Inside the Vatican magazine July-August 2024

Photo Grzegorz Galazka

JULY-AUGUST 2024 $10 / EUR 10 / £6.60

30 YEARS

Welcome to the Parish of the Vatican FRA AGNELLO STOIA, PARISH PRIEST OF ST PETER’S, IS PREPARING TO GREET MILLIONS IN ROME FOR THE JUBILEE OF THE YEAR 2025

HOW THE GOSPEL EVANGELIZED THE WORLD

◆ WHAT DO YOU SEEK? Encountering the Heart of the Gospel

◆ EXPLORING THE

◆ RABBLES, RIOTS,

WORLD’S FOUNDATION IN CHRIST

The Good News of Jesus Christ is known as the kerygma, meaning “to proclaim”.

It is the core message of Christ that the Apostles proclaimed to the world.

The Catholic Church emphasizes the importance of that “First Proclamation”: the core Gospel of God’s love and the person of Jesus Christ, which we surrender ourselves to so that a more in-depth presentation of the Faith can take deeper root in our soul. Scripture scholar Edward Sri helps us enter more deeply into the Gospel to ponder the mysteries of God’s love and his work of salvation.

The first of its kind, this book provides an introduction to the writings and thought of Donald Keefe, S.J., a theologian who many consider to be one of the finest of his generation, with a compendium of selections from his prolific works that touch upon every aspect of Catholic thought.

Edited by Kevin McMahon, this book shows how Keefe used a method that is deeply rooted in the prayer life and Sacred Scripture of the Church, and pursued a decades-long reflection on the significance of the central assertion of faith: that Jesus Christ is Lord, the author of a world that is centered on personal, hence free, life. Union with Christ, then, is the destiny of the world, and how the world is transformed through his own life that is both human and divine.

AND RUINS 12 Ancient Cities and How They Were Evangelized

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“There is no better guidebook to keep us focused on what’s central to the Gospel— the kerygma. Especially useful when dealing with non-Christian friends and family members.”

—Scott Hahn, Author, Rome Sweet Home “Thanks to Ed Sri’s experience, we finally have a guide for those seeking to go deeper into the Christian message. It’s my new go-to book to give others on the good news of Jesus Christ!” —Dr. Tim Gray, President, Augustine Institute “Dr. Sri is one of the very best at using his expert knowledge of the Scriptures to articulate it in a way that is accessible and inspiring to a broad range of readers.”

—Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, C.F.R., Author, Habits for Holiness

Jerusalem, Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus, Carthage, Edessa . . . These were ancient cities that once raged against the Gospel and persecuted the Church, but later came to admirable faith. Each city had its own unique commerce, culture, and institutions — and each became more perfectly itself through the influence of Jesus Christ.

Mike Aquilina, acclaimed church historian, shows how those unique aspects of each ancient city shaped the practice of the Christianity we know today. This is your insightful entry into the world of the Church Fathers, the saints and sages who converted the world to Christ, and taught the modern Church about evangelization.

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"Donald Keefe, S.J., was a soldier, a lawyer, a priest, and a theologian. His writings are treasures. Kudos to Kevin McMahon for providing us with a valuable introduction to Keefe's work."

—Robert P. George, Philosophy Professor, Princeton University

“An inspiring panoramic survey of the evangelization of 12 great cities that shows how this laid the foundations for the building of the Faith and subsequent spread of Christian civilization.”

— Joseph Pearce, Author, The Good, The Bad &The Beautiful: History in Three Dimensions

“An introduction to the work of a man whose passionate love of Christ and the Eucharist is reflected in an immensely creative synthesis. Keefe influenced many of today’s most important American theologians. A lion of the Faith!”

— Matthew Levering, Chair of Theology, Mundelein Seminary

“A richly-hued mosaic of sinners and saints, sages and heretics that tells much about the Faith as it was then, is now, and will remain.”

— Russell Shaw, Author, Eight Popes and the Crisis of Modernity

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EDITORIAL by Robert Moynihan

From Bocelli to Fr. Seraphim Rose...

The Church continues her journey in time, as the work of the Holy Spirit continues in our once fallen, now redeemed world, a work which will end with the triumph of the Immaculate Hearts of Mary and Jesus...

We are in the warmest months of summer now — July and August — and perhaps it is the “summer of our discontent,” as conflicts that have been simmering for some time now rise to a boil and bubble over into actual crises.

In this issue, we deal with heartwarming stories, like the brilliant talent of Italian singer Andrea Bocelli, who was born with a birth defect, and became fully blind at the age of 12, but went on to become one of the best-loved singers in the world.

And we deal with stories that cause us deep concern, like the Vatican’s decision to place Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on trial for the alleged crime of Schism — for breaking communion with Pope Francis and rejecting the Second Vatican Council. If convicted, Viganò would be excommunicated and possibly laicized. We publish the full June 20 Statement of Archbishop Viganò on this matter, and pray that some good may yet come as this multi-year conflict between the archbishop and the Pope continues to trouble many souls in our Church.

We also deal with the story of a jolly Franciscan friar from southern Italy, Fra Agnello, who, like Padre Pio, also from southern Italy, radiates a profound Christian piety, exudes a warm, welcoming spirit of Christian charity, exemplifies the simple, humble goodness which characterizes so many of the Franciscan friars in our Church. Fra Agnello is the parish priest of the Vatican, and his story is our Cover Story for this issue.

Let us reflect further on the case of Andrea Bocelli.

Sixty-five years ago, when she was pregnant with Andrea, Bocelli’s mother, Edi Bocelli, chose not to follow the advice of doctors, who told her she would be wise, even merciful, to abort the child because he would, they told her, suffer from a physical defect. Bocelli himself has told the story of a young pregnant woman hospitalized due to appendicitis.

“The doctors had to apply some ice on her stomach and when the treatments ended the doctors suggested that she abort the child,” Bocelli said. “They told her it was the best solution because the baby would be born with some disability. But the young, brave wife decided not to abort, and the child was born.

That woman was my mother, and I was the child. Maybe I’m partisan, but I can say that it was the right choice.”

Bocelli was born with congenital glaucoma and became completely blind at age 12 from a brain hemorrhage resulting from a football accident. Yet he has recorded 15 solo studio albums, three greatest hits albums, nine complete operas, and sold more than 75 million records worldwide.

Anyone who has listened to and been blessed by Bocelli’s resonant voice can be thankful for his mother’s courageous decision not to abort her son. As Christians, we know no person’s worth is derived from what they’re able to bring to the world or accomplish in this life. Every person has infinite worth because they are created in the very image of God — the imago dei. Yet it is true that Andrea Bocelli’s rich singing voice is a gift from God. So is his life. So is every human life.

And perhaps this is the important point to make here. That our society is truly “sick unto death” because it has embraced a

vision of life that is... anti-life; a vision which thinks that eliminating people, from pre-born babies to handicapped people to elderly people, is reasonable, acceptable, even “good.”

This is, in a very real sense, the “abomination of desolation” — the arrival at the center of our society of a utilitarian pragmatism which abuses and kills what is most sacred, human life.

If Jesus were here today, he surely would denounce this cruel degeneration. of the moral life of our society, from which spread out so many other ills, oppressions and wars...

Bocelli tells us this about his own faith journey: “As a kid, I went through a difficult time... I realized that there can’t be a clock without a clockmaker. If someone told us that a well-constructed pendulum clock appeared out of nowhere all of a sudden, we’d all laugh, only gullible people would believe it.

Nobody knows who made the clocks in 1800 and so on, but we know for sure that someone must have made them. So how can we not believe that someone created us and life on earth, which is something way more complex than a well-made pendulum clock? And this convinced me right away that between the idea of God and fate, I was going towards the first one, and from that moment everything I had done so far — going to the mass, all these things — wasn’t something abstract anymore, instead, it was extremely serious, tangible, and important.”

But what does it really mean to “say ‘yes’ to all that is good?”

It’s tempting to think that the good things we wish for are the good things of this world — not just material things, of course, but things like peace, contentment, health, security.

However, let us not wish only for these things; let us resist the siren song telling us the Christian faith is just a means to such an end.

Fr. Seraphim Rose (1934-1982), born in San Diego, California, converted from his early Protestant faith to Russian Orthodoxy after much seeking, leaving aside the sins of his early life, and became a monk.

Rose critiques modern Christianity and its attitude that the coming of the Kingdom will happen on earth.

“Modern man lives on the dregs of Christianity, on Christian experience digested and turned into ‘ideas’ for mass consumption,” Rose said. “Hence the parody of Christianity is to be seen in modern ideas like ‘equality,’ ‘brotherhood,’ ‘charity’... And Christian messianism — the coming kingdom which is not of this world (John 18:36) – has been perverted into the coming kingdom in this world that practically everyone believes in today… But this world cannot hold the Truth in its fullness any more than it could tolerate the presence of it in the God-man; for man is called upon to be more than man, he is called to deification, and this can only happen fully in the ‘other world’...

“Everything in this life passes away — only God remains, only He is worth struggling towards.

“We have a choice: to follow the way of this world, of the society that surrounds us, and thereby find ourselves outside of God; or to choose the way of life, to choose God Who calls us and for Whom our heart is searching.”m JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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CONTENTS JULY-AUGUST 2024

Year 32, #4

LEAD STORY Vatican issues new rules for judging apparitions

by Robert Moynihan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

JULY-AUGUST 2024 Year 32, #4

v EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Robert Moynihan ASSOCIATE EDITOR: George “Pat” Morse (+ 2013) ASSISTANT EDITOR: Christina Deardurff CULTURE EDITOR: Lucy Gordan CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: William D. Doino, Jr. WRITERS: Anna Artymiak, Alberto Carosa, Giuseppe Rusconi, David Quinn, Andrew Rabel, Vladimiro Redzioch, Serena Sartini PHOTOS: Grzegorz Galazka LAYOUT: Giuseppe Sabatelli ILLUSTRATIONS: Stefano Navarrini CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: Deborah B. Tomlinson ADVERTISING: Katie Carr Tel. +1.202.864.4263 kcarr@insidethevatican.com

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v INSIDE THE VATICAN (ISSN 1068-8579, 1 yr subscription: $ 49.95; 2 yrs, $94.95; 3 yrs, $129.95), provides a comprehensive, independent report on Vatican affairs published bimonthly (6 times per year) with occasional special supplements.

Inside the Vatican is published by Urbi et Orbi Communications, PO Box 1320, Front Royal, VA 22630, USA, pursuant to a License Agreement with Robert Moynihan, the owner of the Copyright. Inside the Vatican, Inc., maintains editorial offices in Rome, Italy.

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Copyright 2024 Robert Moynihan

4 INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

NEWS ITALY/Pope to G7: “Keep the AI revolution human”

by Joseph Tulloch (Vatican News) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 VATICAN/AI expert Fr. Philip Larrey: “Its goodness or evil depends on us”

by ITV staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 VATICAN/Accused of Schism: Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò

by ITV staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 VATICAN/Historic First: Chinese bishop addresses Vatican conference

by ITV staff/Vatican News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 COMMENTARY/How the Francis pontificate will determine the next Pope

by Damian Thompson/unherd.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 VATICAN/ Francis surprises: How “progressive” is he really?

by ITV staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 COMMENTARY/What do we do with Rupnik’s art?

by Christina Deardurff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32 VATICAN/ Vatican releases new “study document” on papal primacy

by Zenit/ITV staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 CULTURE Profile/Fra Agnello Stoia, the Joyful “Parish Priest” of St. Peter’s Basilica

by Christina Deardurff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36 Interview/Bioethicist Fr. Ralph Weimann: “We are in a disastrous situation”

by ITV staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 Scripture/The Goodness of Hierarchy

by Anthony Esolen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42 Spirituality Behind Bars/The Heart Check

by Marcellus Roberts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 URBI ET ORBI: CATHOLICISM AND ORTHODOXY Icon/The Creed: The Holy Spirit

by Robert Wiesner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46 East-West Watch/The “Ancient Patriarchates”

by Peter Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47 News from the East/Pope reinstates title “Patriarch of the West”; Russian Orthodox:Fiducia makes dialog difficult; Indian Church faces split; Ukraine Parliament to outlaw Ukrainian Orthodox Church

by Matthew Trojacek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48 FEATURES Tradition and Beauty/ Jubilee for Catholic Artists: Time to reclaim the call to beauty?

by Aurelio Porfiri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 Art/A Blind Singer’s Shining Soul: The Philanthropy of Andrea Bocelli

by Lucy Gordan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 Lord of the World/“Faith in Man was the very essence of religion”

by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56 Vatican Watch/A day-by-day chronicle of Vatican events: April-June, 2024

by Matthew Trojacek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 People/ Murdered S. African priest; US ambassador steps down; first speech-impaired priest; Pontifical Academy “betraying its founder”; Gaza Catholics’ “steadfast faith”; Vatican sting

by Matthew Trojacek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60 Food for Thought/ When in Rome, eat like a Roman

by ITV staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62

PROFOUND INSIGHTS ON THE MYSTERIES OF SUFFERING & DEATH ◆ NOW AND

◆ SUFFERING

AT THE HOUR

What Every Catholic Should Know

OF OUR DEATH

This unique book addresses important common issues and moral questions people face when they or loved ones experience serious or end-stage illnesses. These questions often arise due to advances in medical technology: "What medical procedures are morally required, and what procedures are optional"? "Is providing food and water to a patient an optional medical treatment, or is it basic care necessary for all human beings”?

"What roles do issues like 'conscience,' 'quality of life,' 'pain,' or 'financial burden' to a patient or his family play in end-oflife decision making"?

In this thorough work, Pro-life attorneys Nik Nikas and Bruce Green respond to these and many more common questions, guiding you to reach solid moral answers in a clear, concise question-and-answer format in light of the Catholic Church's teaching from Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

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“Sooner or later every family will need this book. End of life questions are gut-wrenching. This book provides convenient access to the collected wisdom of history’s deepest thinkers on these topics.”

—Ronald Rychlak, Professor of Law, University of Mississippi “A practical, compassionate primer to help readers make informed, moral decisions at one of the most difficult times faced by families or caregivers.” —Wesley J. Smith, Author, Culture of Death “A well-organized, practical resource, and a clear and concise summary of the Church’s moral tradition surrounding end-of-life decision-making.”

— Stephen Doran, MD, Neurosurgeon, author, and bioethicist

◆ LIFE-GIVING WOUNDS

Daniel and Bethany Meola provide a compassionate, spiritually rich, and psychologically sound guidebook for healing for adult children of divorce or separation, following the footsteps of the only true healer: Jesus Christ.

Just as Job was tried, all of us are tested by suffering. It comes to us in many different forms: grief about the past, pain in the present, and sadness about what might have been.

The personal dimension of suffering means that it marks our experience and, in some ways, makes us who we are.

Mark Giszack shows how coping with suffering as Christians includes certain spiritual practices that lead us to surrender our lives more fully to the Lord. By offering our suffering as a spiritual sacrifice, joined intentionally to the suffering of Christ through prayer, we engage with the most profound Christian teaching about suffering: that it is redemptive. Suffering can transform us to be like God. SFWCKP . . . Sewn Softcover, $16.95 “A very helpful companion as we struggle to understand the mystery of suffering. It will help you live a more joyful and fruitful life."

— Charles Chaput, O.F.M., Cap., Archbishop Emeritus, Philadelphia "A perfect book for those wrestling with the problem of why God allows good people to suffer. Giszczak tackles the tough questions with compassion, clarity, wit, and deep Catholic faith."

—Mary Healy, Author, Healing: Bringing God’s Mercy to the World “A richly rewarding book that combines humble, straightforward honesty with a transformative practical vision!”

—Matthew Levering, Chair of Theology, Mundelein Seminary

◆ TO DIE WELL Dr. Stephen Doran draws from his vast experience as a neurosurgeon, bioethicist, and permanent deacon to present the Catholic perspective on the art of dying well, focusing on the moral and spiritual issues surrounding death.

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LGWP . . . Sewn Softcover, $18.95

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Signature Pilgrimage to Guadalupe September 20 - 27, 2024 Join us in Mexico for Our Lady of Guadalupe & the Flower World Prophecy 2024 pilgrimage. Our pilgrimage begins with a sweeping reach back in time to 500 years ago — to the early 1500s — when the Spanish conquistadors first encountered the powerful Aztec empire. Two scholars who have spent years researching the pre-christian Aztec culture will travel with us on our pilgrimage and will shed an entirely new light on why the Aztec people were so receptive to the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the tilma that carried the flowers from the hilltop of Tepeyac. Visit us online to learn more!

∞

I N S I D E T H E VAT I CA N PI LG R I M AG E S .C O M

2024 and 2025 Pilgrimages!

Classic SPAIN AND FRANCE: With Mary from

Classic SPAIN: Pilgrimage and Retreat

Garabandal to Lourdes - August 22 - 29, 2024

with Fr. Murr - October 24 - 31, 2024

Classic ITALY: Christmas in Italy and the Opening

Classic SPAIN: Pilgrimage and Lenten Retreat

of the Jubilee Year - December 21 - 28, 2024

with Fr. Murr - March 30 - April 6, 2025

Signature ITALY: Easter in Italy -

Classic IRELAND: Saints and Scholars -

April 14 - 24, 2025

July 19 - 30, 2025

Signature LEBANON: Ancient Monasteries and Modern Saints - September 13 - 22, 2025

Our Signature Pilgrimages (intimate, limited to 15 pilgrims) are impossible to mass-produce. Like the products of an artisan, they are works of painstaking preparation that reflect our unswerving commitment to create something of great and unique beauty.

Our Classic Pilgrimages (small by industry standards, limited to 35 pilgrims) are carefully budgeted so you can visit beautiful and sacred destinations while experiencing the quality, style and integrity of Inside the Vatican pilgrimages at an affordable price.

More pilgrimages coming for 2025! Watch InsideTheVaticanPilgrimages.com. Our pilgrimages fill up fast.

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR INSIDE THE VATICAN wants to hear from you! Email us at editor@insidethevatican.com or write to us at 14 W. Main St., Front Royal, VA 22630. Letters are edited for clarity and used as space permits.

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INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

Having gone for years to the London Oratory and experiencing the richness of the Old Mass, I am hugely grateful to Matt Gaspers and Dr. Moynihan for giving us such a remarkable, deep discussion on such a pivotal matter as the Mass and Eucharist, which, for us Catholics, is our eternal treasure on earth.

