More problems within the Vatican bank

John L. Allen, Jr.
National Catholic Reporter
July 19, 2013

A nasty war of words erupted Friday in Rome in the wake of an explosive piece in the newsmagazine L'Espresso, charging that a cleric hand-picked by Pope Francis to reform the Vatican bank was involved in fairly brazen gay affairs while serving as a papal diplomat more than a decade ago.

So far, the pope appears to be standing by his man, with a senior Vatican official saying Friday morning on background that Francis "has listened to everyone and has confidence" in Msgr. Battista Ricca, the cleric named in the piece.

On the record, Vatican spokesman Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi on Friday branded the story "not credible."

The Ricca story broke the same day Francis announced a new pontifical commission dealing with the Vatican's economic and administrative structures. The aim, according to a legal document with which Francis created the body, is to draft reforms promoting "simplification and rationalization" and "more careful planning of economic activities," as well as to "favor transparency" and "ever greater prudence in the area of finances." The eight-member commission is composed almost entirely of laypeople, led by Joseph F.X. Zahra of Malta, an economist and businessman who has also served as a board member of the Vatican-based Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation and on the International Audit Committee of the Holy See and the Vatican State.

While waiting for the dust to settle on how accurate the specific claims against Ricca may be, two preliminary observations suggest themselves.

First, it confirms how much the Institute for the Works of Religion, popularly known as the Vatican bank, has become a primary acid test and battleground for the larger question of Vatican reform.

In the last 14 months:

One bank president has been fired for alleged incompetence and erratic behavior while insisting he was trying to promote transparency;
His successor, tapped by Benedict XVI as one of his last acts, faced a mini-tempest at the beginning because of his ties to a German firm that manufacturers warships;
The bank's top two managers resigned while facing an Italian probe into alleged money-laundering;
and A new commission was created to investigate the bank at roughly the same time a former Vatican accountant was charged, among other things, with illicit use of his bank accounts.

Now, the bank prelate finds himself in the eye of the storm.

It's almost enough to make one think the Vatican bank ought to come with a skull-and-crossbones label, like a pack of cigarettes. "Warning: Working at this place may be dangerous to your health."

Second, the Ricca affair also illustrates how Francis himself is still viewed positively by almost everyone because the one thing everyone appears to agree on is that Francis is not to blame.

Friday's story by veteran journalist Sandro Magister claims that Ricca, now 57, had a live-in lover when he served as a papal diplomat in Uruguay in the late 1990s and early 2000s, that he cruised gay bars and once got beaten up, and that another time he brought a young man back to the papal embassy and ended up trapped in an elevator with him overnight before being freed by the local fire department.

It should be noted there's no suggestion in the story that Ricca was guilty of criminal conduct or sexual abuse and no suggestion he ever faced civil charges.

Battista later returned to Rome and ended up as the director of the Casa Santa Marta, the residence on Vatican grounds where Francis now lives, earning the pope's trust and being tapped to become his "prelate," or delegate, at the bank. (Technically, the prelate is appointed by a body of cardinals that supervises the bank, but it's widely believed they acted on Francis' wishes.)

Magister insisted Francis did not know this chapter of Battista's past before naming him on June 15, suggesting Ricca's Vatican file had been sanitized by elements of a purported "gay lobby."

After the Vatican called the story "not credible," L'Espresso fired back with a strongly worded response confirming the report "point by point," insisting it was based on "primary sources," and calling the Vatican's denial "improbable and improvident."

In sotto voce fashion, two competing narratives quickly emerged in and around the Vatican to account for the situation.

For Magister and those who accept his analysis, a decadelong effort to conceal Battista's past is proof positive there's a shadowy network of people with secrets to keep in the Vatican, including some in senior positions, who protect and shelter their own and who thereby allow corruption to fester.

That's what's usually meant by the term "gay lobby," though most Italians don't understand it to refer just to secrets about sex, but also other skeletons in the closet such as financial improprieties or political maneuverings.

For this group, the occult influence of the "gay lobby" is proof of the need for precisely the house-cleaning Francis has started to launch, and most express confidence he'll do the right thing.

