Pope Francis approves overhaul of Vatican’s financial watchdog

Vienna, Austria, Jun 22, 2018 / 02:37 pm (CNA).- After U.S. President Donald Trump called Monday for a new military branch referred to as the “space force,” the Holy See has encouraged a unified, peaceful approach to space exploration.

“The Holy See wishes to stress the importance of ensuring that outer space remains peaceful and that all outer space activities and efforts protect and promote this goal,” said Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ, director of the Vatican Observatory.

“The potential for development through space technology is immense and that the best way to make use of this potential is through international cooperation,” he said, in a June 21 statement to United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA).

Brother Guy is also the president of the Vatican Observatory Foundation and led the Holy See’s Delegation at UNISPACE+50, a conference which took place at the Vienna International Centre in Austria from June 18-21.

UNOOSA described the purpose of the symposium as to “consider the future course of global space cooperation for the benefit of humankind.”

The conference occurred shortly after President Trump directed Pentagon officials to move toward establishing a “space force” in support of national security. He said the branch presence would create jobs and that the regulation of space traffic management should not fall to other countries.

“I’m hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces,” he announced at a June 18 meeting of the National Space Council.

“It is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space.”

“There’s no place like space,” Trump added.

The sixth branch of military would have to be approved by U.S. Congress before it was established. President Trump also challenged rich Americans to pursue private, commercial space industry on U.S. soil.

Brother Consolmagno encouraged a different approach to space study and exploration. “The Holy See wishes to stress the importance of ensuring that outer space remains peaceful and that all outer space activities and efforts protect and promote this goal,” he said in remarks at the conference.

“It would be a most dangerous and alarming development, and one that could impact every single man and woman on Earth, if outer space were to become another theatre of armed conflict, just as the land, sea and air before it.”

“When the Earth is viewed from space, the atmosphere is the only border that matters, he said. “In seeing the Earth from space, we realize that our own borders are insignificant in comparison. The Earth’s atmosphere is a global environment that needs to be protected by a global vision of this limited, shared natural resource and must be utilized for the benefit of all humankind,” he added.

Consolmagno said the benefits of space exploration, and the data from space research, should be publicly available. Space travel, he continued, should be made more affordable, and viewed as a benefit to mankind and the planet.

“We need to reflect on how we can transform the space economy from one of very expensive space services and products available to a few, to one that harnesses the abundance of space-derived data and services for the good of all, creating opportunities to engage more actors and opening up new markets for space-derived data and services to meet the needs of the poor in a financially sustainable way.”

[…]

Vatican City, Jun 11, 2018 / 04:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican announced Friday that Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Bishop Juan Barros Madrid from his post in the diocese of Osorno, who has been accused of covering-up for Chile’s most notorious abuser priest, Fernando Karadima.

The announcement came in a June 11 communique from the Vatican, along with the resignation of two other Chilean bishops.

Barros submitted his resignation to Pope Francis alongside every other active bishop in Chile at the close of a May 15-17 meeting between the pope and Chilean prelates, during which Francis chastised the bishops for systematic cover-up of abuse throughout the country.

Taking over as in Barros’ stead is Bishop Jorge Enrique Conchua Cayuqueo, O.F.M., auxiliary bishop of Santiago, who will serve as apostolic administrator for the Diocese of Osorno.

In addition to Barros, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Archbishop Cristián Caro Cordero of Puerto Montt, naming Fr. Ricardo Basilio Morales Galindo, provicinial for the Order of Mercy in Chile as apostolic administrator.

He also accepted the resignation of Bishop Gonzalo Duarte García de Cortázar of Valparaíso, naming Bishop Pedro Mario Ossandón Buljevic, auxiliary bishop of Chile, as apostolic administrator.

Francis had summoned the bishops to Rome following an in-depth investigation and report into the Chilean clerical abuse crisis carried out by Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Msgr. Jordi Bertomeu of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in February, resulting in a 2,300 page report on the scandal.

The decision of whether to accept the bishops’ resignations is up to Pope Francis. So far Barros, Caro and Duarte are the first bishops whose resignation Pope Francis has formally accepted.