God Bless! (Referring to a YouTube podcast on our Urbi et Orbi Communications channel, where you may view dozens of our podcasts.)

Ingrid Lydon (via Locals platform) London, England The oldest surviving description of the celebration of the Eucharist at Rome, in the First Apology of St. Justin Martyr, describes the leader of the Eucharist as the “president,” not the “priest.” The Eucharist — a term used by St. Justin to refer to both the liturgy and the sacred objects — would not be called the “Mass” until the Middle Ages. The sacred character of the Eucharist, however, was as clear for St. Justin as it is now obscure in too much sloppy practice.

Edward P. Pepka eppepi@msn.com

PRISONER FUND ITV is a beacon of light in a world with so much darkness. Gladly given is a contribution to your prisoner subscription fund.

Judy Koslowski Salem, Massachusetts, USA

How can we take this Synod seriously?

Cecilia von Dehn Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

AGAGIANIAN Thank you for sharing this story in your Moynihan Letter #8: Agagianian (May 7, 2024). Too bad that Agagianian was not elected Pope back in 1958, rather than John XXIII. As you said, that would have gone a long way in reuniting us with the Eastern Church. That is a perfect example of how the old boys' club works at the Vatican…just like the C.I.A. and definitely not by the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Lawrence Welch lawrencewelch2003@yahoo.com

POPE VS. CONSERVATIVES I am a fallen-away conservative Catholic who attended a Catholic grade school, a Jesuit high school and a Jesuit college back in the 50s and 60s. I was an altar boy and regular Mass-goer. The reason I left the Church was that the Latin Mass was thrown out, loud obnoxious music replaced the traditional organ music, and Catholic priests have been outspoken on their liberal political positions. Now I see Pope Francis has stated “Conservatives Have Suicidal Attitude.” I, along with many other Catholics, need to hear an apology from him.

James Callahan tcallahanpl@gmail.com

APPARITIONS SYNOD Hopefully one is grounded in the Faith to survive the direction predicted for the Synod on Synodality!

Can we take Dominican Timothy Radcliffe, pre-Synod retreat master, seriously following his long-time LGBT advocacy?

Or Bishop Overbeck who denies Apostolic Tradition as essential? Or the formidable Cardinal Fernandez, “facebooking” away sin? Or Rev. James Martin pushing same-sex blessings?

It all comes down to this paragraph in your Moynihan Letter #13, May 17: Apparitions: “‘Just as Quesnel needed to be corrected, so bishops must be vigilant to correct the alleged messages received in apparitions and visions,’ Fernandez said.”

Interesting move by Rome. No mention of synodality here. The gall to think that Rome even could correct Our Lady or her messages — the hubris. Please note: many apparitions have already issued from Heaven by Our Lady. They’re gen-

erally not best summed up as, “You’re all doing fine, keep it up!”

Ed Casey eddiecasey@gmail.com This new directive regarding private revelations is no doubt of great interest to ITV readers, especially given your upcoming pilgrimage to Garabandal.

In a nutshell, it appears to me that the former norms had 3 possibilities (worthy of belief, not of supernatural origin, not worthy of belief). While Fernandez suggests the new norms are expanding to 6 possibilities, it actually boils down to 2.

Either the alleged apparition is not of supernatural origin OR it can receive the Nihil Obstat, meaning there is nothing which contradicts the faith. But by no means would it be “approved.”

I’m still reading through the document but I don't see the 6 possibilities suggested by Fernandez. As with other things during this pontificate, there is a need for greater clarity. Perhaps that will come, and then again, perhaps not.

On another note: I’m impressed by two of your colleagues who do an excellent job of ‘encapsulating’ difficult topics in an understandable way: Christopher Moynihan’s piece on the Lebanon Situation and Zachary Naccash’s piece on a common Easter between Catholics and the Orthodox (both in May-June 2024 issue) come to mind as using economy of words in expressing complex issues.

Jim Bertrand besaints2@gmail.com I realize this is controversial, but it happened that our friends at the Mission of Divine Mercy in Texas published on May 17 the 7th Marian message they believe to be of supernatural origin. This message, received on May 13, begins: “I wish to speak to you today — the anniversary of My first Apparition to My little ones at Fatima. Children, do not set My Words aside — not these nor any of the Words I have spoken to you throughout the centuries — Words that have come forth from My Immaculate Heart — from the Heart of your Mother — to help you, to guide you, to correct you, to warn you.” (mdm.faith/2024-0513-reconquest-my-children-silencebefore-god/) Is not this admonition something of

“pre-buttal” to the “curious” message of Tucho & Co. that followed?

Charles D. Wright charlesdwright@gmail.com

FEAR OF AI Anthropology must be our road map to finding dignity in ordinary lives. Hardly anybody anymore realizes that humans possess a Will and Intellect which are not connected to any bodily organ. It is the Hylomorphic theory of Philosophic Anthropology — the Theory of Aristotle and Plato and Thomas Aquinas. It is still true and will save us from the fear of AI, which is physical and not metaphysical.

Tom Greerty tgreerty@aol.com

NO SUCH THING No one is homosexual or lesbian. Every person is created heterosexual. Those who believe that they are or might be homosexual or lesbian are believing the lie of the enemy, the counterfeit to God’s creation of human sexuality. So, why do not Francis and the Bishops declare this truth publicly?

Claudia Person personcm@comcast.net

that it often can. Our canon law states unequivocally that any Catholics who procure abortions are liable to the penalty of excommunication.

Thus any Catholics who use abortifacient birth control methods, such as the intrauterine device and drugs such as The Pill, are in fact liable to this penalty.

It is a terrifying situation, the “violence in the womb” which Mother Teresa said made world peace impossible.

M. Damian Mcleish damian.mcleish@gmail.com

PILGRIMAGE IN AUGUST I’m glad your August pilgrimage to Spain and France will also go to the birthplace of St Ignatius of Loyola. Near St. Louis University, where I did my postgrad studies, the Jesuits have a 100-yearold retreat ministry in St. Louis County at the beautiful The White House Retreat.

Check it out on their website.

Deacon Bill Kieffer deakief00@yahoo.com [Ed. note: Join us on pilgrimage! Go to InsideTheVaticanPilgrimages.com ]

A LETTER TO THE POPE I am a retired South African Catholic lawyer and a Pro-Life activist. I wish to respectfully inform Your Holiness of my grave concern regarding the reticence of the world's Catholic clergy to preach to the faithful about the evil of abortifacient birth control, especially its most popular method, “The Pill.” Several years ago, I sent Your Holiness the booklet “Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?” by American Randy Alcorn, which proves

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JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN

9

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR GREAT PODCASTS I watch as many of your podcasts as I can. I appreciate in particular your consistent efforts to remain constructive in your observations and suggestions.

Bill Gehl billgehl@protonmail.com [Ed. note: Podcasts are on the Urbi et Orbi Communications YouTube channel.]

FATHER MARTIN Thank you Robert — I think that the Pope may be trying to “bring Fr. Martin back to the fold” as it were, but... I do hope that you suffer no adverse consequences.

In these days of crazy gender teaching, even in Catholic schools, the erroneous ideas of a Fr. Martin must surely be confronted. Ideas have consequences, but the pen can be “mightier than the sword”!

Diane Taylor diane@taylors.nz

“SHUT UP”?

The editor of Crisis magazine has told Archbishop Viganò to “shut up” about his allegation that a former novice of Pope Francis told him that Francis abused him while still a bishop.

Who is the editor of a half-baked religious magazine to be giving orders to a high prelate of the Catholic Church?

His attempt to silence Viganò is an attempt to cover crime.

David Martin jmj4today@att.net

RUSSIA’S ROLE The subject of unity between Orthodox and Catholics, between Andrew and Peter, has been on my mind recently as I have become somewhat familiar with the writing of Vladimir Soloviev. Would you consider conducting an interview, perhaps even a series, on his ideas?

It seems now that he was, in a sense, the forerunner of Our Lady at Fatima. He asserted in his monumental book Russia and the Universal Church that his nation and people would be a monumental curse or a monumental blessing to the world.

Andrew Rolwes aerolwes@gmail.com Agree with you on the evilness of war with Russia. The US is fighting to impose sodomy and abortion on demand along 10

INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

with stealing resources.

Mrs. Leeta von Bülow leetavb@gmail.com

THE WOLVES LOSE That wonderful pastoral council in 1962-65 that ushered in the “new springtime” was actually the wrecking ball used on the Church by the new world order, and the “brotherhood of man.”

The coup de grâce was the wonderful innovation of the “Cranmer table” (instead of the traditional altar) which set in motion the auto-demolition of the Church, as Pope Paul VI later remarked.

But in the end, the wolves lose. Always have, always will. Viva Cristo Rey! James Wilhelm Post Falls, Idaho, USA

“YOU ARE IN MY PRAYERS” Praise be Jesus Christ, now and forever! I am a 28-year-old who is a loyal son of Holy Mother Church with great humility. I have been watching your videos on YouTube for the past 6 months.

Your discussions and stories have given me consolation and joy to reinvigorate my faith and to strengthen the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.

Keep up the great work that you are doing to not only defend the Faith but to also help others grow in love for God and his Church and for the salvation of souls.

Please be assured that I will keep you and Fr. Murr in my prayers as well as everyone else there, from the pellegrinos (pilgrims) to the Urbi et Orbi staff and Inside the Vatican magazine staff. I humbly asked to keep me also in your prayers as I am awaiting to receive my application status on June 28 for entering the Discalced Carmelites. May God Bless you!

Mr. Marvin Recepcion marvinrecepcion@gmail.com

GARABANDAL Thank you for the podcast episodes on Garabandal with Michael Hottinger. My mother attended a talk by Maria Saraco back in the 1960s at our parish. I have been a friend of Maria’s since the early days of my priesthood, 32 years ago today. My parents and I went on pilgrimage to Garabandal with Maria in 2000. I’m so excited to see it coming to

the fore again.

Fr. Jay Finelli Tiverton, Rhode Island, USA

THE BISHOP OF ROME Not sure how the new document on papal primacy can work.

Many, if not most, other Christian communities accept women priests, women bishops, homosexuality, divorce, etc., etc., and do not have a doctrine on the real Presence. How can Peter preside over these communions in any form? And the Orthodox rightly reject Fiducia Supplicans. And then there’s the really political divisions in Eastern Europe between Orthodox and Catholics.

Can faithful Christianity unite under the Pope with heretics and apostates? NO! Jack Carter USA

THE END OF THE TLM Mr. Kennedy Hall is, I believe, not correct about the difference between what Vatican II called for and the actual missal of St. Paul VI, the Novus Ordo; there are real distinctions to which Mr. Hall does not do justice. While the Mass has had unjust things done to it and there are things which the Council did not clearly prohibit, it was a valid exercise of the ordinary magisterium.

Not everything in the ordinary magisterium is de fide, nor irreversible or uncorrectable, but it must be heard with a reverent submission of mind and heart.

This is now a problem for many.

John B. John.AB1531@proton.me

PREHISTORIC NONSENSE Would you stop fomenting fear and distress ?

You seem to think you have a right to promulgate a lot of prehistoric nonsense.

Do you want to wind the clock back to before 1869 and Vatican 1?

If so, just go, and let Pope Francis and the Holy Spirit get on with setting the Church up to deal with the loss of faith in western society.

No wonder our good priests are so worried about the future, with dinosaurs like you roaming around.

Can’t you see what has caused the flight from the Church: the emphasis on control and submission in every aspect

instead of promoting Our Lord’s values.

Get out of your ivory tower, visit the poor and see how real people live.

Sean Creaney seancreaney@gmail.com

THE DON Please ask Father Charles Murr if he is aware of a YouTube channel by the name of “TheDon.” It was created by people he knows from Tepatitlan, Mexico as a tribute to Father by the community. The latest video uploaded is quite interesting if you understand Spanish.

Carlos Flores Tijuana, Mexico I happened to be in contact with Fr Charles Murr recently — I’m now known to him jokingly as “Kiwi John”!

Having congratulated Don Carlo on his writing (I am currently reading his The Godmother, and what a good read it is too!) and his podcasting, I’m thinking how good it is that we (the “ordinary” Catholic audience, for want of a better descriptive!) have such podcasts available at our fingertips to fortify us in these very fraught and uncertain times — both within and outside the Church.

It occurred to me I should, nay MUST, thank you too. Especially respecting your edifying series of discussions on Urbi et Orbi Communications YouTube channel.

John Shone Richmond, Nelson, New Zealand

VIGANÒ ACCUSED I do hope you are cautious in these intrigues involving Archbishop Viganò.

This “Announcement” of his is likely his most confrontational commentary yet, although understandably, when one is called into the Holy Office, it does up the ante a bit!

As this situation unfolds, I hope you are exercising a good bit of journalistic caution. The first priority is the Faith, and the Church which puts it into action, but I hope you can say “no bridges were burned during the making of this commentary....”

Rod Allen AileanMor@aol.com I am afraid Viganò’s comments such as these ask to be declared schismatic: “I repudiate the neo-modernist errors

inherent in the Second Vatican Council and in the so-called ‘post-conciliar magisterium,’ in particular in matters of collegiality, ecumenism, religious freedom, the secularity of the State, and the liturgy.”

(This includes, presumably, magisteria of Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict who, to my way of thinking, correctly interpreted the Council.)

Had he said neo-modernist interpretations of Vatican Council II, he would have been safe. One cannot reject a Council and still say one is in full communion with the Church, although he raises some legitimate issues about the current pontificate.

Rich Maggi aquimore@verizon.net No doubt, Archbishop Viganò is the Number One Target of the present corrupt Vatican. He is the essence of the traditional apostolic Roman Catholic Church, the Church they have damaged immensely and continue to try to destroy.

What completely mystifies me is how collectively the priests, bishops, and cardinals have done nothing to prevent what has transpired since Bergoglio became Pope. That lack of character, courage, faith, and resistance by the socalled “shepherds” is astonishing. What kind of men are they ?

Vic Cameron vcamco6645@gmail.com The Pope has been very patient with Archbishop Viganò, hasn’t he? I guess if the Archbishop identifies so much with Lefebvre, he’ll have a home with SSPX going forward. The SSPX probably needs a “Pope” figure, and Viganò can then have the power and status it appears he’s been craving. It’s a win win.

Mike Gutenkauf mikesdak@gmail.com Saw you with Fr. Murr on your podcast. That was exactly how I would have ended it. The final DDF letter to Archbishop Viganò broke the camel’s back, in my language.

Abp. Viganò’s words from day one were that he did not want to meet his Master not having spoken out. We all must thank him for his courage and you and Fr. Murr.

I am sure you will get threats like you have already had. We must march on.

The TLM was and will be in the underground. The FSSP will be next. What Fernandez will try with the SSPX should be interesting.

Keep up the good work!

Louise Helder omiehelder@optonline.net I agree with Viganò mostly but I wish he’d stayed out of politics of Trump and Putin, etc. Unfortunately, he went a little too far, attacking the Pope personally instead of what he’s doing, teaching and not teaching. The Church is already in a schism of sorts.

Our part: pray, talk, write, but primarily be about our Father’s business: proclaiming Jesus Christ as the only Savior; secondarily, proclaiming the Church’s teachings and Sacraments.

My eyes are on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith .

Jack Carter, MD JBCarter7@aol.com I’m staying in the Church for a few reasons: 1.The Eucharist, which I am utterly convinced is the “Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity” of Jesus when consecrated by a traditional priest.

2. I have studied the Eucharistic miracles, the Shroud, Fatima, Lourdes, Guadalupe, and other manifestations that I believe God has made for us hardheaded, stiff-necked people, just as He did when Jesus was on earth.

3. Apostolic Succession is critically important. It’s also vital that our Church return to being the shining example she used to be — in the world but not of it.

Being “of the world” is precisely the problem we MUST solve after this Pope is gone.

4.The Church has had bad popes before and survived. When appointing Peter to run His Church, he said, “… and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Well, the gates of hell are having a fine old time against our Church and our nation, but I remain convinced that Jesus will prevail, not the traitors, as Archbishop Viganò terms them.

Joe Murray Mobile, Alabama, USA JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN

11

LEAD STORY

VatiCan issues new rules For judging apparitions

Cardinal Fernández tightens rome’s Control while hinting that traditional CatholiCs, in their relianCe on “Faith and prayer,” may Fuel distorted attitudes n BY ROBERT MOYnIHAn

”Many times, these events have led to a great richness of spiritual fruits, growth in faith, devotion, fraternity, and service…”

“At the same time, in some events of alleged supernatural origin, there are serious critical issues that are detrimental to the faithful; in these situations, the Church must respond with utmost pastoral solicitude.” — Cardinal Victor Fernández, at the press conference May 17 announcing the release of new Church norms for evaluation of possible supernatural phenomena Above, members of the crowd in Fatima, in Portugal, on October 13, 1917

A

t first there was a heavy rain. Then the rain stopped, the sun appeared, and it seemed to nearly everyone in the crowd to “dance” in the sky for about 15 minutes — a sign of a spiritual power, a celestial “miracle”...

The three shepherd children of Fatima, Jacinta, Lucy and Francisco, said that the Virgin Mary spoke to them in six visions during 1917, while the First World War raged, and Russia was falling to a communist revolution.

The apparitions occurred on May 13, June 13, July 13, August 19 (because the town’s mayor had put them in prison on August 13), September 13 and October 13.

The crowds became larger as the months went by, and 70,000 people were present on October 13, 1917, to see “The Miracle of the Sun.” Jacinta and Francisco died not long after, still young children.

12 INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

Lucy lived until February 13, 2005.

I was permitted in March 2005, by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger after meeting with him in Rome, just before he was elected Pope Benedict XVI, to travel to Coimbra, Portugal, and to visit the cell where Sr. Lucy had lived and died.

I made that trip.

The Mother Superior showed me the bed where Lucy had died a few weeks before.

Outside her cell window were lemon trees in bloom.

I, wishing to see if she had left behind any diaries and writings, was permitted to look in her desk, and to open each drawer.

In one drawer, I found a leather case, which I asked if I might open.

The Mother Superior said yes.

