Pope Francis: Evangelization must start with encountering Jesus

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ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 18, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).
Two priests and cosmologists from the Vatican Observatory have made further progress in developing a new mathematical method to understand the Big Bang … […]

Vatican City, Jun 17, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- Members of the Vatican’s financial watchdog authority met this week to update offices on regulations to fight money laundering and the financing of terrorist organizations.

The June 15-16 seminar was held by the new leadership of the Financial Information Authority (AIF), including president Carmelo Barbagallo and vice director Federico Antellini Russo.

“The Vatican regulations are in line with the regulations of the rest of the world,” Barbagallo told Vatican News. “They have also recently been renewed, in particular the law on procurement is at the forefront.”

Barbagallo referred to a law promulgated by Pope Francis June 1 on the awarding of public contracts. The new norms are intended to prevent corruption, including nepotism, money laundering and other crimes in Vatican City State and Holy See financial transactions. 

Russo told Vatican News that the Holy See had taken “significant pioneering steps” in financial security legislation and wanted to extend “not only training but also a form of prevention, of awareness and in some ways of support also to the public authorities of the Holy See, of the Vatican City State.”

The public authorities of the Holy See and Vatican City State are the entities which carry out financial transactions with members of the general public, such as the Vatican post office, supermarket, and pharmacy.

Vatican public authorities also include the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR) and the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA).

At least one official of the Secretariat of State also took part in the two-day meetings.

Anita Titomanlio of the legal office of the Secretariat of State told Vatican News “we wanted to propose tools to public authorities to evaluate themselves.”

“Then self-assessment questionnaires will be prepared, which will be filled in by the public authorities and sent to the financial information authorities to prepare an action plan, should there be any deficiencies in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.”

Barbagallo also noted the increased threat of crime which comes with the global economic crisis caused by the coronavirus emergency.

“And so this is a time when you absolutely have to have your eyes more open than usual,” he said. 

The AIF is expected to release its annual report soon. The report usually catalogs the Suspicious Activity Reports received over the previous year and which led the information authority to investigate cases of money laundering and financial fraud within Vatican financial entities.

This will be the first report of the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority since an abrupt change of leadership at the end of 2019. 

AIF’s then director, Tommaso Di Ruzza, was suspended at the end of September 2019 after a search of AIF offices by Vatican gendarmes. Five days later AIF president René Brüelhart resigned. His replacement, Carmelo Barbagallo, was named by Pope Francis at the end of November 2019.

Meanwhile, the Egmont Group, through which 164 financial authorities share information and coordinate their work, had suspended the AIF in mid-November. Barbagallo announced in January 2020 the suspension had been revoked and the authority could resume collaboration with foreign intelligence bodies.

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Pope Francis says Mass for All Souls’ Day at the Laurentino Cemetery outside Rome, Nov. 2, 2018. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 30, 2024 / 10:10 am (CNA).

After an October full of activity due to the Synod on Synodality, in November Pope Francis will once again mark the beginning of the month of the dead with special prayers and Masses for All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days. 

On the solemnity of All Saints on Nov. 1, Pope Francis will lead the Angelus, a traditional Marian prayer, from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square at noon Rome time, as he does on every holy day of obligation.

Before the Angelus, the pope will deliver a short reflection; often it is based on the day’s Gospel or feast. Afterward, he may greet some of the groups present in St. Peter’s Square and draw attention to current social issues affecting the world, especially war.

For All Souls’ Day on Nov. 2, Francis will continue his custom of holding a Mass in a local cemetery to pray for the dead, especially the holy souls in purgatory.

The Mass will be offered at 10 a.m. in part of the nearly 52-acre Laurentino Cemetery — Rome’s third largest. Pope Francis usually gives a brief, spontaneous homily on this occasion.

This will be the pope’s second All Souls’ Day Mass in Laurentino Cemetery. In 2018, he offered Mass in an area of the cemetery reserved for deceased children and unborn babies called the “Garden of Angels.”

Since 2016, Pope Francis has celebrated or presided at a Mass in six different cemeteries in or near Rome. For All Souls’ Day in 2023, Mass was offered at the small Rome War Cemetery, which contains 426 Commonwealth burials from the Second World War.

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the pope opted to stay in Vatican City and celebrate Mass for the faithful departed in the Church of Our Lady of Mercy, which is surrounded by the Teutonic Cemetery — the burial place of people of German, Austrian, and Swiss descent, and particularly members of the Archconfraternity to the Sorrowful Mother of God of the Germans and Flemings.

In 2019, the pope celebrated Mass at the Catacombs of Priscilla, while in 2022 he privately visited the Teutonic Cemetery again but offered Mass for deceased bishops and cardinals in St. Peter’s Basilica — another papal custom during the week of All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days.

On Sunday, Nov. 3, Pope Francis will again lead the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square, as he does every Sunday at noon.

The following morning, on Nov. 4, he will preside at a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for the repose of the souls of the bishops and cardinals who died during the previous year. It is the pope’s practice to always offer this Mass sometime during the first week of November.

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