The announcement of Barros’ resignation coincides with a new pastoral mission that Scicluna and Bertomeu will make another visit Chile June 12-19, this time traveling to the diocese of Osorno, which Barros has led since 2015. The investigators will spend June 14-17 in Osorno, and the remainder of their time will be spent in Santiago.

Pope Francis’ appointment of Barros to Osorno in 2015 was met with a wave of objections and calls for his resignation. Dozens of protesters, including non-Catholics, attempted to disrupt his March 21, 2015 installation Mass at the Osorno cathedral.

Opponents have been vocal about their opposition to Barros ever since, with some of the most outspoken being victims of Karadima, who in 2011 was found guilty by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of sexually abusing several minors during the 1980s and 1990s, and sentenced to a life of prayer and solitude.

Barros maintained his innocence, saying he didn’t know the abuse was happening. Pope Francis initially backed him, refusing to allow Barros to step down from his post and calling accusations against him “calumny” during a visit to Chile in January.

However, after Scicluna and Bertomeu’s investigation, the pope in April apologized for having made “serious mistakes” in judging the case due to “a lack of truthful and balanced information.”

Since then, he has met with two rounds of abuse survivors in addition to his meeting with Chilean bishops.

[…]

Vatican City, Dec 15, 2019 / 05:30 am (CNA).- As Pope Francis blessed children’s nativity scene figurines Sunday, the pope said that the Advent season is a time of conversion to make space in one’s heart for Christ to come and fill it with joy.

“Advent, a time of grace, tells us that it is not enough to believe in God: it is necessary to purify our faith every day,” Pope Francis said in his Angelus address Dec. 15.

“It is a matter of preparing to welcome — not a fairy-tale character — but the God who calls us, involves us, and before whom a choice is imposed,” he said in St. Peter’s Square.

Italian children gathered in St. Peter’s Square before the Angelus prayer, shouted and cheered as they awaited the papal blessing of their Nativity scene figurines of the infant Jesus, called “Bambinelli” in Italian.

This 50 year-old Vatican tradition of the blessing the infant Jesus figurines on Gaudete Sunday began in 1969 with St. Pope Paul VI at the iniative of the Roman Oratori Center. The tradition has since spread throughout the world each year on the third Sunday of Advent.

“I greet you, dear children, who have come with the statues of the child Jesus for your nativity scenes. I cordially bless you,” Francis said.

Pope Francis reminded the children of the meaning of the nativity scene by quoting a passage of his apostolic letter, Admirabile Signum, published on the first day of Advent this year:

“The nativity scene is like a living Gospel,” he said. “As we contemplate the Christmas story, we are invited to set out on a spiritual journey, drawn by the humility of the God who became man in order to encounter every man and woman. We come to realize that so great is his love for us that he became one of us, so that we in turn might become one with him.”

The pope said that the child Jesus in the nativity scene has “the face of our most needy brothers and sisters.”

“The poor are a privileged part of this mystery; often they are the first to recognize God’s presence in our midst,” he said.

The time of Advent reminds us that joy and doubt are both experiences that are a part of life, the pope said.

“But the man of God looks beyond, because the Holy Spirit makes his heart feel the power of his promise, and he announces salvation: ‘Courage, do not fear! Behold your God … He comes to save you,’”  Pope Francis said.

“And then everything is transformed: the desert blooms, consolation and joy take possession of fearful hearts, the lame, the blind, the mute are healed. This is what is accomplished with Jesus: ‘the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are purified, the deaf hear, the dead rise, the Gospel is announced to the poor,’” he said quoting the Gospel of Matthew.

This description from Matthew’s Gospel shows that “salvation envelops the whole man and regenerates him,” the pope said. “But this new birth, with the joy that accompanies it, always presupposes a dying to ourselves and to the sin that is in us.”

“Hence the call to conversion, which is the basis of the preaching of both the Baptist and Jesus; in particular, it is a question of converting the idea we have of God. And the time of Advent encourages us to do so,” he said.

Pope Francis reminded the crowd that the Christmas novena will begin Dec. 16. He also asked for prayers for the fruitfulness of the International Eucharistic Congress to be held in Budapest, Hungary in September 2020.

“May the Virgin Mary help us as we approach Christmas, not to allow ourselves to be distracted by external things, but make space in our heart for Him who has already come and wants to come again to heal our illnesses and give us his joy,” Pope Francis said.

[…]