Inside were needles and thread Lucy had used daily to thread the beads of many rosaries…

APPARITIOnS Cardinal Victor Fernández, 62, presented on May 17 a new Vatican document on how apparitions and visions — like the apparitions of La Salette, Fatima and Lourdes — should be studied and evaluated by the Church.

THE FIGHT AGAInST “JAnSEnISM” AS A KEY TO THIS POnTIFICATE

Well, for some time, a number of Catholic observers of this pontificate have said that a key to the pontificate of Pope Francis is to realize that he is persuaded that there is among Our Lady of La Salette was a Marian apparition to two the traditionalist Catholics a children in France in 1846 spirit reminiscent of Jansenism.

A representative article on *** this topic appeared on August Point 1: The essential point 22, 2014, almost 10 years ago of this reformed procedure now, written by Michael Sean seems to be that the Church will Winters of the National Cathno longer publicly affirm that olic Reporter. any phenomenon of this type is Winters was reacting to an of “supernatural” origin. article by Damian Thompson In the past, the Church would of The Spectator in which study a phenomenon and say eiThompson had argued that ther that it was: Francis was ignorant of the sitThe three shepherd children of Fatima, Portugal, at the site — not of supernatural oriuation of the Catholic Church of the 1917 apparitions of the Madonna gin, or in the English-speaking — that it could not be deterworld, blinded by his Latin mined whether or not it was of American experience. supernatural origin, or Thompson had written: — that it was of supernatur“‘The Pope is hungry to al origin, and so, worthy of bespread the Gospel and in lief Latin America he sees that Still, even if the Church being done most effectively by sometimes did judge that there left-wing priests in the slums,’ was something “supernatural” says a Vatican insider. ‘What about an apparition, no such he doesn’t realise is that in phenomenon has ever been proNorth America and other Engposed to the faithful as a point Faithful pray in Lourdes, France, in the grotto where in 1858 lish-speaking countries, it’s of faith they are required to be- Our Lady appeared to Bernadette Soubirous (in the circle) the conservatives who have Point 3, a curious point: In his in- fire in their bellies, who evangelise, lieve. Now, under the new rules, the troduction to the new procedures at often with minimal encouragement highest level of approval that will be granted to any such phenomenon is the May 17 press conference, Cardi- from their bishops.’ And no one is “nihil obstat,” that there is “nothing nal Fernández mentioned, as a nega- likely to explain it to him.” standing in the way,” or “nothing tive example to be avoided, the And Winters responded, bringing impeding” belief in the vision or ap- thought and writing of the French in a reference to Jansenism: “It is parition as an authentic encounter theologian, Pasquier Quesnel surely the case that there is a (1634-1719). with the Heavenly. kind of conservative Catholic Who? Pasquier Quesnel — Point 2: The second point is that in the English-speaking the authority of the Holy See, proce- a brilliant theologian from world with fire in the belly. durally, is strengthened, and the au- more than 300 years ago who But, here is where Thompthority of the local bishop weak- strongly supported the thought of son’s analytical skills fail him. ened. Under the new rules, the Holy Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638), Having identified the Pope’s being a See will have an even tighter control after whom the Jansenist heresy Jesuit as a key to understanding the over approving or disapproving of took its name.What did it mean that man, Thompson fails to see that the popular devotion around claimed Fernandez spoke about Quesnel at Holy Father, above all, is engaged in this press conference? supernatural phenomena. an old struggle for the Society of JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN 13

LEAD STORY Vatican issues new rules for judging apparitions Jesus: He is confronting the Jansenists of our day, the very same conservative Catholics in the English-speaking world whom Thompson thinks have the fire of the Gospel in their bellies. It is not the Gospel, but a hyper-moralistic concern against spiritual contagion that animates the conservatives Thompson champions. And, quite clearly, this is not what animates Pope Francis.”

And the fact that Fernández publicly cited Quesnel, one of Jansen’s strongest colleagues and supporters, as someone who — like certain modern visionaries(!) — “narrowed the Gospel down” (in Fernández’ words) to a rather “rigorist” and “faith and prayer-centered” (as opposed to charitable action-centered) spiritual life, seems to give us a glimpse into the mental world of both Francis and Fernández.

We may imagine Fernández and Francis talking, in a recent conversation in the Vatican, about the possible dangers of seers and visionaries who inspire people to renew an intensive life of prayer, but not so much to work on behalf of the poor, as a recrudescence of... Jansenism.

Hence — one might argue — Fernández’ mention of Quesnel in his press conference is important for understanding these new guidelines.

WHAT DID THE JAnSEnISTS BELIEVE? Cornelius Jansen was a disciple of Jacques Janson, who in turn taught the doctrine of the theologian Michael Baius (Michel de Bay), who had died at Leuven in 1589. According to the latter, the instincts of fallen humanity lead necessarily to evil. An individual can be saved only by the grace of Christ, accorded to a small number of the elect who have been chosen in advance and destined to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Quesnel was a brilliant French priest and spiritual writer from a 14 INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

PAST APPARITIONS AND NEW NORMS WHY WAS AUTHORITY TRANSFERRED FROM LOCAL BISHOP TO VATICAN?

W

hat is particularly new about the Vatican’s recently-issue Instruction On Discernment Of Apparitions & Supernatural Phenomena is that no longer does a bishop have the authority to declare any apparition or miracle in his diocese to be of supernatural origin.

In the introduction to the new instruction, the Prefect of the DDF, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, talks about the problem of local bishops who have approved of an apparition taking place in their diocese, only for the DDF to overturn this judgment.

While it is not mentioned by name, His Eminence refers to the curious case of Our Lady of all Nations, in Amsterdam, who supposedly appeared to Ida Image of Our Lady of Kibeho, Rwanda, by Amber Knorr, on display at Holy Cross College, Notre Peerdeman between 1945 and Dame, Indiana, USA (photo: hcc-nd.edu) 1959. Bishop Hendrik Huibers of that diocese formally condemned the the local bishop, but in 2017 the CDF apparitions, and the cult surrounding overturned this judgment.

Cardinal Fernández noted in the inthem. In 1974, the then-CDF affirmed troduction to the new document, “It his judgment.

This did not, however, stop its cult may happen that the Holy Spirit’s acfrom growing, in particular its promo- tion in a specific situation — which can tion of a fifth Marian dogma. In 2002, be rightly appreciated — might appear Bishop Jozef Punt approved the ap- to be mixed with purely human eleparitions themselves, but left their mes- ments (such as personal desires, sages an open question, despite the memories, and sometimes obsessive thoughts), or with “some error of a natprevious Vatican ruling.

However in 2021, the Vatican’s doc- ural order, not due to bad intentions, trinal office urged that the 1974 judg- but to the subjective perception of the phenomenon” (II, Art. 15, 2°). ment still be implemented.

The apparitions of Kibeho in A similar situation happened in the Philippines, with the apparitions known Rwanda to a group of teenage girls in as Our Lady of Lipa to a Carmelite a Catholic school, were the first ones novice named Teresita Castillo. In recognized in the Holy See for some 1951, in a document signed by six Fil- decades, when the Vatican newspaper ipino bishops, and approved by Pius published the approval of Bishop AuXII, the apparitions were declared not gustin Misago of Gikongoro, in 2001. of supernatural origin. However, in The Blessed Mother supposedly pre2015, Archbishop Ramon Arguelles dicted the terrible carnage and ethnic formally approved the apparitions, as cleansing that took place in the country the site of the events had become such in 1994-95.

But not all of the reported phenoma place of pilgrimage. Regardless, the following year, the Vatican overturned ena were approved. While as many as this judgment, affirming the 1951 state- a dozen alleged visionaries were interviewed by the diocesan commission, ment.

This also happened in Itaparinga, only three girls at the boarding school Brazil, where a teenage boy claimed had their particular experiences apvisions from St. Joseph, and a corre- proved.

— Andrew Rabel sponding devotion was approved by

prominent French noble famiOn September 14, 2014, The four girls of Garabandal (1961-1965) ly.

Joseph Shaw, head of the In 1657, he joined the Latin Mass society in England, French Oratory, a religious soresponded to Winters: “The ciety of secular priests, and Jansenists were an 18th centuwas ordained in 1659. Howry group of Catholics… charever, his Jansenist sympathies acterized by a kind of cryptoled to his banishment from Calvinism… Their biggest efParis in 1681, and three years fect on the Church has been later he was expelled from the their attack on popular devoOratory. tions and the liturgical tradiQuesnel’s essential outlook tion… This called for a radicalmay be summarized in the ly simplified liturgy, said thesis of “the double contrary aloud, in the vernacular. Other THE KISS OF THE VIRGIN love.” Quesnel wrote: “There Jansenists wanted to increase From the September 2, 2023 Moynihan Letter #123: are only two loves, from the amount of dialogue in the “Letter from Garabandal” which all our volitions and all liturgy, getting the people to rearabandal, Spain: In this tiny Spanish village our actions spring: the love of spond ‘Amen’ at the end of not far from the northern coast of Spain in God (charity properly so each prayer of the Canon.” the 1960s, the Virgin Mary is said to have apcalled) which refers everyIn other words, for Shaw, peared on numerous occasions to four Spanish thing to God and which God the Jansenists had nothing in girls: Conchita González, her second cousin Jacrewards; and the love of self common with the modern inta González, and Mari Loli Mazón, all three and of the world, which is evil Catholics who wish to hold fast then 12 years old (in 1961), and Mari Cruz as it does not refer to God to the old Mass and the tradiGonzález, then 11 (Mari Loli is now deceased).

Each time the four girls of Garabandal saw the what should be referred to tion of the Church.

Virgin, and spoke with her, she spoke with them Him” (prop. 44). as a mother speaks to her children.

Quesnel believed that all SUMMInG UP She was familiar, gentle, encouraging, loving. repentance which does not Fernández, at the May 17 And each time she left them, the children said, arise from pure charity was press conference, said that she kissed them, to show her love for them. useless, for “fear restrains Quesnal had distorted the cononly the hands; the heart retent of the Gospel teaching on *** spoke briefly with Jacinta, and with her husmains attached to sin, as long salvation, limiting it to “faith band, Jeffrey, who has my same surname, as it is not led by the love of and prayer,” adding that Jesus Moynihan, and whose father was named, like me, justice” (prop. 61); and “he in the Gospels and Paul in his Dr. Robert Moynihan. who refrains from evil only Epistles taught that Christian She showed me a crucifix that she has kept through fear of punishment faith was characterized, not by for more than 60 years. She told me that the Virhas already sinned in his the “religious” activity of gin had kissed the crucifix when she had held it heart” (prop. 62). “faith and prayer” but by “love up to her.

She held out the crucifix to me, so that I too In other words, there was a of God and of one’s neighbor.” might kiss it. “totalizing” aspect to QuesFernández suggested that In this way, the maternal kiss of the Virgin of nel’s thought which diminmany apparitions and visions Garabandal was shared also with me; in this letished to insignificance the sinseem to lead people to view ter, it is my hope that such a kiss may also be cere but inevitably imperfect their faith as something to shared with each of you. attempts of men and women cling to, in prayer, and to deto move toward holiness, saying essence of Christian life in preserv- emphasize the need to “love one’s that only God’s grace could accom- ing their own moral purity. It is easy neighbor.” plish what our fallenness could not to see how this concern can lead to Just as Quesnel needed to be cora spiritual pride — ‘I thank thee rected, so bishops must be vigilant begin to achieve.

This led in some to a sense of fa- God that I am not like other men’ — to correct the alleged messages retality and despair in the search for and has proven ill-suited to attract- ceived in apparitions and visions, ing converts to the faith. Of course, Fernández said. Exploring the reathe moral perfection of holiness.

In his 2014 article, Winters every Christian should be con- son Fernandez cited Quesnel, disapwrote: “The Jansenists of our day, cerned about their spiritual purity, provingly, offers context to the realike their predecessors, and like the but the essence of the Gospel lies son this reform was made now, at Donatists before them, see the elsewhere.” (Where?) this moment in this pontificate.m

G

I

JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN 15

NEWS

PoPe To G7: KeeP ai’s “coGniTiveindusTrial revoluTion” human The “Techno-human condiTion” — The human inclinaTion To use Tools To mediaTe our environmenT — is naTural, said Francis, buT leaves us vulnerable n BY JOSEPH TULLOCH (VATICAn nEWS)

Pope Francis with some of the world’s most powerful political leaders in Italy on June 14 (VATICAN MEDIA/Ag.Romano Siciliani)

O

n the afternoon of Friday, June 14, Pope Francis addressed the G7 leaders’ summit in Puglia, Italy.

He is the first Pope to ever address the forum, which brings together the leaders of the US, UK, Italy, France, Canada, Germany, and Japan.

AI: DAnGERS AnD PROMISES The Pope dedicated his address to the G7 to the subject of artificial intelligence (AI).

Francis began by saying that the birth of AI represents “a true cognitive-industrial revolution” which will lead to “complex epochal transformations.”

These transformations, the 16 INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

THE POPE FOCUSED HIS ADDRESS TO THE G7 ON THE SUBJECT OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Pope said, have the potential to be both positive — for example, the “democratization of access to knowledge,” the “exponential advancement of scientific research,” and a reduction in “demanding and arduous work” — and negative — for instance, “greater injustice between advanced and developing nations or between dominant and oppressed social classes.”

THE “TECHnO-HUMAn COnDITIOn’ Noting that AI is “above all a tool,” the Pope spoke of what he called the “techno-human condition.”

He explained that he was

referring to the fact that humans’ relationship with the environment has always been mediated by the tools that they have produced.

Some, the Pope said, see this as a weakness, or a deficiency; however, he argued, it is in fact something positive. It stems, he said, from the fact that we are beings “inclined to what lies outside of us,” beings “radically open to the beyond.”

This openness, Pope Francis said, is both the root of our “technohuman condition” and the root of our openness to others and to God, as well as the root of our artistic and intellectual creativity.

DECISIOn-MAKInG: HUMAnS VS. MACHInES The Pope then moved on to the subject of decision-making.

He said that AI is capable of making “algorithmic choices” — that is, “technical” choices “among several possibilities based either on well-defined criteria or on statistical inferences.”

Human beings, however, “not only choose, but in their hearts are capable of deciding.”

This is because, the Pope explained, they are capable of wisdom, of what the Ancient Greeks called phronesis (a type of intelligence concerned with practical action), and of listening to Sacred Scripture.

It is thus very important, the Pope stressed, that important decisions must “always be left to the human person.”

As an example of this principle, the Pope pointed to the development of lethal autonomous weapons — which can take human life with no human input — and said that they must ultimately be banned.

ALGORITHMS ‘nEITHER OBJECTIVE nOR nEUTRAL’

The Pope also stressed that the algorithms used by artificial intelli-

“THE BASIC MECHANISM OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE”: A CONCRETE EXAMPLE An excerpt from Pope Francis’ address to the June 14, 2024 meeting of leaders of the G7 nations

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would like now briefly to address the complexity of artificial intelligence. Essentially, artificial intelligence is a tool designed for problem solving. It works by means of a logical chaining of algebraic operations, carried out on categories of data. These are then compared in order to discover correlations, thereby improving their statistical value. This takes place thanks to a process of self-learning, based on the search for further data and the self-modification of its calculation processes.

Artificial intelligence is designed in this way in order to solve specific problems. Yet, for those who use it, there is often an irresistible temptation to draw general, or even anthropological, deductions from the specific solutions it offers.

An important example of this is the use of programs designed to help judges in deciding whether to grant home-confinement to inmates serving a prison sentence. In this case, artificial intelligence is asked to predict the likelihood of a prisoner committing the same crime(s) again. It does so based on predetermined categories (type of offense, behavior in prison, psychological assessment, and others), thus allowing artificial intelligence to have access to categories of data relating to the prisoner’s private life (ethnic origin, educational attainment, credit rating, and others). The use of such a methodology — which sometimes risks de facto delegating to a machine the last word concerning a person’s future — may implicitly incorporate prejudices inherent in the categories of data used by artificial intelligence.

Being classified as part of a certain ethnic group, or simply having committed a minor offense years earlier (for example, not having paid a parking fine) will actually influence the decision as to whether or not to grant home-confinement. In reality, however, human beings are always developing, and are capable of surprising us by their actions. This is something that a machine cannot take into account.

It should also be noted that the use of applications similar to the one I have just mentioned will be used ever more frequently due to the fact that artificial intelligence programs will be increasingly equipped with the capacity to interact directly (chatbots) with human beings, holding conversations and establishing close relationships with them. These interactions may end up being, more often than not, pleasant and reassuring, since these artificial intelligence programs will be designed to learn to respond, in a personalized way, to the physical and psychological needs of human beings.

It is a frequent and serious mistake to forget that artificial intelligence is not another human being, and that it cannot propose general principles. This error stems either from the profound need of human beings to find a stable form of companionship, or from a subconscious assumption, namely the assumption that observations obtained by means of a calculating mechanism are endowed with the qualities of unquestionable certainty and unquestionable universality.

This assumption, however, is far-fetched, as can be seen by an examination of the inherent limitations of computation itself. Artificial intelligence uses algebraic operations that are carried out in a logical sequence (for example, if the value of X is greater than that of Y, multiply X by Y; otherwise divide X by Y). This method of calculation — the so-called “algorithm” — is neither objective nor neutral. Moreover, since it is based on algebra, it can only examine realities formalized in numerical terms.n JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN 17

NEWS PoPe to G7: KeeP AI’s “coGnItIve-IndustrIAl revolutIon” humAn gence to arrive at choices are “neither objective nor neutral.”

He pointed to the algorithms designed to help judges in deciding whether to grant home-confinement to prison inmates.

These programs, he said, make a choice based on data such as the type of offense, behavior in prison, psychological assessment, and the prisoner’s ethnic origin, educational attainment, and credit rating. However, the Pope stressed, this is reductive: “human beings are always developing, and are capable of surprising us by their actions. This is something that a machine cannot take into account.”

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A further problem, the Pope emphasized, is that algorithms “can only examine realities formalized in numerical terms:”

AI-GEnERATED ESSAYS The Pope then turned to consider the fact that many students are increasingly relying on AI to help them with their studies, and in particular, with writing essays. It is easy to forget, the Pope said, that “strictly

speaking, so-called generative artificial intelligence is not really ‘generative’” — it does not “develop new analyses or concepts” but rather “repeats those that it finds, giving them an appealing form.”