Defenders of Ricca insist there's another side to Ricca's story not given in Magister's piece but known to Francis. They say Ricca is a genuine reformer and dredging up a seamy chapter of his past from more than a decade ago may be a smear campaign by elements of a Vatican old guard that doesn't want its power and privilege to slip away.

Even if he is gay and perhaps struggled at one point with celibacy, they say, what does that have to do with his ability to implement reform in a bank?

These voices, too, generally say the situation confirms how much Francis is needed and insist he'll make the right call.

All of which may illustrate that because of his personal popularity and because his papacy is still young and capable of seeming all things to all people, Francis remains largely untouchable and above reproach.

What the Ricca story also shows, however, is that the same thing can't be said for those around him.

Previous stories at prelate of gay lobby and Vatican denies scandal at bank

Vatican denies scandal report on Vatican bank prelate

John L. Allen, Jr.
National Catholic Reporter
July 19, 2013

A Vatican spokesman today called a report "not credible" charging that a cleric hand-picked by Pope Francis to reform the troubled Vatican bank led a double life while serving as a papal diplomat in Uruguay a little more than a decade ago, including having a live-in male companion and visiting gay bars.

The charges appeared in a report published today by veteran Italian journalist Sandro Magister for the magazine L'Espresso. They concern Msgr. Battista Ricca, a veteran Vatican diplomat appointed June 15 to serve as the pope's "prelate," or representative, at the Vatican bank.

Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, issued a statement to journalists calling the report "not credible."

L'Espresso swiftly replied with an acerbic statement "confirming point by point" the details in Magister's story, which it said had been "confirmed by primary sources."

The magazine's statement also claimed the charges in Magister's piece were judged by the Vatican at the time to be sufficiently serious as to warrant Ricca's removal from Uruguay.

On background, a senior Vatican official told NCR this morning that "the pope has listened to everyone and has confidence in Ricca."

Ricca, 57, is a veteran Vatican diplomat who served in a variety of posts before returning to Rome and taking over as the director of Vatican residences, including the Casa Santa Marta, where Pope Francis now resides.

The Magister report focuses on Ricca's brief period in Uruguay in the late 1990s and early 2000s. According to the report, when Ricca arrived, he arranged for a male friend and captain in the Swiss army to live with him in the embassy. The report says the "intimacy" of their relations created a scandal.

Magister also suggests Ricca visited "meeting places" for homosexuals in Montevideo, at one point getting beat up, and that on another occasion he brought a "young man" back to the embassy and ended up getting trapped in an elevator with him overnight.

None of the accusations in Magister's report appear to constitute criminal conduct or sexual abuse, and there is no suggestion Ricca ever faced civil charges in Uruguay.

Magister asserts all this was well known in Uruguay but was deliberately omitted from Ricca's Vatican record, so Francis learned of the charges only after appointing Ricca to his position at the Vatican bank.

Magister also links the alleged scrubbing of Ricca's file to the purported existence of a "gay lobby" in the Vatican -- a phrase reportedly used by Francis himself in a June 6 private session with leaders in religious life from Latin America.

The L'Espresso statement this morning said rather than issuing "improbable and improvident denials," the Vatican should consult its own documentation as well as materials from the civil authorities in Uruguay. The statement also said "numerous bishops, priests, religious and laity" in Uruguay were "direct witnesses" to Ricca's behavior and "are ready to give testimony."

If the charges against Ricca are confirmed, it could be an embarrassment for Francis' reform efforts.

The pope recently created a commission to investigate the Vatican bank,; at more or less the same amount, a former Vatican accountant was arrested by Italian authorities for alleged involvement in a cash-smuggling plot. Francis also accepted the resignations of the bank's two top day-to-day administrators, who currently face a civil probe in Italy for alleged money-laundering.

On background, some Vatican sources this morning suggested the leaks about Ricca's past may be coming from people opposed to reform, describing Ricca as "non-ambitious" and sincerely interested in implementing the pope's vision.

Hundreds pack Unitarian church to hear reformist Catholic priest

WBUR (Boston NPR)
July 18, 2013

DEDHAM, Mass. — Hundreds of people, most of them Catholic, turned out Wednesday night in Dedham to hear a reformist Catholic priest from Austria.

