Monday Vatican – Catholic Radar

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- Specialists Press

Pope Francis and a closing circle

Posted on July 2, 2024July 1, 2024by Catholic Radar Is

(Vatican Monday. ANDREA GAGLIARDUCCI)

The appointment of Archbishop Georg Gänswein as nuncio to the Baltics closes a circle. Pope Francis had asked Benedict XVI’s former secretary to return to his diocese of Fribourg without assignment after announcing the termination of his role as prefect of the Papal Household. After a year and a half, Francis assigned Gänswein to a nunciature—a job Gänswein has never done—thereby getting Benedict’s man even further away from Rome. Based as it is in Vilnius, the nunciature to the Baltics may appear peripheral. It would be, if it weren’t for the fact that the Baltic countries now find themselves on the border with Russia and in close contact with the conflict in Ukraine. That probably has little to do with why Pope Francis sent Archbishop Gänswein there to be his ambassador. The first rumors about Gänswein’s appointment spoke of an act of mercy by Pope Francis. Francis, after having suffered Archbishop Gänswein’s accusations in a book published just after the death of Pope Emeritus and after having dismissed the archbishop, leaving him without office, would have decided to give him a new assignment and forgive him for his mistakes. But can Pope Francis’ decision be defined as an act of mercy, or was it instead an act of opportunity?

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Pope Francis, another key to understanding

Posted on June 18, 2024June 18, 2024by Catholic Radar Al

(Andrea Gagliarducci. Monday Vatican).

The presentation of the document “The Bishop of Rome” on June 13 was occasion for a a rare exercise in parrhesia (candor) when Cardinal Kurt Koch responded to a question about the ecumenical impact of Fiducia Supplicans. It was a reasonable question, since the Coptic Orthodox Church decided to suspend theological dialogue over the document.

That fact alone was potentially very telling, since dialogue between the Coptic Orthodox and the Catholic Church was going very well until it wasn’t. The leader of the Copts, Pope Tawadros of Alexandria, had even appeared alongside Pope Francis at a general audience while visiting – among other things – for the historic recording of the Coptic martyrs of Libya in the Roman martyrology.

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- Specialists Press

Pope Francis, what has changed?

Posted on June 10, 2024June 10, 2024by Catholic Radar Is

( Monday Vatican. ANDREA GAGLIARDUCCI ).

Between the end of this month and the beginning of August, there will be at least three financial documents from the Holy See:

• The annual report of the Financial Information and Supervision Authority
• The annual report of the Institute for Works of Religion
• The annual budget of the Administration of the Heritage of the Apostolic See

The three documents would not be news in themselves if they did not represent, in their form in recent years, what the pontificate of Pope Francis has been: a great rush to establish a “difference” – a change of direction, a novelty, and a break with the past – even in situations where the past was not as dark as we tend to think or want to make people think. After all, Pope Francis has recognized several times that Benedict XVI started the fight against abuse in the Church and has praised his commitment. However, when it comes to financial issues, the work of Benedict XVI and that of John Paul II before him takes a back seat. The Pope becomes only an accessory, while the narrative is divided between the corrupt and incompetent bad guys of the previous management and the good ones of the new management. It happens, for example, when the president of the IOR, Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, in a meeting of the OMNES forum, underlines that in the past, there was no connivance of the Church with various criminals but rather incompetent people who made the Church lose money. We know what de Franssu said because this was reported in an article in the same Spanish magazine. The meeting was under Chatham House Rules, meaning that, at most, you could mention some topics but not attribute them to a source – which, in meetings with only one speaker, is equivalent to not mentioning anything at all to avoid breaking confidentiality.

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Pope Francis and the question of seminaries

Posted on June 3, 2024June 3, 2024by Catholic Radar Is

(Monday Vatican. ANDREA GAGLIARDUCCI ).

There is no need to cry conspiracy, blame anti-Francis lobbies, or claim there’s work afoot to push for a conclave. The fact is, no one should be surprised that the Pope’s vulgar descriptor for the gay environment often found in Italian seminaries leaked from the new synod hall and made it before the broad public.

