null / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA.
Vatican City, Jan 5, 2022 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
Last year ended with a major change in the Roman Curia: the departure of Cardinal Peter Turkson as prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.Pope Fran… […]
Cardinal Pietro Parolin attends an ordination at the Basilica of Sant’Eugenio in Rome, Sept. 5, 2020. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA.
Vatican City, Dec 23, 2021 / 09:00 am (CNA).
From Thursday, people seeking to enter the offices of the Roman Curia must provide either proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or evidence of recovery from it.
The new rule was contained in a decree issued by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin on Dec. 23.
The Vatican has required all visitors and personnel since October to show a COVID-19 pass proving they have been vaccinated, recovered from the coronavirus, or tested negative for the disease.
But in a Dec. 16 ordinance, Archbishop Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, president of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State, removed the recent negative test option.
He said that from Dec. 20, everyone working in the Vatican City State must provide evidence of vaccination or recovery.
Parolin’s decree confirmed that the same rule applies to the offices of the Roman Curia, the Holy See’s administrative institutions.
Throughout the coronavirus crisis, the Vatican has kept in step with Italy’s measures to contain the virus. The Italian authorities introduced a “Super Green Pass” on Dec. 6 for those who have been vaccinated or recovered from the virus.
The new decree, published in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano on Thursday, applies not only to curial officials, but also to “external collaborators” and all other visitors.
Employees without a valid pass proving vaccination or recovery will not be allowed to access their workplace and will be considered “unjustifiably absent,” the text said.
Their pay will be suspended “for the duration of the absence, without prejudice to social security and welfare deductions, as well as family allowance.”
The decree said that prolonged unjustified absence would result in “the consequences foreseen by the General Regulations of the Roman Curia.”
Possible exemptions will be evaluated by the Secretariat of State in conjunction with the Directorate of Health and Hygiene of Vatican City State.
The decree said the measures were being tightened “in view of the continuation and worsening of the current health emergency and the need to take appropriate measures to counter it and ensure the safe conduct of activities.”
The decree was issued a day after the Vatican underlined its support for COVID-19 vaccines, recalling that Pope Francis described vaccination as an “act of love.”
Pope Francis recorded a public service announcement supporting vaccinations that was released in August in collaboration with the Ad Council.
In the PSA, he said: “Getting the vaccines that are authorized by the respective authorities is an act of love. I pray to God that each one of us can make his or her own small gesture of love, no matter how small, love is always grand.”
During an in-flight press conference from Slovakia in September, the pope said that “in the Vatican, everyone is vaccinated except a small group which they are studying how to help.”
Three Swiss Guards quit this fall after refusing to comply with the Vatican’s vaccine requirement and three other guards were suspended until they were fully vaccinated.
The new Vatican decree comes as countries around the world impose new restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the omicron variant, which is believed to spread more easily than the original SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The measures have prompted protests in several European countries.
The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said in its “Note on the morality of using some anti-COVID-19 vaccines,” issued on Dec. 21, 2020, that “vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary.”
It added that Catholics who, for reasons of conscience, refuse vaccines produced with cell lines from aborted fetuses, “must do their utmost to avoid, by other prophylactic means and appropriate behavior, becoming vehicles for the transmission of the infectious agent.”
Pope Francis addresses members of the Roman Curia at the Vatican on Dec. 23, 2021. / Screenshot from Vatican News YouTube channel.
Vatican City, Dec 23, 2021 / 05:50 am (CNA).
Pope Francis urged Vatican officials on Thursday to undergo a “synod… […]
Bishop-elect Guido Marini walks beside Pope Francis on Ash Wednesday 2021 in St. Peter’s Basilica / Vatican Media
Vatican City, Aug 29, 2021 / 04:40 am (CNA).
Pope Francis on Sunday appointed the Vatican’s papal master of ceremonies, Msgr. Guido Marini, bishop of a northern Italian diocese.
Marini, who has been in charge of papal liturgies since his appointment by Benedict XVI in 2007, was Aug. 29 named Bishop of Tortona, a diocese of around 280,000 people.
Marini, 56, grew up near Tortona in the city of Genoa, where he served as chief liturgist for four years. The bishop-elect has degrees in canon and civil law. Prior to his appointment to the Vatican he was chancellor of the Archdiocese of Genoa and a spiritual director in the seminary.
Since 2019, Marini has also been responsible for the Sistine Chapel Choir. According to a biography by the Vatican, “from his priestly ordination to today, he has also carried out his ministry in the field of preaching spiritual exercises, spiritual direction, accompaniment of some youth groups, and as a spiritual assistant of some religious communities.”
There are eight papal masters of ceremonies, of which Marini was the head. They are responsible for organizing and overseeing all liturgical celebrations of the pope. Since 2007, with few exceptions, Msgr. Marini could be seen at the side of Pope Benedict XVI and then Pope Francis during papal Masses and other liturgies both at the Vatican and abroad.
Marini’s replacement was not announced Aug. 29, though there are three candidates for the position, according to sources who spoke to CNA earlier this summer.