The Rev. Helmut Schuller was scheduled to speak at Saint Susanna Parish in Dedham, but was barred by Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley due to his positions on several issues which run contrary to official Catholic Church doctrine. So the meeting was moved to a Unitarian church — First Church and Parish in Dedham.

People lined up in the suffocating heat outside First Church as early as 3 p.m. Wednesday. Shortly after 6 p.m., when the doors opened, a sizable crowd had gathered.

“The windows in a Protestant church open,” someone in the crowd said as people filed into the old church, some of its windows jarred open with electric fans. “Ours haven’t opened since John XXIII died.”

People nearly filled the pews, and another 200 opted to listen via loudspeakers outside on the cooler town green.

Schuller is among Austrian priests pushing for the ordination of women and married priests. He also wants lay Catholics to have more say in how the church is run. Schuller is touring the U.S. this summer. Wednesday night he spoke of the closing of Austrian churches.

“We don’t agree with the plans of our bishops to come there and to close the parishes and to say to the people, ‘You can go to the next village, there you will get your communion,’ ” Schuller said. “Like a supermarket, you can buy something there.”

For two hours, Schuller spoke and took questions.

“Do you think that Pope Francis is moving to support a Vatican II?” someone asked.

“Well, we are hoping,” Schuller replied. “We are hoping, really, because his first gestures are very interesting in that direction, his orientation to a more simple behaving as a pope.”

The Archdiocese of Boston released a statement defending its decision to bar Schuller from Catholic Church property.

“It is the policy of the Archdiocese of Boston … not to permit individuals to conduct speaking engagements in Catholic parishes or at church events when those individuals promote positions that are contrary to Catholic teachings,” the statement said, in part.

The heat inside the old church was too much for many, and by evening’s end, the mostly older crowd had thinned. But outside, as people were leaving, it was clear Schuller provoked passionate responses.

“I think [Cardinal O'Malley's decision was] so foolish,” said Mary Scanlon, who regularly attends Saint Susanna’s, where Schuller was originally scheduled to speak. “I think any effort to silence people or to cut off dialogue is, as Father Schuller said, so disrespectful. We’re citizens of this church. How could talking to one another be a bad thing? It’s like a family. If a family refuses to talk to one another, that’s a sign of real dysfunction.”

Jackson Lawler, who attends St. Mary’s in Dedham, was standing nearby listening to Scanlon and disagreed.

“Most of the young people in church did not agree with what Father Schuller said today,” said Lawler, who just graduated from high school. “And I have to say, as a young person who’s really fallen in love with the Catholic church, the reason I love the church so much is because it’s different from everything in society. Society says, ‘Do whatever you want. Live free.’ But the freedom society offers isn’t true freedom, and I’ve found that true freedom in the church, in truth, the goodness and the beauty of the church.

“Father Schuller having this talk is only breeding disunity in the church by trying to open wounds that are closed,” Lawler added. “And by trying to bring up arguments that have already been settled.”

“You are so wrong,” interjected Dana Winikates, from Saint Susanna’s church. “You have no idea how wrong you are. The fact of the matter is that there are very deep wounds in this church that need some very fundamental addressing in order for the church not to die.”

Winikates and Lawler went on to disagree fervently but respectfully. Their passions showed just how alive the debate remains.

The Prelate of the gay lobby

Sandro Magister
Chiesa
(published in L'Espresso)
July 17, 2013

ROME, July 18, 2013 – "In the curia there is talk of a 'gay lobby.' And it is true, it's there. Let's see what we can do," Francis said on June 6 to Latin American religious received in audience.

And again: "It is not easy. Here there are many of the pope's 'bosses' with great seniority of service," he confided a few days ago to his Argentine friend and former student Jorge Milia.

In effect, some of these 'bosses' have hatched against Jorge Mario Bergoglio the cruelest and most subtle deception since he was elected pope.

They kept in the dark important information that, if he had known it before, would have kept him from appointing Monsignor Battista Ricca "prelate” of the Institute for Works of Religion.

