Vatican

Vatican City, Jun 13, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis said Saturday that the coronavirus pandemic has revealed poverty that Catholics cannot ignore.

“The word of God allows for no complacency; it constantly impels us to acts of love,” Pope Francis wrote in his message for the 2020 World Day of the Poor.

“This pandemic arrived suddenly and caught us unprepared, sparking a powerful sense of bewilderment and helplessness,” the pope said. “This has made us all the more aware of the presence of the poor in our midst and their need for help.”

Pope Francis said that “time devoted to prayer can never become an alibi for neglecting our neighbor in need.”

“Prayer to God and solidarity with the poor and suffering are inseparable,” he said.

In his message published June 13, the pope wrote that “generosity that supports the weak, consoles the afflicted, relieves suffering and restores dignity to those stripped of it, is a condition for a fully human life.”

He stressed that the time given in support of the poor cannot be put second to one’s personal interests.

“The decision to care for the poor, for their many different needs, cannot be conditioned by the time available or by private interests, or by impersonal pastoral or social projects,” he said.

“The power of God’s grace cannot be restrained by the selfish tendency to put ourselves always first,” he added.

The pope recognized that the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic has left many people feeling “poorer and less self- sufficient.”

“The present experience has challenged many of our assumptions,” he said. “The loss of employment, and of opportunities to be close to our loved ones and our regular acquaintances, suddenly opened our eyes to horizons that we had long since taken for granted. Our spiritual and material resources were called into question and we found ourselves experiencing fear.”

Francis pointed to the wisdom found in the Old Testament Book of Sirach. “In page after page, we discover a precious compendium of advice on how to act in the light of a close relationship with God, creator and lover of creation, just and provident towards all his children,” he said.

Quoting Sirach chapter two, the pope said: “‘Do not be alarmed when disaster comes. Cling to him and do not leave him, so that you may be honored at the end of your days. Whatever happens to you, accept it, and in the uncertainties of your humble state, be patient, since gold is tested in the fire, and chosen men in the furnace of humiliation. Trust him and he will uphold you, follow a straight path and hope in him. You who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy; do not turn aside in case you fall.’”

Pope Francis said: “The Church certainly has no comprehensive solutions to propose, but by the grace of Christ she can offer her witness and her gestures of charity.”

“She likewise feels compelled to speak out on behalf of those who lack life’s basic necessities. For the Christian people, to remind everyone of the great value of the common good is a vital commitment, expressed in the effort to ensure that no one whose human dignity is violated in its basic needs will be forgotten,” he added.

The theme for this year’s World Day of the Poor comes from a line in chapter six of the Book of Sirach: “Stretch forth your hand to the poor.”

“This year’s theme – ‘Stretch forth your hand to the poor’ – is thus a summons to responsibility and commitment as men and women who are part of our one human family. It encourages us to bear the burdens of the weakest, in accord with the words of Saint Paul: ‘Through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’” he said.

Pope Francis established the World Day of the Poor at the end of the Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2016. It is celebrated each year on the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, one week before the Feast of Christ the King. The 2020 World Day of the Poor will take place on November 15.

“Each year, on the World Day of the Poor, I reiterate this basic truth in the life of the Church, for the poor are and always will be with us to help us welcome Christ’s presence into our daily lives,” the pope said.

“The ‘end’ of all our actions can only be love. This is the ultimate goal of our journey, and nothing should distract us from it.”

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Vatican City, Jun 11, 2020 / 08:50 am (CNA).- In a phone call Wednesday, Pope Francis told an archbishop in Brazil that he is praying for the country, which has become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in Latin America.

According to Archbishop… […]

Vatican City, Jun 10, 2020 / 06:15 am (CNA).- Pope Francis named Fr. Bruce Lewandowski as an auxiliary bishop of Baltimore Wednesday.

The Redemptorist priest currently serves as pastor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Baltimore, Maryland. 
… […]

Vatican City, Jun 10, 2020 / 05:15 am (CNA).- Pope Francis appointed Wednesday Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski to lead the Metropolitan Archdiocese of St. Louis.

Rozanski, 61, is the current Bishop of Springfield, Massachusetts, where he has served since 2014. He succeeds Archbishop Robert Carlson, who presented his resignation to Pope Francis at the age of 75.

“I am confident in the future of God’s strong Church in St. Louis with Archbishop-elect Rozanski as its shepherd,” Archbishop Carlson wrote on Twitter following the announcement on June 10.

A Baltimore native, Rozanski was born in 1958, and attended Catholic schools in the city. He attended seminary at the Catholic University of America, and was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Baltimore in 1984. He served in parish ministry, the archdiocesan curia, and with its seminary, and was named a monsignor in 2003.