This, the Pope said, risks “undermining the educational process itself.”

Education, he emphasized, should offer the chance for “authentic reflection.”

But instead, it “runs the risk of being reduced to a repetition of notions, which will increasingly be evaluated as unobjectionable, simply because of their constant repetition.”

ev. Philip Larrey, term was coined by John Ph.D., held the Chair McCarthy back in 1956, of Logic and Epistewhen he organized an mology at the Pontifical important conference on Lateran University in the the issue at Dartmouth Vatican for more than 20 University. In the end, years. He now teaches at the they are computer sysLynch School of Education tems which are very adand Human Development vanced, fast and capable at Boston College. He has of dealing with huge published several books on amounts of data. the effects of the new digital The most common apera on society, including plication that we are VATICAN EXPERT IN AI: Futuro ignoto (Unknown familiar with are the Chat “ITS GOODNESS OR EVIL Future) (IF Press) and Conbots, which simulate unDEPENDS ON US” nected World (Penguin). derstanding what we say His new book, Artificial An interview with Fr. Philip Larrey, PhD, on how and write, and respond Humanity, delves into a accordingly. The most imCatholics are grappling with the AI explosion more philosophical discuspressive application to n BY ITV STAFF sion of what AI research date is Open AI’s ChatGmeans for all of humanity.

PT 4o, where the “O” stands for Omni. It’s pretty conHe is also Chairman of the non-profit foundation vincing.

Humanity 2.0, which hosts an annual Forum at the Some predict a future of human emancipation Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He spoke with Inside from toil, conflict, disease, etc., when computers the Vatican on the coming AI explosion and the Pope’s figure out the answers to all of humanity’s probJune remarks at the G7 meeting on the subject. lems. Is this, at root, the driving force behind the ITV: What exactly is “AI” (artificial intellipush for AI? gence) and how is it different from the computer The driving force behind AI is the market motive. programs we already use in everyday life?

AIs will replace many people’s jobs, but not in the Fr. Philip Larrey: AI is a series of algorithms which near future. Elon Musk has said that he is building an use logical calculations to achieve programmable “army” of robots with sophisticated AI in order to help results. It is based on a Turing machine (using “1”s human beings become free from mundane and repetiand “0”s to perform operations), but it goes further in tive chores (as you imply). I am not convinced. I think that it mimics what the human intellect can do. The the main motivation is economic advantages and con18 INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

TOWARDS An “ALGOR-ETHICS” Bringing his speech to a close, the Pope emphasized that AI is always shaped by “the worldview of those who invented and developed it.”

A particular concern in this regard, he said, is that today it is “increasingly difficult to find agreement on the major issues concerning social life” — there is less and less consensus, that is, regarding the philosophy that should be shaping artificial intelligence.

What is necessary, therefore, the Pope said, is the development of an “algor-ethics,” a series of “global and pluralistic” principles which are “capable of finding support

“WHAT IS NECESSARY, THE POPE SAID, IS THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN ‘ALGOR-ETHICS’” from cultures, religions, international organizations and major corporations.”

“If we struggle to define a single set of global values,” the Pope said, we can at least “find shared princi-

trol over what is going to become a crucial technology on a global basis.

Vladimir Putin has said that whoever controls the most advanced AI systems will control the world. That might sound a little exaggerated, but probably not by much.

Obviously, “deep fake” is a worsening problem — what is real and not real, human and not human… is there any solution? Does AI conflict with a truly Christian anthropology? How do we stay “human”?

Some of my students are actually writing programs with AI to be able to detect “deep fakes.” I think that is amazing: we are going to use AI to combat AI. The best way to combat deep fakes and fake news is to learn how to think critically, which is precisely what I teach in my courses. This is what philosophy is all about.

Remember that AI is a tool, and it can be used for good or for evil. It depends on us. From an anthropological point of view, there is nothing inherent about AI that goes against human dignity: we are going to have to learn to live with these massive systems and platforms alongside us in our world. People in the field are dealing with this issue which is called “the alignment problem” — making sure that sophisticated AI systems are aligned with the goals of the human race. This is not going to be easy, but at least people in the field are already putting

ples with which to address and resolve dilemmas or conflicts regarding how to live.”

A nECESSARY POLITICS Faced with this challenge, the Pope said, “political action is urgently needed.”

“Only a healthy politics, involving the most diverse sectors and skills,” the Pope stressed, is capable of dealing with the challenges and promises of artificial intelligence.

The goal, Pope Francis concluded, is not “stifling human creativity and its ideals of progress” but rather “directing that energy along new channels.”m

down the groundwork for a successful outcome.

The Church will probably produce some sort of guidelines or a document (the Handbook of the Markkula Center at Santa Clara University as an example). Pope Francis has spoken three times about this subject recently, as well as at the G7 Summit in June.

How can members of the Church bring Catholic philosophical thought to the development of worldwide AI? There are many activities taking place around the world on this topic. I think that Pope Francis agreed to attend the G7 Summit because he senses that the Catholic perspective is not being taken into consideration as much as it should be. We are a little behind the curve, although I do know that many people in the field are interested in dialoguing with the Church on many issues related to AI and new technologies, especially from a theological perspective.

I have been a part of two recent conferences at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in the Vatican, led by Cardinal Peter Turkson, about these issues, one on May 23-24, and another on June 4. I think both conferences went very well. We are trying to promote the idea (which Pope Francis talks about) of “Human-centered AI,” or “Person-centered AI” in order to ensure that AI is used to enhance Human Flourishing and not the opposite. Thanks for reaching out to me about these themes!

It is a fascinating time to be alive.m JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN 19

NEWS

arChbishop Carlo maria viganò aCCused of sChism Controversial arChbishop summoned to palaCe of the holy offiCe on June 20 to answer Charges (he did not go) n BY ITV STAFF

Center, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganó, 83, former nuncio to the US (2011 to 2016). Left, Pope Francis, 87.

Right, Cardinal Victor Fernandez, 62, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith since July 1, 2023

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he former apostolic nuncio to the U.S., Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganó, 83, has been formally accused by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith — perhaps recalling its earlier name of the Holy Office of the Inquisition — of the canonical crime of schism.

Archbishop Viganó published an “Announcement” of the DDF action on the website Stilum Curiae on June 20.

Headed by Argentine Cardinal Victor Fernández, the DDF bases its accusation on Viganó’s rejection of Pope Francis’ legitimacy, breaking of communion with Francis, and rejection of Vatican Council II, said the archbishop.

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“I regard the accusations against me as an honor,” he said.

He then went on to catalog various of the Pope’s past deeds which, he believes, have separated Francis, not himself, from the Church.

Questions remain on both sides of the controversy.

For example, do any of Francis’ words or actions as cited by Archbishop Viganó truly cross the high threshold of heresy or apostasy?

Conversely, can Archbishop Viganó really be called a “schismatic” for the nebulous crime of “rejecting Vatican Council II” — a “Pastoral Council” concerned not with defining doctrine but rather with practical recommendations to make the faith more accessible to our time?

The Vatican’s reaction to Archbishop Viganò’s “Announcement” came later on June 20, in the form of a comment from Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, 69. “Archbishop Viganò has taken some attitudes and some actions for which he must answer,” said Cardinal Parolin. “I am very sorry because I always appreciated him as a great worker, very faithful to the Holy See, someone who was, in a certain sense, also an example. When he was apostolic nuncio he did good work.

“I don’t know what happened,” Parolin concluded.

Below, we republish Archbishop Viganó’s “Announcement,” and invite our readers to form their own conclusions.m

“i HAVE bEEN sUMMONEd TO THE pAlACE Of THE HOly OffiCE” ANNOUNCEMENT Of H.E. Msgr. CArlO MAriA VigANò, ArCHbisHOp 20 June 2024 Silverii Papæ et Martyris Dermitii O’Hurley, Episcopi et Martyris

LGBTQ+ ideology: Bergoglio authorizes the blessing of same-sex couples and imposes on the faithful the acceptance of homosexualism, while covering up the scandals of his protégés and promoting them to the highest positions of responsibility. Globalism imposes the green agenda: Bergoglio worships the idol of the Pachamama, writes delirious encyclicals about the environ-

ment with the Davos religion is scandalous. Wherever governments at the service of the World Economic Forum have introduced or extended abortion, he Dicastery for the Doctrine of the promoted vice, legitimized homosexuFaith has informed me, with a simal unions or gender transition, encourple email, of the initiation of an extrajuaged euthanasia, and tolerated the perdicial penal trial against me, with the secution of Catholics, not a word has accusation of having committed the been spent in defense of the Faith or crime of schism and charging me of Morals that are threatened, or in support having denied the legitimaof the civil battles of so cy of “Pope Francis” of havmany Catholics who have ing broken communion been abandoned by the Vati“with Him” and of having can and the Bishops. Not a rejected the Second Vatican word for the persecuted Council. I have been sumCatholics in China, with the moned to the Palace of the complicity of the Holy See, Holy Office on June 20, in which considers Beijing’s person or represented by a billions more important than canon lawyer. I assume that the lives and freedom of the sentence has already thousands of Chinese who been prepared, given that it are faithful to the Roman is an extrajudicial process.

Church. In the “synodal I regard the accusations church” presided over by against me as an honor. I Bergoglio, no schism is recbelieve that the very wordognized among the German ing of the charges confirms Episcopate, or among the Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, apostolic nuncio to the United States, addresses the crowd during the annual Walk for Life West Coast in San the theses that I have repeatgovernment-appointed Francisco January 26, 2013 (CNS photo/Dennis Callahan, Catholic San Francisco) edly defended in my various Bishops who have been addresses. It is no coincidence that the consecrated in China without the manaccusation against me concerns the date of Rome. Because their action is “I REGARD THE ACCUSATIONS questioning of the legitimacy of Jorge consistent with the destruction of the AGAINST ME AS AN HONOR” — Mario Bergoglio and the rejection of Church, and therefore must be conARCHBISHOP VIGAnÒ In HIS Vatican II: the Council represents the cealed, minimized, tolerated, and finalJUnE 20 STATEMEnT ideological, theological, moral, and ly encouraged. In these eleven years of liturgical cancer of which the Ber“pontificate” the Catholic Church has goglian “synodal church” is the neces- ment, supports the Agenda 2030, and been humiliated and discredited above sary metastasis. attacks those who question the theory of all because of the scandals and corrupIt is necessary for the Episcopate, the man-made global warming. He goes tion of the leaders of the Hierarchy, Clergy and the People of God to seri- beyond his role in matters that strictly which have been totally ignored even as ously ask themselves whether it is con- pertain to science, but always and only the most ruthless Vatican authoritariansistent with the profession of the in one direction: a direction that is dia- ism raged against faithful priests and Catholic Faith to passively witness the metrically opposed to what the Church religious, small communities of tradisystematic destruction of the Church by has always taught. He has mandated the tional nuns, and communities tied to the its leaders, just as other subversives are use of experimental gene serums, Latin Mass. destroying civil society. Globalism which caused very serious damage, This one-sided zeal is reminiscent of calls for ethnic substitution: Bergoglio death and sterility, calling them “an act Cromwell’s fanaticism, typical of those promotes uncontrolled immigration of love,” in exchange for funding from who defy Providence in the presumpand calls for the integration of cultures pharmaceutical companies and philan- tion of knowing that they are finally at and religions. Globalism supports thropic foundations. His total align- the top of the hierarchical pyramid, free

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NEWS Archbishop cArlo MAriA VigAnó Accused of schisM to do and undo as they please without anyone objecting to anything. And this work of destruction, this willingness to renounce the salvation of souls in the name of a human peace that denies God is not an invention of Bergoglio, but the main (and unmentionable) purpose of those who used a Council to contradict the Catholic Magisterium and to begin to demolish the Church from within, in small steps, but always in a single direction, always with the indulgent tolerance or culpable inaction — if not the explicit approval — of the Roman authorities. The Catholic Church has been slowly but surely taken over, and Bergoglio has been given the task of making it a philanthropic agency, the “church of humanity, of inclusion, of the environment” at the service of the New World Order. But this is not the Catholic Church: it is her counterfeit.

The resignation of Benedict XVI and the appointment by the St. Gallen Mafia of a successor in line with the diktats of the Agenda 2030 was intended to allow — and has succeeded in allowing — the global coup to take place with the complicity and authoritative support of the Church of Rome.

Bergoglio is to the Church what other world leaders are to their nations: trai-

“THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS BEEN SLOWLY BUT SURELY TAKEN OVER” — ARCHBISHOP VIGAnÒ

tors, subversives, and final liquidators of traditional society who are certain of impunity. Bergoglio’s defect of consent (vitium consensus) in accepting his election is based precisely on the evident alienity of his action of government and magisterium with respect to what any Catholic of any age expects from the Vicar of Christ and the Successor of the Prince of the Apostles. Everything that Bergoglio does constitutes an offense and a provocation to the entire Catholic Church, to her Saints of all times, to the Martyrs who were killed in odium Fidei, and to the Popes of all times until the Second Vatican Council.

This is also and principally an offense against the Divine Head of the Church, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Whose sacred authority Bergoglio claims to exercise for the detriment of the Mystical Body, with an action that is too systematic and coherent to appear to be the

fruit of mere incapacity. In the work of Bergoglio and his circle, the Lord’s warning is put into practice: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the guise of lambs, but who are ravenous wolves at heart (Mt 7:15).

I am honored not to have — and indeed I do not want — any ecclesial communion with them: theirs is a lobby, which conceals its complicity with the masters of the world in order to deceive many souls and prevent any resistance against the establishment of the Kingdom of the Antichrist.

In the face of the Dicastery’s accusations, I claim, as Successor of the Apostles, to be in full communion with the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, with the Magisterium of the Roman Pontiffs, and with the uninterrupted doctrinal, moral, and liturgical Tradition which they have faithfully preserved.

I repudiate the neomodernist errors inherent in the Second Vatican Council and in the so-called “post-conciliar magisterium,” in particular in matters of collegiality, ecumenism, religious freedom, the secularity of the State, and the liturgy.

I repudiate, reject, and condemn the scandals, errors, and heresies of Jorge

of the Antichrist.” What, though, becomes of the dogma of the indefectibility of the Church of Christ grounded in the teaching of Vatican I that the “See of Peter remains always untainted by any error according to the divine promise of our Lord and Savior made to the prince of his disciples: ‘But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; f the Archbishop wishes us to and when you have turned believe that the Church IS ARCHBISHOP VIGANÓ again, strengthen your brethunder Pope Francis is a “spuIN S CHISM ? ren’ [Lk 22:32].” (cf. Denz.-H, rious entity,” what confi3070). dence can we have in the

By Dr. Robert Fastiggi If Archbishop Viganò truly “Church” that he claims to Professor of Theology at Michigan’s believes that Pope Francis is follow when his “Church” Sacred Heart Major Seminary propagating heresies, idolatry, seems to be grounded in dubiand apostasy, then either Christ’s promise to the Church ous accusations that don’t measure up to careful scrutihas failed or the Church led by Pope Francis is not the ny? It seems that Archbishop Viganò has established Church of Christ. If Viganò believes that Christ has his claims on conspiracy theories of Masonic infiltrafailed in his promise, then he sets himself against Sacred tions that have made the Church under Pope Francis a Scripture and the teaching of Vatican I. If he believes “spurious entity” preparing the way for “the kingdom A selection from “Is Archbishop Viganó in Schism?”, first published in 2020 but every bit as relevant today, by the widely-admired theologian and Marian scholar, Dr. Robert Fastiggi (photo), Professor of Theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Michigan.

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Mario Bergoglio, who manifests an absolutely tyrannical management of power, exercised against the purpose that legitimizes Authority in the Church: an authority that is vicarious of that of Christ, and as such must obey Him alone. This separation of the Papacy from its legitimizing principle, which is Christ the High Priest, transforms the ministerium into a self-referential tyranny.

No Catholic worthy of the name can be in communion with this “Bergoglian church,” because it acts in clear discontinuity and rupture with all the Popes of history and with the Church of Christ.

Fifty years ago, in that same Palace of the Holy Office, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was summoned and accused of schism for rejecting Vatican II. His defense is mine; his words are mine; and his arguments are mine — arguments before which the Roman authorities could not condemn him for heresy, having to wait instead for him to consecrate bishops so as to have the pretext of declaring him schismatic and

DOCUMENT Prot. N. 194/2024

H.E. Mons. Carlo Maria VIGANÒ Extrajudicial penal trial Art. 2 SST; can. 1364 CIC

DECREE Considering: • the mandate given in art. 1§ 2 SST; • the superfluous prior investigation (can. 1717 § 1CIC); • the decision of the Congress of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith of 10 May 2024 concerning the initiation of the extrajudicial penal trial coram this Dicastery; • the Decree of 3 June 2024 which appointed the Judge of the trial, the Assessors, and the Notary, officials of the Dicastery, by the present Decree

I SUMMON H. E. Mons. Carlo Maria Viganò to present himself, along with a valid identification document, on 20 June 2024 at 3:30 p.m., at the Palace of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, 00120 Vatican City, so that the same may take notice of the accusations and evidence concerning the crime of schism of which he has been accused (public statements which result in a denial of the elements necessary to maintain communion with the Catholic Church: denial of the legitimacy of Pope Francis, rupture of communion with Him, and rejection of the Second Vatican Council).

The accused is advised that he has the faculty to appoint an Advocate/Procurator whom he trusts in order to be defended/represented in the present trial and that, if he does not, one will be appointed for him.

The accused is also advised that in the absence of an appearance or a written defense, which must be forwarded to this Dicastery by 28 June 2024, he will be judged in his absence. It is so noticed.

then revoking his excommunication when he was already dead.

The scheme repeated even after half a century has demonstrated Archbishop Lefebvre’s prophetic choice.

In these times of apostasy, Catholics will find in Pastors faithful to the mandate received from Our Lord an example and an encouragement to abide in the Truth of Christ.

Depositum custodi [“Guard the deposit (of the faith)”], according to the Apostle’s exhortation: as the time approaches when I will have to give an account to the Son of God of all my actions, I intend to persevere in the bonum certamen and not to fail in the witness of faith which is required of each one who, as Bishop, has been endowed with the fullness of the priesthood and constituted Successor of the Apostles. I invite all Catholics to pray that the Lord will come to the aid of His Church and give courage to those who are persecuted for their Faith. + Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

that the Church led by Pope tions placed on Archbishop Francis is not the true Church of Viganò, out of concern that it Christ, then either he is a schiswould only embolden his matic or a sedevacantist. followers and lead to greater I honestly believe Archbishresistance to the Holy Father. op Viganò has become a victim I think the policy chosen by of his own hyperbolic rhetoric.