With this appointment, made public on June 15, Francis intended to place a trusted person in a key role within the IOR. With the power to access all of the proceedings and documents and to attend all of the meetings both of the cardinalate commission of oversight and of the supervisory board of the disastrous Vatican “bank.” In short, with the task of cleaning house.

Ricca, 57, originally from the diocese of Brescia, comes from a diplomatic career. He served for fifteen years in the nunciatures of various countries before he was called back to the Vatican, to the secretariat of state. But he won Bergoglio's trust in another guise, initially as director of the residence on Via della Scrofa at which the archbishop of Buenos Aries stayed during his visits to Rome, and now also as director of the Domus Sanctæ Marthæ in which Francis has chosen to live as pope.

Before the appointment, Francis had been shown, as is customary, the personal file on Ricca, in which he had not found anything unseemly. He had also heard from various personalities of the curia, and none of them had raised objections.

Just one week after appointing the “prelate,” however, during the same days in which he was meeting with the apostolic nuncios who had come to Rome from all over the world, the pope became aware, from multiple sources, of some episodes from Ricca's past previously unknown to him and such as to bring serious harm to the pope himself and to his intention of reform.

Sadness over having been kept in the dark with regard to such grave matters, and the intention to remedy the appointment he had made, albeit not definitive but “ad interim": these were the sentiments expressed by Pope Francis once he was aware of those matters.

*

The black hole in Ricca's personal history is the period he spent in Uruguay, in Montevideo, on the northern shore of the Rio de la Plata, across from Buenos Aires.

Ricca arrived at this nunciature in 1999, when the mandate of the nuncio Francesco De Nittis was coming to an end. Previously he had served at the diplomatic missions of Congo, Algeria, Colombia, and finally Switzerland.

Here, in Bern, he had met and become friends with a captain of the Swiss army, Patrick Haari. The two arrived in Uruguay together. And Ricca asked that his friend be given a role and a residence in the nunciature.

The nuncio rejected the request. But a few months later he retired and Ricca, having become the chargé d'affaires “ad interim" until the appointment of the new nuncio, assigned Haari a residence in the nunciature, with a regular position and salary.

At the Vatican they let it go. The substitute for general affairs in the secretariat of state at the time was Giovanni Battista Re, a future cardinal, he too originally from the diocese of Brescia.

The intimacy of the relations between Ricca and Haari was so open as to scandalize numerous bishops, priests, and laity of that little South American country, not last the sisters who attended to the nunciature.

The new nuncio, Janusz Bolonek of Poland, who arrived in Montevideo at the beginning of 2000, also found that “ménage” intolerable immediately, and informed the Vatican authorities about it, insisting repeatedly to Haari that he should leave. But to no use, given his connections with Ricca.

.........

Nuncio Bolonek asked that Ricca be sent away from the nunciature and Haari fired immediately. And he got the go-ahead from the secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

Ricca, dragging his heels, was transferred to the nunciature of Trinidad and Tobago, where he remained until 2004. There as well he butted heads with the nuncio. Finally to be called to the Vatican and removed from diplomatic service on the ground.

As for Haari, in the process of leaving the nunciature he demanded that some of his luggage be sent to the Vatican as diplomatic baggage, to the address of Monsignor Ricca. Nuncio Bolonek refused, and the luggage ended up in a building outside of the nunciature. Where it remained for a few years, until from Rome Ricca said that he didn't want to have anything to do with it anymore.

Once the luggage was opened to get rid of its contents - as decided by the nuncio Bolonek - a pistol was found in it, which was handed over to the Uruguayan authorities, and in addition to personal effects, an enormous quantity of condoms and pornographic material.

*

In Uruguay, the facts reported above are known to dozens of persons: bishops, priests, sisters, laypeople. Without counting the civil authorities, from security forces to fire protection. Many of these persons have had direct experience of these facts, at various moments.

But at the Vatican as well there are those who know about them. The nuncio at the time, Bolonek, always expressed himself with severity with regard to Ricca, in reporting to Rome.

And yet a blanket of public silence has covered until today these past episodes of the monsignor.

..........

But at the Vatican there are some who actively promoted this cover-up operation. By blocking the investigations from the time of the events until today. By concealing the reports from the nuncio. By keeping Ricca's personal file immaculate. In this way they facilitated a prestigious new career for Ricca.