Pope John Paul II appointed Rozanski as auxiliary bishop of Baltimore in 2004. He oversaw one of Baltimore archdiocese’s geographical vicariates while parishes were merged, and served as vicar for Hispanics. He was vocal in supporting Maryland’s DREAM act, allowing some undocumented immigrants to receive in-state college tuition.

At the time of his episcopal consecration, Rozanski was the youngest bishop in the United States. He went on to serve as chair of the U.S. bishops’ conference committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and as a consultant to the National Association for the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities.

A Polish-American, Rozanski has co-chaired the Polish National Catholic – Roman Catholic Dialogue. The Polish National Catholic Church is an ecclesial community founded in the U.S. in the late 19th-century by Polish-American immigrants.

He is a member of the Knights of Columbus and a Knight Commander of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

As Metropolitan Archbishop of St. Louis, Rozanski will oversee the largest city in Missouri, with a population of 2.25 million people across the archdiocese, 509,280 of which are Catholic. 

The title of “metropolitan bishop” refers to the diocesan bishop or archbishop of a metropolis, namely, the primary city of an ecclesiastical province or regional capital.

Archbishop Robert Carlson led the Archdiocese of St. Louis since 2009.

“I am honored to have served as leader of the Archdiocese of St. Louis for more than a decade,” Carlson said following Rozanaki’s appointment.

“This large and generous community of faithful Catholics will continue to encourage me in my faith journey, and I know that Bishop Rozanski will cherish his new ministry.”

Pope Francis also appointed Fr. Bruce Lewandowski as an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Baltimore June 10.

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Vatican City, Jun 10, 2020 / 04:30 am (CNA).- In our darkest moments God awaits us and is ready to transform us, Pope Francis said at his general audience Wednesday.

Reflecting on Jacob’s struggle with an angel described in the Book of Genesis, … […]

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 9, 2020 / 06:00 pm (CNA).- For those following the serpentine turns of the ongoing Vatican financial scandals, the arrest of Italian businessman Gianluigi Torzi on Friday was a major event. 

But exactly how “m… […]

Vatican City, Jun 9, 2020 / 09:30 am (CNA).- As Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis has started a fund with 1 million euros ($1.1 million) to help those in the Diocese of Rome who are facing economic difficulty because of the coronavirus.

In a June 8 letter … […]

Vatican City, Jun 9, 2020 / 07:30 am (CNA).- With the Vatican’s interim deal with the Chinese government due to expire in September, an archbishop who helped to negotiate the agreement said this week that he believes it should be renewed for one … […]

Vatican City, Jun 9, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis appointed Msgr. David L. Toups as the next Bishop of Beaumont, Texas, Tuesday.

The Holy See press office announced June 9 that Toups would succeed Bishop Curtis J. Guillory, 76, who has led the… […]

CNA Staff, Jun 9, 2020 / 03:00 am (CNA).- Cardinal Angelo Becciu has said that the arrest of a businessman at the center of a Vatican property deal will have no wider repercussions and that business in the Vatican “will continue as before.”

Commenting on the June 5 arrest of Gianluigi Torzi, the former sostituto at the Secretariat of State said that he did not know the Italian businessman charged by Vatican prosecutors with fraud, extortion, money laundering and other crimes. Becciu also defended the investment of hundreds of millions of euros in the London property at 60 Sloane Avenue, and said it still represented good value for money.

“I don’t know Torzi, I was no longer sostituto when the facts that are attributed [Torzi] happened,” Becciu told Adnkronos after the announcement of Torzi’s arrest.

Before he was made a cardinal in June, 2018, Becciu was the second-ranking official at the Vatican Secretariat of State, which invested hundreds of millions of euros in the London property between 2014-2018. Torzi acted as a broker, a commission-earning middleman, for the Secretariat of State as it finalized the purchase in 2018 and 2019.

The Adnkronos report offers Becciu’s account of his  role at the Vatican. Becciu insists that Torzi’s involvement in the project came after the cardinal had become head of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints in the summer of 2018, but that the original investment in the building was a sound decision.

“Are you sure that that building was a waste? But there has been no doubt that if sold now it would make double what it cost – 148 million euros when I was there, if there were other [additional expenses] then ask who made them, I was no longer there.”

On Saturday, the cardinal dismissed the idea that Torzi’s arrest would cause a broader “earthquake” in the curia, calling it “a journalistic fantasy.”

Becciu’s interview concluded with his declaration that “[Torzi] will have to answer for a specific crime for which he alone is responsible. And the Vatican will continue as before.”

CNA has reported that between 2014 and 2018, the Secretariat of State paid around $300 million for the building, bought from Italian businessman Raffaele Mincione. Mincione arranged the secretariat’s initial investment through an investment fund through which he managed hundreds of millions of euros for the Secretariat of State.