One is Msgr. Diego Ravelli, a 56-year-old priest from northern Italy who has been head of the office of papal almoner since 2013 and also serves as one of the masters of ceremonies.
Another candidate for the role is Fr. Giuseppe Midili, director of the liturgical office of the Vicariate of Rome, and the third is Msgr. Pietro Moroni, dean of the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical Urban University and consultor of the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff.
The change in papal master of ceremonies is one of a number of recent personnel changes to Vatican offices and dicasteries, part of Pope Francis’ continued reform of the Roman Curia.
Screenshot from Vatican News YouTube channel.
Vatican City, Jun 18, 2021 / 10:19 am (CNA).
As the completion of curia reform approaches, Pope Francis would be moving towards some changes. The pope’s next moves might be the appointment of a new M… […]
Vatican City, Feb 22, 2021 / 07:00 am (CNA).- For nearly 100 years, popes have set aside time for an annual retreat and meditation on spiritual exercises.
Pope Francis and the Roman Curia began a weeklong Lenten retreat Sunday, but for the … […]
Vatican City, Jan 8, 2021 / 04:40 pm (CNA).- For the first time, the Disciplinary Commission of the Roman Curia will be presided by a layperson after Pope Francis appointed professor Vincenzo Buonomo, rector of the Pontifical Lateran University. And it is possible that more laypersons will be appointed for other Vatican positions.
The Commission is composed of a president and six members. Established by St. John Paul II in 1981, the Commission rules whether an administrative sanction – i.e., suspension or firing – can be imposed on a Roman Curia official is pertinent or not.
Pope Francis also appointed two new members of the Commission: Monsignor Alejandro W. Bunge, president of the Labor Office of the Apostolic See, known by the Italian acronym ULSA; and Mr. Maximino Caballero Ledo, General Secretary of the Secretariat for the Economy.
The appointment of professor Buonomo, a layperson, as a president is unprecedented. According to the Commission’s Statutes, issued in 2016, the president of the Commission must be a cardinal or at least a bishop. The statutes have a five-year validity. Until now, the Commission had five presidents: three cardinals, an archbishop, and a bishop. The last president was Bishop Giorgio Corbellini, who was also president of the ULSA. Corbellini died in November 2019, leaving the position open.
Article 4 of the Statutes read that “the Commission is composed by a Cardinal or Bishop president and other six members, both laymen and clergy, appointed for a five-year term by the Pontiff.”
Article 4 also states that the Vatican Secretariat of State’s adviser and the secretary of the administrative section of the Secretariat for the Economy are members de iure (officially sanctioned) of the same Commission. That means that also Monsignor Luigi Cona, is a member of the Commission.
The other Commission members are Bishop Juan Arrieta, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, and Flaminia Giovannelli, undersecretary emeritus of the Dicastery for the Service to the Integral Human Development. Vincenzo Buonomo was also a member before being elevated to the chairmanship of the Commission. Pope Francis may now appoint another member of the Commission.
Buonomo has garnered growing attention during the years. Pope Francis called him in 2018 to be the first lay rector of the Pontifical Lateran University. Since he became the rector, Pope Francis has paid a visit to the university twice.
Since 2014, Buonomo is also a counselor of the Vatican City State Administration and was part of the committee that drafted the first Vatican law on procurements, issued in July 2020.
A professor in the Pontifical Lateran University since 1984, Buonomo began his collaboration with the Vatican Secretariat of State during the 1980s.
Since 2007, Buonomo is office chief of the Vatican’s delegation to the U.N. Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO,) where he has served since 1993.
In 2015, he was a member of the Secretariat of State’s working group for the drafting of the Holy See Periodic Reports to the U.N. Committees on the Rights of Children, on Racial discrimination, and Against Torture.
The appointment of Buonomo as president of the Commission is certainly a sign of trust by Pope Francis. Pope Francis is also continuing his policy of appointing laypeople as Curia top-officials.
In the last year, Pope Francis appointed Maximino Caballero Ledo as general secretary of the Secretariat for the Economy and Fabio Gasperini as general secretary of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA, a sort of Vatican central bank). In 2018, Pope Francis appointed another layperson, Paolo Ruffini, as prefect of the Dicastery of Communication.
There are rumors that Pope Francis might also choose a layperson as general secretary of the Vatican City State Administration. The current general secretary, Bishop Fernando Vergez Alzaga, already turned 75, the official retirement age.
Vatican City, Dec 2, 2020 / 05:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinals met online Tuesday to continue work on the new apostolic constitution to govern the Roman Curia, according to a Vatican statement.
The seven cardinals and an archbis… […]
Vatican City, Nov 5, 2020 / 07:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis has requested that responsibility for financial funds and real estate assets, including a controversial London property, be transferred out of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State.
The pope… […]
By Ed Condon Vatican City, Jul 2, 2019 / 03:15 pm (CNA).- Last week, Bishop Marcello Semeraro, secretary of the pope’s C6 Council of Cardinal Advisors announced that the group hoped to present Francis with a […]
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