Pope Francis [previously] is He wishes to uphold Catholic the better path, which is that tradition as he sees it, but his of pastoral charity and siown words place him in a very lence. We need to pray for John J. Kennedy [signature] tenuous ecclesiastical position.

Archbishop Viganò and hope Mons.

John J. KENNEDY An archbishop of the Catholic that he will once again asSecretary for the Disciplinary Section Church who makes such overt sume his previous attitude of and egregious accusations trust and obedience toward against the sitting Roman Pontiff is clearly refusing the Apostolic See. The Archbishop seems to have a sinsubmission to the Supreme Pontiff, which according to cere devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Let us ask for canon 751 of the CIC, places him at least in material the intercession of the Mother of the Church to touch schism from the Catholic Church. I say material schism the heart of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò so he can because it would be up to competent authority to deteronce again become a loyal son of the Church that has mine whether canons 1364 §1 or 194, §1, n.2 of the CIC the Roman Pontiff, Pope Francis, as her “visible source apply to Archbishop Viganò. and foundation of faith and communion” (Lumen GenWith that said, I would not favor any canonical sanctium, 18).m JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN 23

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HistoriC first: CHinese bisHop addresses VatiCan ConferenCe Head of CHinese bisHops, originally appointed witHout VatiCan approVal, Bishop Joseph shen Bin of sHangHai promotes “siniCization” wHile tHe still-unsigned agreement between tHe VatiCan and CHina remains in play n BY ITV STAFF/VATICAn nEWS Cardinal Pietro Parolin with Bishop Joseph Shen Bin of Shanghai at a conference at the Pontifical Urban University in Rome on May 21, 2024 (photo: Elise Ann Allen/Crux.)

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he Pontifical Urban University in Rome hosted a conference on May 21 to mark the 100th anniversary of the Concilium Sinense, the first and only Council of the Chinese Catholic Church, which was held in Shanghai in May and June of 1924.

It was the first time in memory that a bishop from mainland China had come to Rome to attend a Vatican conference: Bishop Joseph Shen Bin, head of the government-recognized Chinese episcopal conference, was in fact the keynote speaker at the event.

Pope Francis sent a video message to participants attending the event, calling the anniversary “a precious occasion for many reasons.”

He noted that the 1924 Sinense Council marked an important step forward for the Catholic Church in China.

“The Holy Spirit,” he said, “brought them together, allowed harmony to grow among them, led them along paths that many of them would not have imagined, even overcoming perplexities and resistance.”

At the time, Council attendees hailed from distant countries and many resisted the idea of allowing Chineseborn priests and bishops to lead dioceses.

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“THE 1924 COUNCIL OF SHANGHAI GAVE THE CHINESE CHURCH A ‘CHINESE FACE’” During the Sinense Council, however, they agreed that the Church in China should have “a Chinese face,” since “Christ’s proclamation of salvation can only reach every human community and every single person if it speaks in their ‘mother tongue.’”

“But the Council of Shanghai did not only serve to forget the erroneous approaches that had prevailed in previous times,” Francis said. “The participants of the first Chinese Council looked to the future. And their future is our present.”

CHURCH MUST HAVE CHInESE POInT OF VIEW

Bishop Shen in his remarks referred to the “superior” attitude of those Western missionaries and their work to “protect foreign powers” through “unequal treaties” that China signed

with various European nations over the centuries.

Speaking through an interpreter, Shen said the Catholic Church today must have a Chinese point of view, respect Chinese culture and develop alongside Chinese society. He also noted that the Pope has underlined that being a good Christian is an integral part of being a good citizen.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, 69, gave an address which took its reference point from the experience of Cardinal, thenBishop, Celso Costantini, who arrived in China in 1922 as the Vatican’s first apostolic delegate to China.

“Bishop Costantini,” said Cardinal Parolin, “noted a persistent, and then excessive, dependence on the foreign component of the mission: this imbalance was manifested both by the almost exclusive presence of foreign clerics and by a certain predilection of certain missionary circles for the patronage established by the great Western powers and the pastoral methods which resulted from it.”

“After only a month in China, Costantini was to note, not without a note of regret: ‘The [Christian] religion came from Palestine to the Roman

Pope Francis delivers his video message to the May 21 conference marking 100 years since the historic Concilium Sinense. (photo: Vatican Media)

world: yet, among so many accusations brought against it, we do not find that of [being a] foreign religion, or it is only touched upon. We have been in China for more than three centuries.

The entire ecclesiastical hierarchy is [still] foreign. Is this the Church that Christ wanted?’ (With the Missionaries in China, vol. I, X)” However, noted Parolin, “Costantini’s missionary and diplomatic ‘strategy’ was based not only on inculturation and indigenization, but also on a second pillar, namely the need for the Holy See and the Chinese authorities to establish a direct dialogue between them. ….

“It derived from the just conviction that in China, distinguishing missionary work from international politics was in reality the only way to protect it and restore its authenticity and fruitfulness: to this end, it was therefore essential that the Holy See and the Chinese government learn to dialogue with each other directly, without intermediaries and in a necessary work of reciprocal discovery.

“Only in this way can reciprocal prejudices be overcome, in particular those which concern the supposed political nature of Catholic missionary activity,” he said.

MEAnWHILE, VATICAn-CHInA DEAL UP FOR REnEWAL

Later, Cardinal Parolin commented to reporters on the Church’s controversial 6-year-old deal with Chinese authorities, “We are all interested in the agreement being renewed.”

He also remarked that “We have long hoped to have a stable presence in China,” though he noted that it “may not initially have the form of a pontifical representation of an apostolic nunciature.”

So it seems logical that the 2018 secret agreement between the CCP and the Vatican is part of Cardinal Parolin’s vision of establishing more solid ties with the Chinese government. He told LifesiteNews in late April that the Vat-

ican does indeed plan on renewing the agreement for the third time.

Although details of the agreement have never been divulged officially, it apparently allows for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to appoint Catholic bishops, presumably with the Pope’s approval, although that aspect has already been violated — at least twice.

In fact, in April 2023, Bishop Joseph Shen Bin himself was made head of the Diocese of Shanghai,

two parties, the terms of which both sides agree to abide by. While the Vatican has certainly proposed terms to the lower-ranking officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that it has met with over the years, the Chinese side has never signed on.”

“Six years later, the Vatican is still hoping against hope that the CCP will one day sign,” said Mosher.

Meanwhile, the CCP continues to persecute Catholics who refuse to go along with its dictates; for example, Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin of Wenzhou, who has refused to register with the Catholic Patriotic Association, was arrested earlier this year and has not been heard from since.

MISTRUST MUST BE OVERCOME

“THE CHINESE HAVE NEVER ACTUALLY SIGNED THE AGREEMENT”

effective July 2023, and also without Vatican knowledge, although the Pope finally approved the move three months later.

So it is not surprising that commenters like Ed Condon of The Pillar suggest that, given the CCP’s track record, Cardinal Parolin is perhaps “mapping a road to nowhere.”

A REAL AGREEMENT? Asked in 2023 why the details of the Sino-Vatican deal remain secret today, Cardinal Parolin replied that “the text is confidential because it has not yet been finally approved.”

The deal, which “revolves around the basic principle of consensuality of decisions affecting bishops,” is effected by “trusting in the wisdom and goodwill of all,” he said.

However, as longtime China expert Steven Mosher observed, “An agreement implies an arrangement, a promise, or a contract made between

In a July 2023 interview with Vatican News, Cardinal Parolin defended the continuation of the agreement despite problematic developments since its inception in 2018. He said that “regular communication of the Chinese Bishops is needed with the Bishop of Rome, indispensable for effective communion, knowing that all this belongs to the structure and doctrine of the Catholic Church, which the Chinese authorities have always said they do not want to alter.”

Cardinal Parolin said Chinese Catholics “sincerely want to be loyal citizens and be respected in their conscience and in their faith.”

Therefore, “mistrust towards Catholicism needs to be overcome, which is not a religion to be considered foreign, let alone contrary, to the culture of that great people.”

Many are not convinced, however, that the “mistrust” on the part the Chinese authorities toward the Catholic Church is actually founded on its fear of “foreign” influences; it seems likely that the Catholic faith itself, which worships a loving Creator and Lawgiver God who is above man — and therefore above the CCP — is the real object of their displeasure.m JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN 25

COMMENTARY

neither “liberal” nor “conservative”? hoW the francis pontificate Will help determine What kind of pope We’ll have next...

P

ope Francis is 87 years old. He could have many years left on this earth, despite the various health challenges he has endured thus far. But that does not dull the widespread perception that the next conclave is coming, and it is time to learn the lessons that the Francis pontificate may have to offer.

Among those pondering these lessons is British Catholic journalist Damian Thompson, former editor of the UK’s Catholic Herald, currently an associate editor at The Spectator and blogger on Unherd.com and other platforms. In a lengthy and widely-cited April 2024 essay on Unherd.com, Thompson introduces his subject forthrightly:

Photo Grzegorz Galazka

“The cardinals are already meeting to discuss who should be the next Pope.”

Thereafter he conducts a wideranging assessment of the factors which the cardinal electors in the next conclave will likely take into account in the wake of the Francis papacy. With decades of journalistic experience and a number of well-placed sources in the Vatican to aid him, Thompson speculates on how that accounting may play out. Below we excerpt a couple of passages from Mr. Thompson’s essay, titled “The Scandals Haunting Pope Francis,” as part of our coverage in coming issues of the last years of the reign of Pope Francis, and the future of the papacy.

What Will the cardinals look for in a neW pope?

Will fallout from scandals like the rupnik and Zanchetta cases trump allegiance to labels like “liberal” and “conservative”?

Excerpts from DAMIAN THOMPSON’s much-discussed piece on Unherd.com, “The scandals haunting Pope Francis: Scheming cardinals are sharpening their knives”

H

owever hideous the scandals associated with this pontificate, it’s unlikely that they will influence the next conclave as much as the document signed by Francis on 18 December last year. Fiducia Supplicans changed the dynamics of the electoral college — not just because it forced Catholic bishops to address the radioactive topic of homosexuality that has torn apart the Protestant Churches, but also because it summed up the catastrophic incompetence of this pontificate.

At least three quarters of the future cardinal-electors will have been appointed by Francis.

So you might think that the conclave, while recognising Fiducia as a blunder, will be looking for a Pope who supports Francis’s relatively undogmatic approach to issues of human sexuality.

And so it might — if he’d created enough liberal cardinals. But he hasn’t.

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INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

In the early years of his reign, Francis adopted a tribal approach, especially in the United States. It was as if he was playing a Peronist board game, moving red hats to unlikely sees occupied by Bergoglian loyalists. Newark, New Jersey acquired its first cardinal: Joseph Tobin, who had been close to Ted McCarrick. Los Angeles was punished for having an orthodox archbishop, José Gomez, who really had his nose rubbed in it: instead of becoming the first Hispanic cardinal, he had to watch the honour go to his über-liberal suffragan Robert McElroy of San Diego, accused of ignoring warnings about Ted McCarrick’s predatory habits. Chicago got a red hat, as is customary, but it landed on the head of the aggressively Left-wing Blase Cupich, needless to say a Francis appointee.

FROM THE PERIPHERIES Elsewhere in the world, Francis adopted a policy of appointing cardinals from the “peripheries”: Mongolia’s 1,450 Catholics have one; Australia’s five million Catholics don’t. Tonga has one, Ireland doesn’t. But, by doing so, he had to abandon his game of boosting liberals

and twisting the tail of his conservative critics. These factional labels don’t mean much in the developing world. In the last two consistories he has created 33 cardinals, only a handful of whom hold Western-style radical views on sexuality. To quote one Vatican analyst: “Francis has wasted his chance to firmly stack the deck for the next conclave.” And now the college is full; even if he lives to call another consistory, he won’t have many places to play with.

The new cardinals tick various Bergoglian boxes. They relish the Pope’s attacks on free-market capitalism and his melodramatic warnings about climate change. None of them is a Right-wing traditionalist and until recently no one paid much attention to their ferocious views on “sodomy.”

Now those views really matter.

To quote the same analyst, “when Fiducia Supplicans was published, the African cardinals ditched their Francis-worship overnight. The vast majority won’t vote for anyone who has backed Fiducia.”

There are currently 17 African cardinal-electors; nearly all of them are in the anti-gay bloc. To these we can add at least 10 cardinals from Asia, Latin America and the West who share their views, even if they use milder rhetoric. Under current rules, a Pope must be elected by a two-thirds majority of the cardinal-electors. This means that social conservatives, if they join forces with the significant number of moderates alarmed by Fiducia, can block anyone seen as progressive on homosexuality.

That’s bad news for Cardinal Luis Tagle, the ambitious former Archbishop of Manila. He was once dubbed the “Asian Francis” on account of his showmanship and socially liberal views. In 2019 Francis put him in charge of worldwide evangelisation — a huge prize that was snatched away when the Pope restructured his department and sacked him as head of Caritas, the Catholic aid agency dogged by sex abuse scandals.

Cardinals Blase J. Cupich of Chicago, 75 (left) and Robert W. McElroy of San Diego, 70 (right). Both are among the more “prgressive” cardinals Francis has named, and, being relatively young, are likley to be voters in the next conclave. But there are a number of other cardinals Francis has created who are not so progressive...

Cardinal Luis Tagle, the ambitious former Archbishop of Manila (left). He was once dubbed the “Asian Francis” on account of his showmanship and socially liberal views. In 2023 Pope Francis asked Cardinal Matteo Zuppi (right) to carry out a peace mission to try to help end the war in Ukraine. Between June and September he visited Kiev, Moscow, Washington, and Beijing

Cardinal Mario Grech (left), from Malta, is secretary general of the “synod on synodality,” a consultative body of bishops and lay activists.

Cardinal Péter Erdő, Primate of Hungary (right). He’s an emotionally reserved scholar. In the 2015 synod, despite arm-twisting from papal apparatchiks, he used his position of relator-general to deliver a masterful defense of traditional teaching. One Vatican-watcher describes him as “boringly conservative”

It’s also tricky for Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the affable bicycling beanpole who’s Archbishop of Bologna. His politics are socialist — no problem for developing-world bishops — and during Benedict XVI’s reign he developed an enthusiasm for the old liturgy, even learning how to celebrate the Tridentine Mass. His stance on homosexuality is cautious — but he allowed a gay couple to have a Church blessing in his diocese. (...) Zuppi isn’t a fan of Fiducia Supplicans, but at the moment he’d run up against the blocking third.

LIBERAL, COnSERVATIVE OR...

MODERATE? Hardline liberals stand even less of a chance. Blase Cupich of Chicago isn’t papabile; nor are the “McCarrick boys” Tobin, McElroy, Gregory and Farrell, or the veteran European Leftists Hollerich, Marx and Czerny. The name of the Maltese Cardinal Mario Grech has been mentioned because he’s secretary general of the “synod on synodality,” a consultative body of bishops and lay activists that the Pope notably didn’t bother to consult about the new gay blessings. Grech, unkindly nicknamed “the Bozo from Gozo,” has seen his reputation collapse along with that of the toothless synod. His enemies describe him as the biggest toady in the Curia (unfair to Arthur Roche, many would say).

As for hardline conservative papabili, there really aren’t any; Francis has at least made sure of that. But there is a moderate conservative possibility: Cardinal Péter Erdő, Primate of Hungary. Unlike the exuberant, tearful Tagle, he’s an emotionally reserved scholar. When I met him for coffee in London years ago, we were half an hour into the laborious business of using a translator when he suddenly switched into fluent English. He has the reputation of disliking the limelight and being a bit thinskinned — but at a synod on the family in 2015, despite arm-twisting from papal apparatchiks, he used his posi-

JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN

27

COMMENTARY NEiThER “libERAl” NOR “CONsERvATivE” tion of relator-general to deliver a masterful defense of traused extraordinary language about Parolin: “He is so optiditional teaching. One Vatican-watcher describes him as mistic. That’s dangerous. I told the Pope that he [Parolin] “boringly conservative, which may be exactly what we has a poisoned mind. He is very sweet, but I have no trust need right now.” in this person. He believes in diplomacy, not in our faith.”

What about moderate cardinals who are difficult to pigeonhole? The newest papabile is Pierbattista PizzaTHE nEW WATCHWORD: “ABOVE REPROACH” balla, the Italian-born Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. In It’s a fair bet that, in their pre-conclave conversations, recent months the horrors on his doorstep have revealed a most cardinals will agree that the next Pope must be somediplomat of rare skill. His condemnation of IDF attacks on one capable of supervising an emergency repair job that civilians in Gaza earned him a rebuke from the Israeli forclarifies doctrine and the scope of ecclesiastical authority eign minister — but he had earlier condemned Hamas for and puts an end to the jihad against traditionalist Catholics, its “barbarism” and offered himself as a hostage in place many of whom are a generation or two younger than the of Israeli children. And while it’s not hard to believe him jargon-spouting Boomers harassing them. when he says he has absolutely no wish to be Pope, it’s posAlso, the cardinals know they must delve deep into the sible he may be forced to think again. past of the leading contenders. They have no choice. The But any Vatican-watcher will tell next Pope will face instant, merciyou that new papabili flash through less scrutiny from online investigathe sky during the last days of a pontors. A 2021 article in The Tablet by tificate. This time around they are Church historian Alberto Melloni busy memorising the names of described an all-too-credible cataAsian electors. (It’s generally asstrophe: “The newly elected Pope sumed that after Francis we can forsteps out. And as he smiles and get about another Latin American or humbly introduces himself to the Jesuit for a few centuries.) Three crowds in the square, a lone social names keep cropping up: William media post makes a stunning allegaGoh from Singapore, orthodox on tion.” The new Pope, when a bishop, sexuality, quietly critical of the surhad failed to act against a priest who render to Beijing; Charles Maung went on to commit further crimes.

