Pope Francis praises WW2-era Portuguese diplomat on ‘Day of Conscience’

June 17, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 1 Print

Vatican City, Jun 17, 2020 / 04:15 pm (CNA).- As his general audience came to a close Wednesday, Pope Francis praised Aristides de Sousa Mendes, a Portuguese diplomat who helped tens of thousands of Jews and others to flee from advancing Nazi forces.

“Today is the ‘Day of Conscience’, inspired by the witness of the Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes, who around 80 years ago decided to follow the voice of his conscience and saved the lives of thousands of Jews and other persecuted peoples,” Pope Francis said June 17 in the Library of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.

In 1940, Sousa Mendes served as the Portugese consul in Bordeaux, which received an outpouring of refugees feeling the Nazi regime. Many of them sought refuge in Portugal, a neutral nation in World War II, which offered the possibility of safe travel across the Atlantic.

Overwhelmed with refugees, the Portugese government issued a directive that barred refugees from entering the csountry. The directive especially targeted those who could not return to their country of origin, which made it impossible for Jews to obtain a visa, according to a biography from the Sousa Mendes Foundation.

Confronted by the suffering of the refugees, Sousa Mendes found that he could not obey both his conscience and this directive.

Shortly after the directive was announced, Sousa Mendes befriended Rabbi Chaim Kruger, a refugee and father of five. Sousa Mendes tried to convince Kruger to take shelter in his own home.

But Kruger refused, instead going to the streets surrounding the synagogue with the rest of his brethren. The only way he would accept Sousa Mendes’ help was if all of the refugees could receive vias, too.

Recounting his encounter with Sousa Mendes, Kruger said that a deputy standing nearby warned Sousa Mendes of the consequences of this action, but Sousa Mendes told Kruger to announce to the crowds that anyone who wanted a visa would receive one.

“All the refugees got visas and he sat all day long and signed them,” said Kruger, according to the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. “I helped him in putting the stamps in the passports and then he would sign. He didn’t eat nor drink the entire day until late at night, and within a short time gave thousands of visas until the perpetrators came closer and we had to escape through Spain.”

Sousa Mendes is believed to have granted at least 10,000 visas in June and July of 1940, before being recalled to Lisbon.

Sousa Mendes’ act of conscience, for which the “Day of Conscience” is recognized, cost him dearly. He was expelled from the diplomatic corps, and his family at times went to a refugee soup kitchen for food.

Yet his suffering did not compromise the clarity of his conscience.

“I could not have acted otherwise,” Sousa Mendes said, “and I, therefore, accept all that has befallen me with love.”

Although he died in poverty in 1954, Sousa Mendes has since gained attention as an exemplar of an uncompromising conscience. 

In 1966, Sousa Mendes joined the list of the Righteous Among the Nations, a recognition by Israel of non-Jews who heroically saved Jews during the Holocaust. Portugal posthumously promoted him to ambassador and formally apologized to his family. Postage stamps and statues in memory of Sousa Mendes now proliferate his image.

Pope Francis evoked the memory of Sousa Mendes as an exemplar of upholding one’s conscience.

“May freedom of conscience be respected always and everywhere, and may every Christian give the example of the consistency of an upright conscience enlightened by the Word of God,” the Pope said.

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Vatican’s financial watchdog says progress slow, but steady

April 27, 2018 CNA Daily News 2

Vatican City, Apr 27, 2018 / 06:20 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican’s annual financial report this year showed that monitoring systems put into place nearly five years ago continue to be effective, however, there is still room to grow in terms of prosecution for questionable activities.

In comments to journalists during a May 27 press briefing, Rene Bruelhart, president of the Vatican’s Financial Intelligence Authority (AIF), said the report for 2017 shows “a clear commitment from our side to continue to report in the most transparent way possible on our activities.”

Two keywords that can sum up the AIF activities for 2017, he said, are “consolidation and normalization,” particularly in terms of implementing a sustainable regulatory and reporting system, as well as growing relations with domestic and international bodies.

Bruelhart, a Swiss lawyer, was tapped to head the AIF after it was established by Benedict XVI in 2010 to supervise the Vatican’s financial activity and prevent and counter money laundering.