.................

The appointment as “prelate” of the IOR was for Ricca the crowning of this second career of his.

But it was also the beginning of the end. Because of the many upright persons who knew about his scandalous past, the news of the promotion was a cause of extreme bitterness, all the more keen because it was seen as a presage of harm for the arduous enterprise that Pope Francis has in the works, of purification of the Church and of reform of the Roman curia.

Because of this some believed it to be their duty to tell the pope the truth. Certain that he would make the consequent decisions.

Queen gives gay marriage law royal assent

The Tablet (UK),
. July 17, 2013

The Queen today gave royal assent to the Government's same-sex marriage legislation.

The bill legalising same-sex marriage in England and Wales cleared the House of Lords without a vote on Monday and was approved by the House of Commons after a two-hour debate yesterday.

The first same-sex weddings are likely to be held in England and Wales next year.

The bishops' conference of England and Wales issued a lengthy statement reiterating the reasons why they had consistently opposed the legislation. They acknowledged that in receiving Royal Assent, the act marked a "watershed" in English law and heralded a "profound social change".

But they noted that the act "breaks the existing legal links between the institution of marriage and sexual complementarity", meaning that openness to children the responsibility of parents to remain together to care for children born into their family unit would be "no longer central".

They reiterated their concern about "the deficiencies in the process by which this legislation came to Parliament, and the speed with which it has been rushed through", but voiced gratitude to MPs and peers who had sought to get amendments added to include "more effective protection for religious freedom".

Amendments passed in the House of Lords have significantly strengthened the legal protections in the act for the Churches, they said.

But they said they were disappointed that a number of other amendments to safeguard freedom of speech and the rights of civil registrars to conscientious objection were rejected.

Catholic Truth, a protest group, has launched a petition calling on priests to refuse communion to Catholic MPs who voted in favour of the bill.

Lefebvrists chide pope over visit to immigrant island

Gazzetta del Sud
July 16, 2013

Rome, July 16 - The Italian chapter of the Catholic traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) condemned Pope Francis on Tuesday for visiting immigrants and refugees on the island of Lampedusa. In a statement, the Lefebvrist breakaway group criticized the pope for going against centuries of Church efforts to "preserve Catholicism" in the face of the "Mohammedan invasion," recalling "popes, among whom many saints, who armed fleets to stop the (armed, of course) Muslims in Italy". Last week Francis chose Lampedusa, an island off the coast of Sicily, as the destination for his first official trip as pope, drawing attention to the plight of thousands who cross the Mediterranean - and the many who die in the process - each year trying to immigrate through Italy. SSPX said the visit reflected the influence of a "Masonic plot to create a multi-cultural society". SSPX broke away from the Church over theological differences stemming from the changes it adopted with the Second Vatican Council of some 45 years ago. The Vatican is currently engaged in a process aimed at formally reuniting the group with the Catholic Church.

[Dan Brown - are you getting this?]

Saints made as he commands

Sandro Magister
Chiesa
July 15, 2013

Jorge Mario Bergoglio continues to prefer calling himself the bishop of Rome and is avoiding, as long as he can, following his signature with the double “P” that stands for pope.

And he is doing so with a promptness and efficacy of curial governance that makes that of his immediate predecessors pale in comparison. With a style that recalls in certain ways that of Pius XII, who was his own secretary of state - leaving the position vacant - and was the last pontiff not to have a more or less cumbersome personal secretary, as was the case with his successors until Francis.

One field in which pope Bergoglio is making the entire weight of his personal decisions felt is that of beatifications and canonizations, which for centuries have been in the exclusive power of the supreme pontiff.

GREEN LIGHT FOR ROMERO

As has been revealed, after an audience of Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the postulator of the cause, with Pope Francis, the congregation for the doctrine of the faith has finally given the go-ahead to the process of beatification of the Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, brutally assassinated while he was celebrating the Eucharist.

It had been the former Holy Office led by then-cardinal Joseph Ratzinger that had blocked the cause, in part because of the influence over Bishop Romero - and above all over his boundless homiletic production - exercised by the Jesuit Jon Sobrino, a leading exponent of liberation theology whose writings have undergone censure with a notification from the Vatican congregation.