Bo from Myanmar, also a critic of “In the square and in the press the China deal; and You Heung- Papabili: Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Italian-born Latin boxes, eyes drop from the balcony Patriarch of Jerusalem (left). In recent months the Sik, the new prefect for the dicast- horrors to their smartphones… The Pope on his doorstep have revealed a diplomat of rare ery for the clergy from South Korea. skill. And, right, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the most senior, steps back inside, and resigns. The Cardinal You is a fascinating figure: who as Secretary of State (a mixture of prime minister see is vacant again.” and foreign secretary) has technically been “number two” a teenage convert to Catholicism The necessary scrutiny will be an in the Vatican for the past 10 years... whose father had either been killed awkward business, but at the very or defected to the North — no one knows. He then convertleast the cardinals mustn’t repeat the mistake made by their ed the rest of his own family. His faith is joyful and his predecessors in 2013 — that is, taking a candidate at his vision of priestly formation far more attractive than Franown estimation. The truth is that many Catholics in cis’s bitter tirades against “clericalism.”

Argentina from across the ideological spectrum knew Finally, we have to consider the most senior of all the about Francis’s character flaws: his compulsive secrecy, papabili — Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who as Secretary of score-settling, disturbing alliances and rule by fear. But no State (a mixture of prime minister and foreign secretary) is one asked them. technically number two in the Vatican. The 69-year-old One might argue that none of the 120-plus eligible carItalian is visibly on manoeuvres and his candidacy is being dinals is quite so mean-spirited as the Holy Father. Fair taken seriously. And that in itself is odd, because Parolin enough; but there should be no question of electing anyone was in office when his deputy Becciu and others were who imitates Francis’s modus operandi. No chameleons, embezzling or gambling with billions of dollars from in other words.

Church funds. Also, he was the architect of the Vatican’s No one who was orthodox under Benedict, liberal under 2018 deal with Beijing, which — as former Hong Kong Francis and is now slinking back to the centre. bishop Cardinal Joseph Zen warned him — would turn The new Pope must be a holy man who relies on lieuthe Chinese Catholic Church, including persecuted undertenants who have no dirt on him and on whom he has no ground believers, into a wholly owned subsidiary of the dirt — and it’s a shocking fact that this would represent a Communist Party. departure from recent precedent. The Pope must be above That is precisely what happened. Zen, now 92 and reproach. That is far more important than whether he’s regarded by many orthodox Catholics as a living saint, has “liberal” or “conservative”. m 28 INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

NEWS

Francis surPrises The PoPe is conTinually PorTrayed as a “Progressive” — buT how “Progressive” is he really? n BY ITV STAFF/VATICAN NEWS Pope Francis “never intended to offend” by using a slang term for homosexuals, said Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni.

Others commented (in the small circular photos): Michael Day on the INews website in the UK and Robert Mickens, editor-inchief of the progressive Catholic La Croix International website

P

ope Francis made remarks to the Plenary Assembly of the Italian episcopate on May 20 at a private, closed-door gathering which, nevertheless, found their way into the press via an anonymous attendee at the meeting.

When asked specifically by two different Italian bishops whether they should admit homosexual men to study for the priesthood, Pope Francis reportedly counseled against it, surprising many who have perceived — and portrayed — Francis, 87, Pope for more than 11 years now, as a powerful proponent of the “liberalization” of the attitude toward homosexuality in the Roman Catholic Church.

But what really caused a stir was that Francis, in giving this counsel, said there is already “too much faggotry” (“frociaggine”) in Catholic seminaries.

It was the use of this word, “frociaggine,” which sparked a massive outcry, as the secular media slammed Francis for being so callous as to use a derogatory Italian slang term used by “homophobics.”

And because Francis chose to use this word, some have begun to question, even to revise, their entire interpretation of his papacy.

“Pope Francis’s homophobic slur shows us once again that he is no saint,” was the title of one article by Michael Day on the INews website in the UK. “Is the current pontiff Francis living up to claims — or perhaps hopes — that his reign would usher in an era of less hostility to gays?” Day asked. “The answer to this is probably ‘no.’”

Day continued: “Famously in 2013, the Argentinian pontiff sounded a more tolerant note on sexuality after he replaced the ultra-conservative Pope Ratzinger.

“Francis declared: ‘If they [gay priests] accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge them?

They shouldn’t be marginalised. The tendency [same-sex attraction] is not the problem… they’re our brothers.’

“But reacting to the Pope’s latest comments, veteran Vatican watcher Robert Mickens (right), editor-in-chief of the progres-

sive Catholic La Croix International website, says: ‘This shows that despite the noises about greater inclusiveness in recent years, nothing has really changed.’”

Day went on: “The offensive word Francis used – ‘frociaggine’ – is the kind of crude term (based on the slur ‘frocio’ or ‘faggot’), typical of the local Roman slang.

“Several bishops present at the meeting have suggested that the Pope, who grew up in an Italianspeaking household, didn’t understand its offensiveness. So too, have some of the unduly deferential correspondents who exist with them in the Vatican bubble.

“Some others suggest it is simply more evidence of 87-year-old Francis getting ever more irascible in his old age...

“Despite the earlier noises Francis made about the Church being more welcoming of the LGBT community, he remains at heart a conservative Catholic bishop, who grew up in the macho culture of Argentina.”

FRANCIS SURPRISES THE “FRANCIS WATCHERS” After the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Victor Fernández, released last December’s JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN 29

NEWS VATICAN widely-discussed (and wideMeanwhile, the conservaly-criticized) Fiducia Suptive Italian Catholic online plicans, on the blessing of journal Stilum Curiae ran an same-sex — and other “irarticle by Mario Andinolfi, regular” — couples, many an outspoken traditional assumed that it was a step in Catholic journalist, politician the direction of “normalizand blogger, in which Andiing” homosexuality in the nolfi went so far as to praise Catholic Church.

Francis for his frankness — So it came as something even if it was a “careless” of a surprise that Pope Franfrankness — with the Italian cis answered the two Italian bishops, in speaking negabishops’ question about adtively about the admission of mitting homosexual men to homosexuals to the seminary. the seminary in the negative, Referring to one of the Cardinal Fernandez speaking at the Vatican press conference saying, “It is better not to presentation of Fiducia Supplicans and, right, Matteo Bruni, Director many Italian media figures of the Holy See Press Office ordain someone with these who have painted the Francis The Director of the Holy See papacy as a progressive “engine for tendencies.”

In fact, Francis said that it is better Press Office, Matteo Bruni, told change” in the Church, Andinolfi to “lose a vocation” than to have to reporters Pope Francis was “aware” asked: “Who knows what he will say deal with the “problems” often of the articles about his closed-door about Francis today, not understandcaused by homosexuality in the sem- conversation with the Italian Bish- ing that the Catholic Church is the ops, and affirmed that the Pope apol- only source of light in an Italy darkinary and priesthood.

And he added this advice to the ogized for any offense. ened by their ferocious conformism, “As he has stated on many occa- which now pretends to be scandalbishops: “Don’t talk to reporters sions,” said Bruni, “‘There is room ized by a frank word used by the about it.” for everyone in the Church, for ev- Pope in a closed-door meeting to eryone! No one is useless; no one is explain that as Catholics we embrace “CARELESS” FRANKNESS On May 28, eight days after the superfluous; there is room for every- everyone, but we do not resign ourPope made his private remarks to the one. Just as we are, everyone.’ selves to the spread of the sin that we “The Pope never intended to of- call by its name.” bishops, the Vatican Press office finally responded to the developing fend or express himself in homophoAnd Andinolfi concluded: “Long controversy with an apology from bic terms, and he apologizes to those live the Pope’s inappropriate words, the Pope to anyone who might have who felt offended by the use of a long live the carelessness of Franterm, as reported by others.” been offended. cis.”m

The PoPe ANd The Froci*ggine: LoNg LIVe FrANCesCo’s CrAzINess n BY MARIO ANDINOLFI

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spent 10 years in the television studios [of Italy] being described as the “Ratzingerian” homophobic Catholic.

Now marginalized in the progressive Church of Francis, I don’t know how many times (I have been) attacked with very negative epithets, waving the Pope’s “Who am I to judge?” remark of July 2013 in my face.

30 INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

In all those television debates, I asked everyone to listen to the entire minute of the papal declaration, not to distort it by hearing only the 10second snippet used in order to exploit it.

Even back then, the Pope was highlighting his opposition to the “gay lobby” present in the Vatican.

And obviously in 2016 he reiterated the “no” already expressed by

Ratzinger on the ordination of priests “with homosexual tendencies.”

So is Pope Francis “homophobic”?

Massimo Gramellini on the front page of [the Italian daily] Corriere della Sera today rakes Pope Francis over the coals, comparing him to a crude “wrestler,” humiliating him by asking that Bombolo [an Italian

comedian who died in 1987] “intercede for him” from Heaven.

Amazing what happens to you if you offend the “rainbow lobby”!

In a moment you are transformed into manure on which one can freely spit, even if for 10 years they have raised you up as an absolute point of reference.

Whoever touches that bare wire [that topic] electrocutes himself...

Always. (...)

For years I have been writing that this deadly situation, also in our Church, is characterized by the impossibility of being clear in the affirmation of the truth, preferring the path of ambiguity.

The “locura,” the madness of Francis, is wanting to call things by their names, and he is now being extremely clear.

Abortion? “It’s like hiring a hitman.”

Gender ideology? “It is the greatest danger, it resembles the method with which the Hitler Youth was trained.”

Will there be women priests or deacons? “No.” Will ecclesiastical celibacy be abolished? “I won’t do it.”

Can gay couples be blessed?

“People are blessed, not the union, marriage and family are born from a man and a woman.”

Euthanasia and assisted suicide? “They are practices to be rejected, daughters of the throwaway culture.”

And the rented womb? “It’s modern slavery.”

Francis’ practice is to use words with unusual clarity, with an Argentine air and a Jesuit razor.

Mind you, I have summarized statements that have spanned the entire pontificate.

Whoever wanted to hear them could have listened from the outset.

But it was convenient instead to turn up the volume on Francis’ words

of the Church’s openness, with the utmost mercy, to “everyone, everyone, everyone,” and to exploit those words by stating that, by embracing people, one is also legitimizing their sin.

The communicators [the media] wanted to use some communication errors, which also existed, to present a papacy paradoxically aligned against the Church herself.

It is no coincidence that a few

with that of Ratzinger and Wojtyla, that the pastoral differences did not change anything on the doctrinal level, that non-negotiable principles remain non-negotiable for Catholics.

It cannot be otherwise; those who affirmed the opposite had the sole aim of destroying the influence of the Church in society.

Today Gramellini extols Ratzinger as a “classical dancer” to contrast him with Bergoglio as a Mario Andinolfi, an “wrestler.” outspoken traditional Who would have thought — Catholic journalist, after a decade spent describing politician and blogger.

Below, the logo of the site Benedict XVI as the leader of Stilum Curiae of Marco the “obscurantists” who were Tosatti, who often hosts Andinolfi’s articles fighting against the “progressive” Francis.

Andrea Scanzi defined me in this way twice — as an “obscurantist” — a few days ago on the Otto e Mezzo television days ago in another broadcast with [Italian of the main Italian television journalist] newspapers, La Lilli Gruber.

Stampa, the director Who knows what he signed an editorial stating that polit- would say about Francis today, not ical debate should not be allowed on understanding that the Catholic “abortion, euthanasia and sexual ori- Church is the only source of light in entation,” because the line can only an Italy darkened by their ferocious be that of woke conformism. conformism, which now pretends to Pope Francis has been used to get be scandalized by a frank word used to this goal: to delegitimize the non- by the Pope in a closed-door meeting negotiable principles of Catholics. to explain that as Catholics, we I believe that Bergoglio under- embrace everyone, but we do not stood this well, and in this (present) resign ourselves to the spread of the phase of his pontificate he is taking sin that we call by its name. the liberty, for some people a “crazy” The Pope says that we need to liberty (the locura, precisely), to use speak clearly, with “yes” and “no,” very clear and unequivocal words to without always bogging everything affirm his thought, which is that of a down with indigestible ambiguities Pope of the Catholic Church. in order to make everything go I believe that the recent Dignitas smoothly. This attitude seems crazy Infinita document has put the seal of to the Gramellinis, to the Scanzis, to doctrinal clarity on all the delicate all the conformists of our time, who topics of contemporary times. also rapidly change in their prejuAnd in doing so, Francis... ended dices, according to convenience. up in the crosshairs.

Long live the Pope’s inappropriIn these 10 years of insults suf- ate words, long live the carelessness fered on TV, radio and in newspapers of Francis. as well as on social media, I have always reiterated that Bergoglio’s Stilum Curiae, papacy was in absolute continuity Tuesday, May 28, 2024m JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN 31

COMMENTARY

whAt do we do wIth the Art oF Accused Abuser Fr. mArko ruPnIk? As John PAul II remInds us In hIs 1999 Letter to Artists — wrItten As Fr. ruPnIk wAs comPletIng the PoPe’s PrIvAte redemptoris mAter chAPel — “In shAPIng A mAsterPIece, the ArtIst not only summons hIs work Into beIng, but Also In some wAy reveAls hIs own PersonAlIty by meAns oF It” n BY CHRISTInA DEARDURFF

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rish Bishop John Joseph Kennedy what the Church is going to do about commented to reporters, while it — if anything. attending an Italian meeting on the Rupnik’s style is distinctive and “Fr. Marko Rupnik abuse crisis” on well-known: it favors black-eyed figMay 29, that the canonical inquiry ures depicted in a manner reminisinto famed, now disgraced, Slovencent of Byzantine art. And Rupnik’s ian ex-Jesuit artist Marko Rupnik, 69, work has been a staple of post-Vatiis nearing completion. can II Catholic churches and shrines “It’s a delicate case, really, and we — as well as gracing the covers of are working on it,” he told Catholic countless Church publications and news outlet Crux, saying “we started graphics for events like the “official well, and we are really continuing image” of the 2022 World Meeting of step after step, keeping all aspects in Families and the logo mind, because there is the aspect of for the 2016 Year of the allegations against him, there is Slovenian ex-Jesuit artist Marko Rupnik in front of one Mercy — for more typical mosaics. Right, “Merciful like the Father” the aspect of the victims, there is the of his than 30 years. the 2016 logo he designed for the Year of Mercy aspect of the impact on the Church, so Now people it’s delicate.” are taking another look at Fr. Rupnik’s Fr. Rupnik was once a favorite of his fellow Jesuit, Pope art, and do not like what they find. Many Francis. are calling for the removal of his artwork The Vatican initially declined in 2022 to proceed with an (the website of his studio, Centro Aletti, investigation into abuse allegations, due, it said, to the expishows photos of more than 200 locations). ration of its statute of limitations. However, in 2023 the VatThere seem to be two main reasons conican reversed itself by waiving the time limit and beginning tributing to this call: 1) that “art is the artist’s a formal inquiry into the sometimes grotesque sexual abuse signature, and his signature implies his presence” (blogger accusations of what now amounts to two dozen women reliFr. Dwight Longenecker); and 2) that “Rupnik’s work isn’t gious over a 40-year timespan. just bad art, but a deliberate subversive parody and mockery Fr. Rupnik was dismissed of Byzantine art and of its spirifrom the Jesuit order in June 2023 tual purpose and nature” (artist for “stubborn refusal to observe and art historian Hilary White). the vow of obedience” in connecRegarding the first claim, the tion with the order’s demand that Bishop of Lourdes, John-Marc Rupnik make restitution to his Micas, said in a press release victims. As late as August 2023, March 31 that “Lourdes is a however, he was incardinated in a place where many victims turn diocese in his native Slovenia. to the Immaculate Conception Whatever the final outcome of for comfort and healing. Their the Vatican’s inquiry, however, anguish is great before the the fact remains that the works of mosaics of Father Rupnik in this Rupnik’s mosaics in the John Paul II Shrine in Washington, art of Fr. Marko Rupnik, primari- originally sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. The Cardinal very place: We cannot ignore O’Boyle Council 11302 passed a resolution on April 9 calling ly mosaics located in churches it.” Rupnik mosaics were on Knights leadership to remove Rupnik’s 2015 artwork around the world, remain before installed in the sanctuary at the from the shrine’s Redemptor Hominis Church and the Luminous Mysteries Chapel (photo: Lawrence, OP, via Flickr) the public eye, and many wonder Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes

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INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

A PARTIAL LIST OF MARKO RUPNIK’S MAJOR MOSAICS

• Saint John Paul II National Shrine

Spiritual exercises for the Curia by Cardinal Ravasi in the chapel Redemptoris Mater Chapel in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace. The mosaics are by Rupnik

in Washington, D.C. • Blessed Sacrament chapel in the Almudena Cathedral in Madrid, Spain • Facade of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary at Lourdes, France • Holy Family Chapel, Knights of Columbus headquarters, New Haven, Connecticut • Church of Saint Peter and Paul in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

• Redemptoris Mater Chapel in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace • The Sanctuary of Holy Trinity Basilica in Fátima, Portugal • Sanctuary of Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina shrine

in 2008, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of adopt a child-like, ‘groovy,’ care-free apthe Marian apparitions there in 1858. proach to life, including religion. Rules, in art David Torchala, director of communicaand religion, are for squares, man.” tions at the Lourdes Sanctuary, explained in a Specifically, for example, the empty black March interview, “At first, we might have discs characteristic of almost all Rupnik’s figthought that we had to distinguish between ures’ eyes foil the attempt to communicate the the man and the work, but now, after digging spiritual through art: “Antonis [Kosmadakis, deeper, we realize that we cannot leave it at contemporary Byzantine iconographer] says that,” he said. the ‘eyes are of course the alpha and the omega An April 15 editorial in the National of iconography.’ The one rule: ‘get the eyes Catholic Register elaborated on the point: right,’ can be extended to all figure and por“His distinctive mosaics were commissioned trait painting. Human beings from infancy for a purpose: to lift minds and hearts toward learn to judge the disposition of the other perGod. They are no longer capable (if they ever son by the eyes. We look at a face and we see were) of achieving that purpose. Those long the eyes most of all. faces, those black eyes — they send our “Here’s the serious artistic reason why the minds and hearts elsewhere now, causing eyes in Rupnik’s work are wrong, and most scandal. Whatever beauty and reli- Black, lifeless eyes: Rupnik mosaic of the Madonna and Child, decidedly not in keeping with giosity they once possessed is lost; either the eastern or western tradiChurch of the Transfiguration of the Lord, Petrinja, Croatia the allegations against Father tions of sacred art: they’re expresJ USTICE DELAYED ?

