memory of the future means making a commitment to ensure that the Church, the great people of God, can constitute on earth the beginning and the seed of the kingdom of God.”

Christians have received “Life in Baptism,” he said, explaining that it is a gift which calls us to communion with God, with others, and with creation.

Communion with God and others requires charity and “the intimacy of prayer in the presence of the Lord,” he explained.

“And,” he continued, “the Life received as a gift is the same life as Christ, and we cannot live as believers in the world except by manifesting his very life in us.”

He warned listeners about a kind of nostalgia “which blocks creativity and makes us rigid and ideological people even in the social, political and ecclesial sphere.”

Memory instead links us to love and experience and is one of the deepest dimensions of the human person, Pope Francis said. 

“This is why the dynamic of Christians is not that of nostalgically holding onto the past, but rather of accessing the eternal memory of the Father; and this is possible by living a life of charity,” he commented.

Living “in the world with the strength and creativity of the life of God in us” is the way “we will be able to fascinate the hearts and the gaze of people to the Gospel of Jesus, we will help make projects of a new inclusive economy, and politics capable of fruitful love,” the pope said.

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Vatican City, Nov 22, 2019 / 11:00 am (CNA).- Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta has denied that he is avoiding a return to Argentina, where he is being prosecuted for “aggravated continuous sexual assault” and fraud. The bishop’s whereabouts remain unknown.

In a statement to members of the press released on Thursday, a spokesman for Zanchetta said the bishop was not in “rebellion” over a Nov. 20 request by prosecutors for his arrest, after the bishop allegedly failed to cooperate in his own ongoing trial.

On Wednesday, a prosecutor of sexual crimes in the Argentine city of Orán, María Soledad Filtrín Cuezzo, requested international assistance in Zanchetta’s arrest, saying he had not responded to repeated telephone calls or emails addressed to the contact information provided by his lawyer.

On Thursday, Associated Press quoted the statement released on Zanchetta’s behalf by Javier Belda, saying that the bishop had not received any order from a judge to surrender himself or return to Orán, and that he remained committed to cooperating with the court proceedings. 

The spokesman said that the bishop had only received an email from prosecutors which did not ask for a response.

The letter also said that continued leaks and breifings to the press by local prosecutors had damaged Zanchetta’s presumption of innocence.

The statement to the media did not address Zanchetta’s whereabouts. The bishop is believed to by living at the Domus Santa Marta in Vatican City after he was allowed by the court to leave Argentine having presented a document showing that he is employed within Vatican City.

Zanchetta is alleged to have sent sexually explicit selfies from his cell phone, harassed seminarians, and mismanaged the finances of the Diocese of Orán, which he led from 2014 to 2017. 

After being allowed to resign as Bishop of Orán for “health reasons” in 2017, Pope Francis named Zanchetta to the specially created position of assessor at the Administration for the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), the body which acts as the Holy See’s central reserve bank and sovereign wealth fund.

Argentine media has reported that the bishop was first accused of sexually inappropriate behavior as early as 2015.

According to a report from El Tribuno, one of the Zanchetta’s secretaries alerted authorities after accidentally finding sexually explicit images sent and received on Zanchetta’s cell phone in 2015. The complaint says that some of the images depict “young people” having sex, in addition to lewd images of Zanchetta himself.

Pope Francis summoned Zanchetta to Rome for five days in October 2015. The bishop claimed his phone and computer had been hacked, and that the accusations were motivated by ill feeling towards the pope. Francis reportedly accepted the bishop’s excuse that his cell phone had been hacked, and took no further action.

Fr. Juan José Manzano, the former vicar general of the Diocese of Orán has claimed publicly that he first reported Zanchetta in 2015, after the pornographic images were found on his phone. Manzano says he also reported him again in 2017.

In January, 2019, the Holy See confirmed Zanchetta was the subject of a canonical investigation and had been suspended from his role at APSA. It is unclear what, if any, active role he currently has in the curia following his presentation of a letter of employment to the Argentine court.

The Holy See authorities have not confirmed if Zanchetta is currently in Vatican City, or if they would respond favorably to a request from the Argentine court to extradite him should an arrest warrant be issued.

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