It is not clear, however, if the decision of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith to resume the progress of the cause had already been made during the very last phase of Ratzinger's pontificate.

'MOTU PROPRIO' FOR THE WELL-BELOVED JESUIT

One of Francis's decisions that is certainly personal is that of proceeding - as revealed in "Avvenire" by the journalist and friend of the current pope Stefania Falasca - with the canonization of the Savoyard Peter Faber, one of the founders of the Society of Jesus, now venerated as blessed.

The reasons for this intention are easy to identify in the evident analogy between the way in which Faber carried out his mission during the terrible period of crisis for the Church occasioned by the Protestant Reformation and the way in which pope Bergoglio today intends to fulfill the task of successor of Peter.

Faber, in fact, the historians recount, counterposed the witness of his own life and his insistence on a thorough internal reform of the Church to the theological controversies and to every illusion of being able to impose the authentic faith by force. And in doing so he earned the esteem of saints who nonetheless are considered seasoned champions of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, like Francis de Sales and Peter Canisius.

In all probability, the canonization of Faber will take place without the usual ceremony but with a simple pontifical act that will certify the so-called canonization "equivalent."

This is a procedure ordinarily used for personages who lived in past centuries and whom the pope, by virtue of his authority, decides to elevate to the rank of saint without the miracle attributed to their intercession, which is instead necessary in normal causes.

This procedure has been used, for example, by Benedict XVI for Hildegard of Bingen, by John XXIII for Gregorio Barbarigo, by Pius XII for Margaret of Hungary, by Pius XI for Albert the Great.

POPE JOHN A SAINT WITHOUT THE MIRACLE

But the most sensational decision made by Pope Francis in this field is certainly that of proceeding with the canonization of John XXIII without a miracle being attributed to his intercession and having taken place after his beatification.

Pope Roncalli will thus balance, in fact, the other canonization foreseen, that of John Paul II. And thus will be repeated what happened in 2000 when the beatification of Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the pope of Vatican Council II, was paired with that of Pius IX, the pope of the antimodern "Syllabus."

The exemption from the miracle granted by Francis to Pope John is particularly striking.

Benedict XVI did a great deal for pope Karol Wojtyla, dispensing with the norm that establishes that five years must pass after the death of the candidate for the altars in order to begin the process. But beyond this important acceleration, the procedural norms were formally respected, and two miracles had to be attributed to his intercession in order to inscribe him in the register of the saints.

But Francis has done more for John XXIII. Precisely by exercising his power as supreme pontiff, he has decreed that the miracle is not necessary for Roncalli, and that no more is needed than the enduring reputation of holiness that surrounds his figure and the “fama signorum," meaning the graces attributed to him, which continue to be attested to (even if none of them has been canonically certified as a real and proper miracle).

In practice, therefore, Francis has exploited to the utmost the pontifical power at his disposal as head of the universal Church, in order to make a decision that seems to have no precedent as far as causes not concerning martyrs are concerned.

In 1982 John Paul II, in fact, stretching the traditional forms and practices, canonized Maximilian Kolbe - who had been beatified by Paul VI as a confessor following the two miracles required at the time - by proclaiming him a martyr of charity.

And then in 2000 he canonized 140 martyrs of China, “exempting” each of them from the miracle. The action provoked a grave crisis with the government of Beijing, in part because the rite was celebrated on October 1, the national feast of the People's Republic of China: a decision - this latter - that was considered a “gaffe” by the nonetheless combative Cardinal Joseph Zen.

MORE THAN WITH MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA

John Paul II however, in spite of a petition signed by numerous cardinals, did not grant that Mother Teresa of Calcutta should be proclaimed a saint immediately, with no more than the miracle attributed to her in the cause of beatification.

Thus Francis has granted to John XXIII that which John Paul II did not permit for Mother Teresa.

But one can imagine that the Albanian sister in heaven will not bicker over this with the pope from Bergamo.

Nor will she complain to the Polish pope for his not having exercised with her the Petrine "munus" to the highest degree, as the current bishop of Rome is doing.