Rupnik are too numerous and too sionless. The blank Rupnik stare ritics of Pope Francis have wondered aloud why dark.” is the expression of a lifeless Fr. Rupnik’s reckoning has been so long in comThe second reason for removdoll.” ing. One answer is that Pope Francis does not easily ing Rupnik’s art from public view Monsignor Nicola Bux, in an forget his friends. is more complex and more revealinterview last year in the Italian As journalist Damian Thompson observed in an ing of the fault lines beneath the Quotidiana Bussola, identified April 2024 post on the website Unherd.com, “Last year, facing an explosion of rage on Catholic social whole edifice of the post-Vatican the adoption of “modern art” in media — mainstream media were strangely silent — II “modernized” Church: its subgeneral, and Fr. Rupnik’s “no Pope Francis said he would act against his friend versive abandonment of beauty rules” modernist take on ByzanRupnik. He hasn’t done so. Nor has he explained why, and order, leading, at last, to an tine art in particular, with the genwhen Rupnik was facing excommunication for abusabandonment of faith. eral post-Vatican II loss of faith: ing the confessional to ‘absolve’ one of his female sexual victims, he was invited to conduct a retreat at As Hilary White describes “The situation of sacred art has conthe Vatican, or why his subsequent excommunication Rupnik’s art on her Substack blog, tributed to secularization and the was mysteriously lifted within weeks with the approval World of Hilarity, “What characloss of faith. And Rupnik stepped of the Pope. terizes it? In a single word? Childinto this void. The commissioning “This month Fr. Rupnik was listed in the 2024 Vatishness. It’s deliberately intended bishops should ask themselves ican directory as a consultant on Divine Worship, of all things.

Meanwhile Bishop Daniele Libanori, the to look ‘primitive’... This comwhether the faithful, faced with Jesuit who investigated the women’s claims and ported well with the social fad at Rupnik’s art, are led to prayer or found them credible, has been removed from his posithe end of the 1960s to reject prerather to dancing around the golden tion as an auxiliary bishop in the diocese of Rome.” n vious standards of behavior and calf, which is ourselves.”m

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JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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NEWS

vaTican Releases new “sTudy” documenT on papal pRimacy “The Bishop of Rome” BRings synodaliTy, ecumenism — and conTRoveRsy — To a fResh look aT The pope’s Role n BY ZENIT/ITV STAFF

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n Thursday, June 13, a new document was presented by the Dicastery for Christian Unity on the role of the Bishop of Rome (the Pope).

The “study document” The Bishop of Rome is the first document to summarize the entire ecumenical debate on the Papal primacy in the Church since the Second Vatican Council. Its origin is found in St. John Paul II’s invitation to other Christians to find, “together, of course,” the forms in which the ministry of the Bishop of Rome “may accomplish a service of love recognized by all concerned” (John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint, #95).

The document’s theme seems to concern most obviously the Orthodox Churches, since they share with Catholics the same faith and sacramental practice, but dispute the Roman Catholic understanding of the Pope’s role.

Reconciling Protestant theology with Catholic teaching on papal primacy presents even more of a difficulty.

The Bishop of Rome is just one step on the very long road to unity.

The main ideas of the document may be summarized as follows: 1) The dialogue documents and the responses to Ut Unum Sint have made a significant contribution to reflection on the question of primacy and synodality; 2) All the documents agree on the need for a service of unity at the universal level, even if the foundations of this service and the ways in which should be exercised are subject to different interpretations; 3) Unlike the controversies of the past, the question of primacy is no longer seen simply as a problem, but also as an opportunity for a common reflection on the nature of the Church and her mission in the world; 4) The Petrine ministry of the Bishop of Rome is intrinsic to the synodal dynamic, as is the communitarian aspect that includes the entire people of God and the collegial dimension of the episcopal ministry.

One hundred fifty-one pages in its published form, the document concludes with a brief section entitled “Some Practical Suggestions,” which follows here below...

SOME PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS

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first proposal is a Catholic “rereception,” “re-interpretation,” “official interpretation,” “updated commentary” or even “rewording” of the teachings of Vatican I. Indeed, some dialogues observe that these teachings were deeply conditioned by their historical context, and suggest that the Catholic Church should look for new expressions and vocabulary faithful to the original intention but integrated into a communio ecclesiol34 INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

ogy and adapted to the current cultural and ecumenical context.

A second suggestion made by some ecumenical dialogues is a clearer distinction between the different responsibilities of the Bishop of Rome, especially between his patriarchal ministry in the Church of the West and his primatial ministry of unity in the communion of Churches, both West and East, possibly extending this idea to consider how other Western Churches might

relate to the Bishop of Rome as primate while having a certain autonomy themselves. There is also a need to distinguish the patriarchal and primatial roles of the Bishop of Rome from his political function as head of State. A greater accent on the exercise of the ministry of the Pope in his own particular Church, the diocese of Rome, would highlight the episcopal ministry he shares with his brother bishops, and renew the image of the papacy.

Initial Reactions to The Bishop of Rome Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganó, on the website Stilum Curiae (at marcotosatti.com) he Study Document of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity “The Bishop of Rome” is the coherent application of the subversive premises posed

by Vatican II and the “conciliar popes”: [...] Now the Pope must become the “primus inter pares” of the Christian denominations; he must betray the mandate entrusted by Christ to Peter and his successors and abdicate the role of Vicar of Christ.

The Bergoglian sect is preparing to join the other schismatic and heretical communities, after having embraced their errors. In short, the future head of the new Religion of Humanity desired by the Masonic elite of the New World Order is already being outlined.

Betrayal was already inherent in ecumenism, re-proposed in the post-conciliar period in the same terms in which it had previously been condemned.

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Bishop Marian Eleganti, OSB, Auxiliary bishop of Chur, Switzerland, on the website Stilum Curiae (at marcotosatti.com) n my opinion, it is wrong to consider the acceptance of the Roman Catholic papal primacy of jurisdiction by other Christians as a criterion for its validity and legitimacy…They want a ministry of unity, but a synodal one, that is, one capable of persuading a majority and binding only if the majority of those interested (i.e., all Christians) have decided on it in this sense: that the Pope is moderator and guide of the synod, nothing more — at most, as a credible witness, who obviously can also be contradicted. How well or badly this works can be seen very clearly in the case of our separated brothers (see Anglicanism).

Now we understand why the title of “Patriarch of the West” was reintroduced as an attribute of the Roman Pontiff after Benedict XVI had abandoned it! Is this to our profit? Personally, I think it is a step backwards and a questionable self-annihilation of Roman Catholic doctrinal development regarding the Petrine office, which has always been a bone of contention in this matter, not only because of the moral failure of the Popes, but much more fundamentally and theologically than in terms of ecclesi-

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A third recommendation made by the theological dialogues concerns the development of synodality within the Catholic Church. Putting an emphasis on the reciprocal relation between the Catholic Church’s synodal shaping ad intra and the credibility of her ecumenical commitment ad extra, they identified areas in which a growing synodality is required within the Catholic Church. They suggest in particular further reflection on the authority

astical politics. Affirming again that the papacy is of both divine and human right, in order to historically and critically relativize its jurisdictional exercise through this last addition [to the Church’s documents on the subject], means, for me, not believing in the Church as a divine institution.

Cardinal Kurt Koch, “Open Letter” responding to Bishop Marian Eleganti’s “First, Spontaneous Reaction” to The Bishop of Rome document e must first of all remember that this document is not a teaching text, but a study text that offers a synthesis of the responses that the various Christian Churches have had to the encyclical Ut Unum Sint of Pope John Paul II and the results of the ecumenical dialogues on this topic [...]

In terms of content, your statement at the beginning of your comments is simply wrong; according to it, in the Vatican document the acceptance of Roman Catholic papal jurisdiction by other Christians is seen as a “criterion for its validity and legitimacy” and consequently the papacy will become new and therefore understood or practiced differently than previously.

However, the statements of the ecumenical dialogues cited in the document are not presented as a “criterion of validity and legitimacy” of papal dogmas, but as contributions intended to serve to strengthen the ideas of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI to continue and deepen the desired ecumenical debate, and promoted regarding the concrete exercise of papal primacy, in the clear awareness that all the suggestions contained in the document will not be decided by theologians, but by the Pope.n

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of national and regional Catholic bishops’ conferences, their relationship with the Synod of Bishops and with the Roman Curia.

At the universal level, they stress the need for a better involvement of the whole People of God in the synodal processes. In a spirit of the “exchange of gifts,” procedures and institutions already existing in other Christian communions could serve as a source of inspiration.

A last proposal is the promotion of “conciliar fellowship” through regular meetings among Church leaders at a worldwide level in order to make visible and deepen the communion they already share. In the same spirit, many dialogues have proposed different initiatives to promote synodality between Churches, especially at the level of bishops and primates, through regular consultations and common action and witness.m JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN 35

PROFILE

Fra agnello Stoia the joyFul “pariSh prieSt” oF St. peter’S welcomeS “jagged humanity” every day, he SayS, a curtain openS on each oF the thouSandS oF characterS that inhabit St. peter’S n TEXT BY CHRISTInA DEARDURFF - PHOTOS BY GRZEGORZ GALAZKA

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lthough St. Peter’s Basilica is the church most closely associated with the Pope (in his office as Pope, as well as geographically — he lives in its shadow), it is in fact not the church of which he is pastor. That honor belongs to St. John Lateran Basilica — the oldest basilica in the Western world and the “Mother Church” of Catholicism, which lies about two miles outside of Vatican City.

So, who is the pastor of St. Peter’s?

You might be surprised to learn he is not another dour veteran Curial official, but rather a jolly Franciscan from the south of Italy, who jokes about the fact that he, unlike most other pastors, does not have most of the keys to the buildings in his parish.

But Fra Agnello Stoia has a kind of “master key,” he told CNS in 2022 — the “affection of the ‘Sanpietrini,’” the workers at St. Peter’s, with whom he tries hard to form bonds of friendship.

For example, he said, “I ask for the keys, and I go down to the pallium niche” under the basilica’s main altar, which also is near St. Peter’s tomb. “But I go discreetly because other people cannot go down there, and I feel bad.”

Fra Agnello is a Conventual Franciscan who spent 19 years in the convent of San Francesco a Folloni, in Montella, in the south of Italy. In fact, it is Montella that he hopes to return to when his duties at St. Peter’s are completed.

But for now, he is concentrating on turning “tourists” into “pilgrims” at St. Peter’s, which is visited by between 10 and 20 million people a year. For Fra Agnello, St. Peter’s is not just a magnificent expression of a worldwide faith; it is also a parish.

Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, another Conventual Franciscan who heads the Fabric of 36 INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

St. Peter’s, oversees the care and conservation of the building.

But Fra Agnello conducts the dayto-day parish life of St. Peter’s. Marriages and baptisms, confirmations and confessions, all are celebrated at St. Peter’s, and Fra Agnello is the one, aided by Missionary Sisters of the Faith in the parish office, who oversees them all.

His demeanor is joyful, and he finds that joy in the daily pastor’s work he does among the mighty, the lowly and everyone in between.

Like the title character in George Bernanos’ magnificent novel Diary of a Country Priest, Fra Agnello’s ever-present smile seems to say: “Joy is the gift of the Church, whatever joy is possible for this sad world to share... What would it profit you even to create life itself, when you have lost all sense of what life really is?” *** Below, Inside the Vatican asked Fra Agnello what it means to hold the unique job of the “parish priest” of St. Peter’s — and how he maintains his joy amid the human anxieties he sees every day.

ITV: How is St. Peter’s different from other parishes? Are your parishioners comprised of only the people who live in Vatican City?

Or is it all the millions who visit?

How can you care for both since they are so different?

Fra Agnello: Each parish is unique in its history and community, but San Pietro is a one-of-a-kind parish! I like to compare it to the heart which receives the blood to be oxygenated from the periphery of the body and, once this exchange has taken place, sends it back into the circulation without retaining even a drop. Thus, from every part of the world, believers come to Peter’s tomb to renew their faith and their love for the Holy Father, and then each return to their own lives and their communities of origin.

Therefore, at St. Peter’s we must welcome all pilgrims and help them have a significant experience of

meeting with St. Peter and the Lord.

The beauty of the basilica, of the songs, of the splendor of the liturgy — we must pay a lot of attention to this. Even Saint Francis — whose son I am — wanted decorum and splendid praise to shine in the Churches. It makes me think of Fra Cesareo da Spira, a German who became the greatest musician at the court of France — a rock star of his time! — who, once he became a friar, set the Mass of Saint Francis and Saint Anthony to music, composing

FRA AGNELLO IS CONCENTRATING ON TURNING “TOURISTS” INTO “PILGRIMS” AT ST. PETER’S, WHICH IS VISITED BY BETWEEN 10 AND 20 MILLION PEOPLE A YEAR. hymns which — thanks to the missionary friars — went around the world...

Welcoming and the liturgy are two cornerstones of the work that, as a parish priest, I carry out in St. Peter’s Basilica. Obviously I am not alone; together with the Cardinal Archpriest Mauro Gambetti and the Vatican Chapter, we are a team continually engaged on this front.

In particular, the Fabric of St. Peter’s has equipped itself with a reception office for pilgrims. But particular applicants knock at the parish office, for baptisms, confirmations, first communions and weddings. For

some time now, many have also been asking to renew their marriage vows on their 25th or 50th anniversary. The work is really a lot but we are not discouraged, which I say together with the Missionary Sisters of the Faith who work with me in the parish office. I love calling them “The Vatican dream team”!

Where were you born and raised and do you have any siblings? Did you imagine you would be a pastor at an early age?

I was born in Pagani, a town a few kilometers from the Sanctuary of Pompeii, where the presence and devotion to Saint Alfonso de’ Liguori is strong. I grew up in Nocera, in the shadow of the Convent of Sant’Antonio run by my brothers, the Conventual Friars Minor. Mine is a large family; we are six children, of which I am the eldest. The smallest one is male while in the middle there are four females. After the earthquake that hit Campania in 1980, my family moved to the north, to Lake Garda, and lives there. But I have always remained in the South, except for my training which I did in Rome, at the Seraphicum.

I was nine years old when I met a friar. It happened in front of my house: it was the feast of the Patron Saint — San Prisco -— and the procession stopped at number 80 in Via Origlia, where we lived.

JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN 37

PROFILE

Fra agnello Stoia

I approached a man in the procession who wasn’t dressed like my parish priest and asked him: “Why are you dressed so strangely?” and he replied: “Why do you say ‘strange’? This is the dress of Saint Francis!”

“Where do you live?” I asked him, and he said to me: “At the convent of Sant’Antonio — come and visit us.”

And so I began to frequent what would one day become my religious family. When I was nine years old and I made my First Communion, on the souvenir that was distributed to everyone they wrote by mistake “Agnello” instead of “Aniello,” which is the name with which I am registered with the Municipality.

But I only discovered this after, as a friar, I had chosen the name Fra Agnello.

But for everyone, in the family and among those who knew me in those years, I was Nello, Nellino... almost as if it were the name of a small seed!

Where have you managed to bring more sense of the sacred into the experience of visitors to St. Peter’s Basilica? Where was it difficult or frustrating?

I gained experience for eight years in the central Parish of Santi Apostoli in Piazza Venezia, in the heart of the historic center of Rome.

And I understood that “going out” — as Pope Francis always invites us to do — for me meant “welcoming.”

Here in St. Peter’s, since I arrived, I understood that the Fisherman of Galilee, Kefa (Aramaic for “Peter”), had to leave the Basilica and return to the streets of Rome — because the City had forgotten that its special mission in the world of being “universal” is not given by the reflected light of the Caesars, which set centuries and centuries ago, but is given by the testimony and blood of the apostles Peter and Paul.

So the video mapping that we created on the facade of the Basilica, to38 INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

gether with the Fratelli Tutti Foundation, was a proclamation and a starting point. (This is a video projected onto the facade of St. Peter’s which tells the story of the first Pope. You can see the video in English at www.fondazionefratellitutti.org/video -mapping/#video-gallery-a32852d-2.)

All this work continues outside of St. Peter’s Basilica, in the places of the apostolic memories, trying to involve the religious and parish com-

“THE LORD GAVE ME THE OPPORTUNITY TO WORK WITH MANY PEOPLE TO BUILD COMMUNITIES”

munities of Rome around these sites so that they return to the originating moment of this truly special Community which, having the Pope as Bishop, presides with him in Charity over all of the churches of the world.

Furthermore, in St. Peter’s Square we wanted to recover the Marian dimension of the face of the Church by presenting as an image the “Mother of the Church” which is the most emblematic Marian image we have in the Basilica, and proposing in the months of May and October, on Saturday evenings, the procession with her image and the recitation of the rosary aux flambeaux.

In the month of June, however, we dedicate St. Peter’s Square to the

prayer of the “Via Petri,” a pious practice that traces the life of Peter in twelve stations. In other times of the year, the Basilica hosts a common prayer every Saturday evening, with Eucharistic adoration at the altar of the Confession: each time there is great participation, especially of young people. And the other liturgical moments in the life of the Basilica are underlined by its own liturgies, memorials and celebrations with displays of relics linked to the passion of Christ, or to the Popes and holy doctors who are buried there.

Furthermore, the celebrations tend to take over the space of the Basilica so that when you enter, especially on Sunday, you are necessarily catapulted into the prayers, the songs, the scents of the incense, the splendor of the lights of the celebrations — allowing the basilica to reveal its most beautiful aspect, also artistically speaking, as part of the praise that the whole Assembly raises to the Father.

It is a work in progress and we must have the patience to involve all those who are at the service of the basilica, clerics and lay people both. It’s not automatic: you need training, time, and tenacity in the face of normal resistance (“It’s always been done like this in the Basilica…” or “These things have never been done in the Basilica!”). But things of value convince over time and become a shared mentality and then, finally, a common feeling and action.

What was the most unexpected but joyful aspect of your coming to St. Peter’s in 2021?