Carried forward under Francis, the AIF works alongside other financial entities in the Vatican, such as the Secretariat for the Economy and the Council for the Economy, both of which were established by Pope Francis as part of his ongoing reform of the Roman Curia.

With full autonomy the AIF also monitors and reviews actions carried out by the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See (APSA), which oversees the Vatican’s real estate, and the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), more often referred to as the “Vatican bank.”

Bruelhart was present alongside AIF director Tommaso Di Ruzza at a May 27 press briefing on the AIF’s 6th annual report, which covered 2017 and summed up their continued efforts to build relationships with other states and crack down on suspicious financial activity within the Vatican.

Most notably, the report detailed that it was the AIF which first flagged the diversion of significant funds from the Vatican’s Bambino Gesu Children’s hospital to renovate Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone’s apartment in Rome.

The case exploded in the media, and in October 2017 the former president of the hospital, Giuseppe Profiti, and former treasurer, Massimo Spina, were been charged with the illicit use of hospital funds in the amount of 422,005.16 euros ($480,600.58) to refurbish the flat.

In total for 2017, 150 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) were filed with the AIF, compared to last year’s 207. The reason for the decrease, according to AIF Director Tommaso Di Ruzza, is that the quality of the entity’s reporting system has improved, “showing a growing awareness and strengthening of the control functions of the reporting subjects.”

Of the 150 flagged transactions, 8 were submitted by the AIF to the Vatican Office of the Promoter of Justice during 2017, of which nearly all involved potential financial crimes with foreign individuals or entities either within or in connection with a foreign jurisdiction.

The potential crimes flagged include international fraud, including fiscal fraud and market abuse.

In only one case did the Vatican tribunal freeze an account after a questionable cross-border transaction amounting to roughly 1,757 euro, or $2,122, which took place in 2016, which the AIF said it had flagged and submitted in 2015.

According to the report, none of the activities or transactions reported in 2017 were related to terrorism.

Since 2015, the AIF has presented some 54 reports to the Promoter of Justice. When asked why there has not been a higher number of cases prosecuted in the Vatican courts, which in the past has been identified as an area of weakness, Bruelhart said it will take time to adequately develop the system put into place, and is up to the Promoter of Justice to determine how to act on reports submitted by the AIF.

It is unclear how many of the 54 transactions flagged and sent to the Promoter of Justice have been looked into or investigated. However, “it’s important to remember where we’re coming form,” Bruelhart said, noting that the current system has been built only within the past 5-6 years, and new entities have been established, including the secretariat and council for the economy.

“It has been a new world” for the Promoter of Justice, he said, adding that in his view, the chain of activities that has taken place “has moved in the right direction” and “a lot of progress” has been made.

Noting how the first conviction took place just last year, he said “work is ongoing” in this area, and he expects to see more progress in the future.

“There is a very good dialogue with the office of the promoter of justice,” he said, adding that “it’s about building a dialogue together,” but ultimately the office is the only one responsible for what they decide to do.

Responding to criticism that the Vatican’s financial reform has made little progress, Bruelhart pointed to all the steps that have been taken so far in the past six years, saying if each of them are broken down, one can see that “a lot has been done in a very very short amount of time.”

Change, he said, takes time and at times one needs to take a step back to fully appreciate the progress and continue to go forward. “Its a process, but there is life in this process,” he said.

In addition, the AIF in 2017 also cracked down on transparency and accountability for donations made for institutional and charitable purposes, as well as interactions with what they have dubbed “high risk states” which do not have proper monitoring systems in place.

The crack down on transactions for charity and donations comes after a law was introduced Nov. 22, 2017, on the “Registration and Supervision of Non-Profit Organizations.”

The AIF also signed an additional 19 Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with foreign counterparts, bringing the bringing the number to 57, and exchanged information in some 282 cases.

In an April 27 press release on the AIF report, Di Ruzza stressed the importance of these relations, saying that “considering the potential risks linked to the universal projection of the Holy See, international cooperation is pivotal.”

These type of cross-border agreements are designed to crack down on money laundering and tax evasion, ensuring that the IOR does not become a tax haven.

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1 Comment

  1. Long live the memory of the heroic Senhor Aristides de Sousa Mendes. Thus wrote Mahatma Gandhi: “The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience”.

    Reply

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