Completion of the sale was conducted through Gutt SA, a Luxembourg-registered holding company owned by Torzi.

According to a press statement from the Holy See, Torzi was arrested Friday in connection with “well-known events connected with the sale of the London property on Sloane Avenue, which involved a network of companies in which some officials of the Secretariat of State were present.”

In May, CNA reported that in November 2018, a lay official at the Secretariat of State was made a director of Gutt, for a period of one month. That official, Fabrizio Tirabassi, was suspended from his position in October, 2019, following a raid by Vatican investigators.

In his statements to Adnkronos over the weekend, Becciu repeated previous denials that the investment used funds from Peter’s Pence, a fund of donations sent to the Holy See by Catholics and dioceses around the world to support the ministry of the pope.

On Saturday, Vatican News reported that the investments made by the secretariat in Mincione’s Athena Global Opportunities Fund amounted to 200 million euros. It reports Mincione invested this money in the building, which he owned, and other ventures of Mincione’s, which it described to be a “conflict of interest.”

On Nov. 4, 2019, CNA reported that in 2015 Cardinal Becciu seems to have attempted to obscure on Vatican balance sheets nearly 200 million in loans connected to the transaction by cancelling them out against the value of the property in London, an accounting maneuver prohibited by financial policies approved by Pope Francis in 2014.

That apparent attempt to obscure the loans was detected by the Prefecture for the Economy, then led by Cardinal George Pell. Senior officials at the Prefecture for the Economy told CNA in 2019 that Becciu told Pell the cardinal was “interfering in sovereign business” by looking into the secretariat’s dealings with Swiss bank BSI.

BSI was closed by Swiss banking authorities in 2017, following an investigation which found systematic violations of anti-money laundering protections.

On Saturday, Becciu said that Torzi’s involvement in the London property deal came only after he had left the secretariat.

In May, CNA reported that Swiss authorities had frozen tens of millions of euros in several bank accounts as part of the Vatican’s investigation into the deal.

On June 6, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that among the funds frozen were several million under the control of Msgr. Alberto Perlasca.

Perlasca served under Becciu for nearly a decade as head of the administrative office of the secretariat’s First Section until July 2019, when he was transferred to the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Holy See’s supreme court. Perlasca worked as a prosecutor at the court, until his office and home were raided by investigators in February.

In an interview with the newspaper Il Giornale on Monday, Perlasca denied that he had any Swiss bank accounts and is “ready to sue anyone who claims otherwise.”

Perlasca said that “there was considerable confusion, I hope not knowingly, between personal accounts and accounts of the Secretariat of State, on which, however, I had no signature power since only the superiors had it. I only had the power to sign in conjunction with another superior. I don’t remember ever having to use it, because there never was a need. In other words: I couldn’t move a single cent.”

Perlasca said he personally lodged a complaint against Torzi in 2018, alleging fraud by the businessman.

Corriere also reported that accounts belonging to Mincione have been seized by Swiss authorities as part of the investigation, as well as those under the control of Enrico Crasso, who has also managed Holy See investments through the Centurion Global Fund.

Crasso told Corriere that the accounts relevant to him were only under his management and not personal accounts. Previously, CNA reported on Centurion’s connections to several institutions subject to allegations of money laundering.

On Saturday, Mincione denied any relationship to Torzi beyond working with him as the secretariat’s chosen intermediary for the completion of the property purchase.

In an interview with Adnkronos, Mincione said that apart from knowing Torzi slightly as a social acquaintance, his contact with him was limited to Torzi’s mandate to act on behalf of the secretariat, given by Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, who replaced Becciu as sostituto in 2018.

Mincione insisted in the interview that his dealings with the secretariat were all legitimate, and that the Holy See could still realize a profit on the London property.

Mincione also appeared to imply that responsibility for Torzi’s involvement could ultimately lay with Pope Francis, saying “there is a picture of Torzi with the pope, which I have. [Torzi] was given this job by Peña Parra, [who was himself] appointed by the pope.”  It is unclear why or how Mincione would have a photo of Torzi with the pope, especially if the two businessmen were not close.

CNA has previously reported that Torzi, along with his family, were received in a private audience with Pope Francis on December 26, 2018. Repeated requests, over several months, to the Holy See asking how the meeting was arranged have gone unanswered.

On the same day as Mincione’s interview with Adnkronos, a picture apparently showing Torzi and his wife with Pope Francis began circulating online.

Perlasca told Il Giornale that “It seems very bad to call the Holy Father directly into this matter.”

“I know that, at the end of December 2018, there was a meeting with him, to which however no representative of the Administrative Office was invited,” Perlasca said.

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