It happens when one speaks to more than a hundred people, even if it is behind closed doors. Especially when it is behind closed doors. The incident must make us reflect on an even more important question: what Pope Francis really thinks and how he manages to maintain coherence between thoughts and actions. First of all, a little background. The Pope’s words occurred in a closed-door meeting with the bishops of the Italian Episcopal Conference. These are sometimes tense moments in which Pope Francis lets himself go verbally. The Pope was responding to a question on the criteria for admission to seminaries. Now, the Ratio fundamentalis for admission to seminaries, updated in 2016, already said no to aspiring priests who were homosexual or, above all, who openly supported gay culture. That Ratio must now be implemented by the Italian bishops, who have been discussing national rules for admission to seminaries for some time. The text approved in the general assembly of November 2023 is still awaiting approval by the Congregation for the Clergy. It seems the CEI text includes the possibility of access to sacred orders for people with “non-rooted” homosexual tendencies.

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Pope Francis and the swinging pendulum of history

Posted on May 28, 2024May 28, 2024by Catholic Radar Is

(MondayVatican. ANDREA GAGLIARDUCCI).

Two events last week were particularly significant. One was the international conference on the hundredth anniversary of the Chinese Council, with the presence of the bishop of Shanghai, Shen Bin, unilaterally appointed by the Chinese government and only later recognized by Pope Francis. The other was Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez’s trip to Cairo, Egypt, to speak with Pope Tawadros II, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

How are these two events related?

Both, in their way, represent one of the facets of Pope Francis’ pontificate. In both cases, there is the impression that a sort of Catholic “cancel culture” is underway. That is, there is a need to reconstruct history to overcome the abuses—real or supposed—of the past and, at the same time, look to the future by pretending that everyone is okay with losing ties with the past. Bishop Shen Bin’s presence at the international conference organized by the Dicastery for Evangelization was notable precisely because the bishop was arriving in Rome at the Vatican for the first time since Pope Francis remedied his unilateral appointment by the Chinese government. Shen Bin is not just a bishop ordained in 2010, with double recognition from Rome and the Vatican. He is a bishop who is nevertheless organic to the Chinese Communist Party, presides over the Council of Chinese Catholics Bishops, a state body – and carries forward the vision of sinicization promoted by the Chinese Communist Party.

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Pope Francis and the swinging pendulum of history

Posted on May 28, 2024June 3, 2024by Catholic Radar Is

(Monday Vatican. ANDREA GAGLIARDUCCI ).

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Pope Francis, a two-speed diplomacy

Posted on May 22, 2024May 22, 2024by Catholic Radar Is

(Monday Vatican. ANDREA GAGLIARDUCCI).

That papal diplomacy under Pope Francis has two speeds became evident once more when news broke of the arrival of the bishop of Shanghai, Joseph Shen Bin, in Rome. The bishop is in town to participate in an event to mark the hundredth anniversary of the Plenary Council of Chinese Catholics in Shanghai in 1924. However, Shen Bin is not just any bishop. His effectively unilateral appointment to Shanghai by the Chinese government was a symbolic slap in the face for the Holy See, and an eloquent expression of Beijing’s take on the controversial Sino-Vatican agreement that is supposed to create a power-sharing framework for the appointment of bishops. At the height of a series of tensions, also because Pope Francis had given a wide opening of credit to the Mongolian Buddhists linked to the Dalai Lama and Tibet, the Chinese authorities decided they could make a move: Appoint a bishop already ordained with the double approval of Rome and Beijing, to a high-profile diocese like Shanghai, where one bishop – Thaddeus Ma Daqin, had already been appointed. Ma Daquin, however, had remained under house arrest from that moment, punished by the authorities Chinese for leaving the ranks of the Patriotic Association. After a few months of reflection, Pope Francis decided to “remedy” the nomination of Shen Bin as bishop of Shanghai and proceeded with the nomination. There is no news on a change of assignment for Ma Daqin, who remains under house arrest. Practically, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, had wanted to explain the Pope’s choice with an interview, highlighting how the Beijing government had gone beyond the spirit of the agreement.

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Pope Francis, a pontificate that (also) looks backward

Posted on April 16, 2024April 15, 2024by Catholic Radar JM

(ANDREA GAGLIARDUCCI.Mondady Vatican),-

Pope Francis has often warned against ”indietrism” in this last period of his pontificate. It is an unwieldy term in English, but there’s nothing arcane about it. The word comes from the Italian, indietro – “backward” – and could be rendered “backwardism” without too much trouble.

He has repeatedly warned that attending to the history of the Church does not mean looking backward; that tradition is not the preservation of ashes. He’s not wrong about any of that, but he has used the rhetorical trope – an effective homiletic – to justify some acts of his Church governance.