When Cardinal Gambetti called me to talk to me about this proposal for me, I was really very surprised; it was St. Patrick’s Day 2021. But the thing that made me rejoice so much was the possibility of sharing this with the people who in all these years have accompanied me. The Lord gave me the opportunity to

VATICAN NEWS ON HOLY WEEK “SNACK” WITH THE HOMELESS A “snack” with the poor of St. Peter’s: Fra Agnello Stoia and a moment of listening and friendship

n BY ADRIAnA MASOTTI (VATICAn nEWS) The parish priest of the Vatican Basilica recounts the afternoon spent with the homeless who live in the area around the Vatican in the courtyard of the Santo Spirito in Sassia complex, shared with the almoner Cardinal Krajewski and many volunteers: “We listened to their stories, which were very incisive. We decided to do it outdoors because our friends live on the streets” Fra Agnello Stoia with one of the “guests” in the Courtyard of the Friars inside the monumental complex of Santo Spirito in Sassia (photo: Vatican Media)

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pillow, a slice of tart and a cup of tea: many small “living rooms” to experience an afternoon of serenity and friendship and put aside, at least for a few moments, the weight of loneliness and indifference. This is the gift that on Monday, March 25, the beginning of Holy Week this year, the Apostolic Charity Office and the parish of St. Peter’s wanted to offer to the poor who gravitate around the Vatican Basilica every day. About a hundred invitations were made, and 75 or 80 people responded with their presence.

The location of this special “snack” was the “Courtyard of the Friars” inside the monumental complex of Santo Spirito in Sassia, which was possible to access thanks to the collaboration of the Extraordinary Commissioner of ASL Rome 1, Giuseppe Quintavalle. With the papal almoner, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, and the parish priest of the Basilica, Fra Agnello Stoia, many volunteers sat together with the poor to talk and listen to their stories. In addition to the showers, health care services, and the provision of clothing and food by the Charities and various associations, it is occasions like these that

make people for whom life is particularly hard feel part of a community.

To Vatican Media, Fra Agnello described the afternoon he experienced: “It was a moment placed in the context of Holy Week which begins with Jesus at his friends’ house. In fact, we titled it ‘With Jesus in Bethany, in the house of Lazarus.’ In Lazarus’ house, Jesus finds the warmth of friendship and above all he finds Martha and Mary, Mary who listens to him and Martha who serves him.

“And so we wanted to share all this with our poor friends. We welcomed them like Jesus in a beautiful place, recalling Lazarus’ house, and there were people who listened to their stories; therefore acting like Mary, and others served them, like Martha. It was a very beautiful moment, an embrace for our poor friends, wanting to enter Holy Week with them like this.

“Jesus, among other things, in yesterday’s Gospel, where the others reproached Judas for the outburst that he makes when he complains, in short, ‘All this perfume… is wasted; it could have been given to the poor…’

— Jesus says of Mary: ‘Leave her alone, because you will always have the poor with you...’”n

work with many people to build communities. And then my joy has always been a participation in this large group of people who have come from everywhere to rejoice with me, wherever the Lord has called me to serve.

And this joy was contagious, because even in the Vatican they immediately realized that something unusual was happening; this group of peaceful invaders brought a liveliness and happiness that belonged to everyone. The last occasion was last November, when I celebrated my 30th anniversary of priestly ordination: together with a nice group of families we also managed to organize a chestnut party inside the rectory, roasting a quintal of chestnuts for everyone, with the great joy of the Canon brothers, the Sanpietrini and all those who joined our spontaneous celebration.

How do you maintain your sense of humor about the difficulties of your job?

I have a healthy sense of humor, more Neapolitan than English. It is a heritage that I carry from my family and cultural background in Naples.

And as happens in Naples, every day on the street you can see the spectacle of life, with its most tragic aspects and, at the most tragic point, it ends up becoming even more comical (Pirandello’s great lesson, which is visible in Edoardo De Filippo’s theater or in the comedy of Totò)...

So I too, in St. Peter’s, often see myself as if I were inside a kind of “nativity scene” tableau composed of such jagged humanity. Inside that magnificent setting of the Basilica, there is an important fact that is always remembered: God becoming man. In my heart, I have the notes of Saint Alphonsus de’ Liguori and contemplating this mystery gives me joy; it is a meditation that puts me in a good mood continuously, even in the face of the thousand curtains that open every day on the many characters that inhabit St. Peter’s — like a Neapolitan “nativity scene.”m JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN 39

INTERVIEW

harvesting organs: “bioethiCs is in a disastrous situation” What the ChurCh must bring to today’s life-and-death debates, as the basiC Criteria for an ethiCal evaluation are being lost... n BY ITV STAFF

German Fr. Ralph Weimann is a theologian and author of several books including Sacramentals: Their Meaning and Spiritual Use and Guide for Truth-seeking Christians, with a preface by Cardinal Robert Sarah. He holds two doctorates, one in theology and one in bioethics, and lectures in Rome at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) and the International Online University Domuni, run by the Dominicans.

ITV: Fr. Weimann, why has Catholic bioethics taken on such urgency today?

FR. RALPH WEIMANN: The main difficulty with ethics in general and all bioethical issues in particular is the concept of man. We can only know what is good and bad for the human person if we understand what man is. Today, however, there is no longer any consensus concerning that understanding, especially not among scientists, who are supposed to take decisions about life and death. Thus, bioethics finds itself in a disastrous situation since the basic criteria for an ethical evaluation have been, to a great extent, lost.

The late Cardinal Elio Sgreccia († 2019), provided a reasoned and logical foundation in this field and it will be of utmost importance to rediscover it. According to him, bioethics is an interdisciplinary subject that inevitably involves five different fields in order to do justice to understanding who the human person is: biology, medicine, law, philosophy and theology.

Biology and medicine are necessary to understand the development of life and the procedures to be used. The law must be considered, as it must serve to protect human dignity. At the same time, a realistic philosophy is needed to provide an understanding of who the human person is (cf. anthropology). Furthermore, theology is also fundamental, because life is not exclusively encompassed in the bodily dimension; man includes both soul and body, and thus a “broader perspective” is necessary.

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If such an interdisciplinary approach is ignored, it is common to fall into reductionism: reducing man to certain functions, desires, ideas, quality of life, etc. — all arbitrary aspects incapable of upholding intrinsic human dignity.

The Church is uniquely capable of bringing together all these different fields and doing justice to the question of who the human person is.

For many years, society has taken for granted that “brain death” was a validly defined phenomenon. Now it is being questioned. How have things changed?

Due to technological progress, Pope Pius XII († 1958) invited scientists to provide medical criteria defining death, whilst upholding the theological definition of death as separation between body and soul. However, ten years after his death, a revolution occurred when the Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School determined “brain death” as the new definition of death, even referring explicitly to Pope Pius XII. Concerning this important development, several aspects have to be mentioned: 1) How can such a new and momentous definition be composed by an Ad Hoc Committee? 2) The surprising historical context: shortly before this new definition was composed, the first heart transplant had taken place in South Africa in 1967, already anticipating, apparently, the “brain death” criteri-

Fr. Ralph Weimann’s new book Bioethical Challenges at the End of Life (New York: Angelico Press 2022)

on. It became evident that new norms had to be established to ethically justify such transplants. 3) Brain death was initially referred to as “irreversible coma,” which makes the whole problem apparent: a coma patient is not really dead! So the initial definition was subsequently changed — but the basic problems remained.

Later on, brain death was re-defined as the complete cessation of all brain activity. However, on the one hand it is extremely difficult to prove this from a scientific standpoint. On the other hand, certain parts of the brain remain exempt from the need for “complete cessation” in this criterion — above all, those parts of the brain that are responsible for maintaining alive those very organs that are going to be donated! The basic question must be asked: how one could possibly harvest living organs from a dead person?

To make a very long story short, many scientists are backing away from the brain death definition because it has proven too ambiguous; nevertheless, the general tendency remains in the opposite direction. But the ambiguity of the classical definition of brain death could allow for the inclusion of persons whose vital organs are all still functioning normally, or those that simply do not wish to live anymore.

For that reason, the National Catholic Bioethics Center published a document in 2023, urging not to “change its recommendation for the definition of brain death from the irreversible cessation of brain function to the permanent cessation of most brain activity. Such a change in policy would allow living patients with severe brain damage to be declared legally dead.”

Finally, this arbitrary definition paved the way towards a very problematic development: active euthanasia and suicide could be justified as facilitating the donation/harvesting of organs from living persons in poor health. Then the last ethical principles would be thrown overboard.

Is a brain-damaged person’s “quality of life” a legitimate factor? By what criteria must we judge?

In the absence of a normative, coherent concept of man, a kind of philosophy that refers to what is called “quality of life” has been widely substituted. This concept fits well in our post-modern, hedonistic society, putting the emphasis on one’s own well-being and desires — the “ego” comes first. In the end, Italian philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli’s († 1527) proposition becomes the guiding criterion: the end justifies the means.

Whenever such an understanding becomes accepted, it is almost impossible to defend the inviolable dignity of the human person. The concept “quality of life” is purely subjective and, therefore, not fitting for any ethical evaluation because according to it, anything becomes allow-

able, including declaring living human beings to be dead.

However, in Western tradition, there are three classical criteria that have proven essential in ethical evaluation — the sources of morality. For an act to be judged moral, what must be considered are, first, the actor’s intention; second, the object of the act; and third, the circumstances.

However, an act is only, morally speaking, good when it is good in every respect; but to be bad, it need only be defective in one respect. For example, if a physician or patient specifically intends to end his/her life, the whole action would be, morally speaking, bad. This is summarized in the Latin maxim: bonum ex integra causa, malum ex quocumque defectu (“good from a complete cause, evil from any defect”).

End-of-life issues in our aging populations confuse many. At what point is dying a natural process that need not be impeded, and when is it wrong to withdraw life support?

Firstly, the problematic demographic situation of many countries, especially in the West, is due to an egoistic life-style, based on contraception and abortion, which, as the Second Vatican Council said, is a heinous crime (cf. GS 51).

Secondly, whenever human dignity is not respected at the beginning of life, it will certainly not be respected at the end of life. Acceptance of abortion necessarily leads to acceptance of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Thirdly, social and economic pressures are increasing continuously, especially for the elderly and disabled. A “culture of death,” as Pope John Paul II called it, is on the rise. This forms the background for two extreme positions: On the one hand, there is a kind of “therapeutic obstinacy” — difficult to define, it refers to the application of medical interventions on someone who is already practically dead, or their application in a way that is disproportionate to the foreseeable effects. Therapeutic obstinacy prolongs unnecessarily the process of dying. On the other hand, at the opposite extreme, life is intentionally terminated, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Both extremes create anxiety.

It is not possible to answer in much detail here, but a more extensive explanation can be found in my book Bioethical Challenges at the End of Life (New York: Angelico Press 2022). Nevertheless, the following general criteria apply: everything possible must be done, but only the possible and in the best way possible. Thus, therapeutic measures and palliative care have to be proportionate and administered in the right way, so that they correspond to the twofold dimension of the principle of justice: 1) to promote human life, respecting human dignity, and 2) to avoid harming oneself or another.m JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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SCRIPTURE

the gOOdness Of hierarchy Obedience tO legtimate authOrity makes us more pOwerful n BY AnTHOnY ESOLEn “The propagation of Christianity”

by Tommaso Minardi, Quirinale Palace, Rome

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here is neither Jew nor Greek,” says Saint Paul, “there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you all are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). He had to say it, because the Galatians had gotten addled by preachers who persuaded them that their males must be circumcised, as if there were two orders of Christian adoption, the greater (for those who followed the law of Moses) and the lesser (for those who believed they were set free from all those laws that had been fulfilled, brought to completion, by Christ and in Christ).

Similarly, he had said to the church in Rome that the saving power of God is available to all. “Salvation comes from the Jews,” said Jesus to the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn. 4:22), but it does not end there, “for the same Lord is Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call upon him” (Rom. 10:12).

It is common in our time to read Paul’s words in Romans and Galatians as an expression of equality pure and simple, as a defining feature of God’s justice and his love, and as an implicit demand that we human beings commit ourselves, within the Church and without, to the same. When we meet Paul saying that our lives should be ordered by hypotaxis – by subordination one to another, as he does explicitly (e. g., Eph. 5:21), and

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implicitly (e. g., in his image of the Christian life as that of the members of a body, 1 Cor. 12:12-31), and in the clear vision he has of ecclesial order, so that a good bishop will be a man who has been a virtuous and capable head of his household (1 Tim. 3:4-5) – the critics hasten to suggest that Paul was not really the author of the letters with the passages in question, or that Paul or whoever else was the author did not understand the import of that absolute ideal of equality, or that he was, because of timidity or ignorance or a desire to compromise, too much beholden to the cultural norms of his place and time.

None of these dodges will work. First, Paul is just as insistent upon subordination in such letters as Romans and 1 Corinthians, whose authorship no one doubts, as he is in Ephesians and 1 Timothy. Second, it does not matter who wrote Ephesians and 1 Timothy, since the Church holds those letters also to be divinely inspired, and thus not to be smuggled into a closet as embarrassments.

Third, it is rather presumptuous of us to attribute cowardice to men like Paul, whom the Jews flogged five times within an inch of his life, who was beaten three times with rods, who was stoned, three times shipwrecked, “on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers,

“Saint Paul writing his epistles” by Valentin de Boulogne, Blaffer Foundation Collection, Houston, Texas, USA

danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danso because it was merely pragmatic, or because he was ger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the making a concession to the culture. That would be like wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in saying that Jesus was a trimmer, a coward, or a sly toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in manipulator. We must then accept that just as such hierhunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and expoarchies were good for his disciples, so they are good for sure” (2 Cor. 11:26-27). us also.

Fourth, he was by no means shy about challenging “We must obey God rather than men,” says Peter and everything foolish or wicked in the cultures around him. the apostles, when the high priest and his council Finally, who are we to judge the intelligence of Saint demand that they cease preaching about Jesus (Acts Paul? Aren’t we rather the ones who, in raising up equal5:29). And who is this God? “The God of our fathers,” ity as a criterion for judging they say, who “raised Jesus the veracity and consistenwhom you killed by hanging cy of the early Church’s him on a tree” (5:30). Peter is most energetic apostle, are not just identifying God. He beholden to cultural values, is calling into play the alleand will not tiptoe beyond giance we owe to our fathers, them? our forebears, because they “Holy, holy, holy,” we are the ones who passed pray at every Mass, “Lord along to us the knowledge of God of hosts!” The most God’s works. obvious thing about the In fact, that is one of the organization of a host – an ways God names himself to army – is that not every solMoses, from the burning dier is the same; the organibush: “I am the God of your zation is one of command, father, the God of Abraham, obedience, common devotion to the the God of Isaac, and the God of AREN’T THE ONES WHOSE cause, and mutual help. For the true Jacob” (Ex. 3:6). Paul himself claims general commands for the sake of his no originality: “For I received from CRITERION IS “EQUALITY” men; and the men, in obedience, the Lord what I also delivered unto BEHOLDEN TO CULTURAL make the general’s commands the you” (1 Cor. 11:23). The bearer of a VALUES? light of their eyes, the blood of their tradition is a middle term in an order heart, and the nerves in their arms. So it is with the heavof fidelity and love. He submits to what he has heard, enly hosts. “At that time,” says Daniel in his apocalyptic and he hands it on in service to those to whom he preachprophecy, “shall arise Michael, the great prince who has es; and in neither role does he assert any independence charge of your people” (12:1). And Paul himself, of thought or action. He is, like the centurion, “a man describing the second coming of the Lord, says it will be under authority” (Mt. 8:9). accompanied with “the archangel’s call” (1 Th. 4:16), I will conclude with an observation that would not and what is an archangel if not, literally, the chief angel, have surprised our greatest and wisest poets. It is that the angel in command? obedience to legitimate authority makes us more powerJesus himself, as I have often noted and written, was ful, more likely to contribute to remarkable enterprises. not shy of establishing hierarchies among his disciples.

It is thus not only an occasion to practice the humility we He sent out the seventy-two on their commission of praise more with our lips than with our deeds. It is our preaching and preparing the way for him (Lk. 10:1). He principal means of increase and multiplication. Let did not send everyone. He chose twelve men to be his Jesus himself be our example, who said that “the Son can apostles, and “gave them authority over all demons and do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the to cure diseases” (Lk. 9:1). He did not choose everyone.

Father doing” (Jn. 5:19). And look what he has done.

Among those twelve, he favored Peter, James, and John, to accompany him on the Mount of Transfiguration (Lk. *Dr. Esolen is a Distinguished Professor of Humani9:28), to be with him when he raised the little girl from ties at Thales College, North Carolina, and a senior edithe dead (Lk. 8:51), and to be at his side, apart from the tor and regular writer at Touchstone magazine. He is other disciples, when he prayed in the garden of Gethseauthor of more than 30 books, including a three-volume mane (Mt. 26:37). translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random Among those three, he singled out Peter to be their House), and well over 1000 articles in various journals, chief (Mt. 16:18), and he gave Peter the commission of and publishes a web magazine dedicated to language, shepherd over the shepherds, to strengthen the faith of music, poetry, and classic films called Word and Song, his brethren (Lk. 22:31). We dare not say that Jesus did with his wife, Debra.m JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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SPIRITUALITY BEHIND BARS

The hearT CheCk “THE GLORIOUS CITY OF GOD IS MY THEME, MY DEAREST SON, MARCELLINUS” n BY MARCELLUS ALLEn ROBERTS *

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he “heart check.” Before leaving then it waxed thoughtful. Through my B LACK C ATHOLICS the county jail for prison, an cellmate’s gangster-life exterior I could inmate will have heard about it, see that he had been ever-so-lightly ARE A “MINORITY WITHIN dreaded it, feared it, trembled. The heart touched. His street name was Cee-lo, A MINORITY” check is the legendary inaugural cerebut his mama had named him Cyril on mony of a prison sentence, where a new “boot” must his birth certificate. And though neither of those Church prove he is worthy to live on the cellblock of his assignFathers was a black African, I was able to show him that ment by entering into hand-to-hand combat with two or Cyrils had joined the Church in the past and there was more inmates of his same race, simultaneously . still room for more.

Why the same race? It is to certify that he is willing It would have been infinitely difficult for me to accept and able to defend himself and others of his own race in that Jesus was calling me to Catholicism had He not so the event that a race riot occurs. The logic is this: in the soothed my own racial wound. A couple of these inchaos of spontaneous violence, it is easiest to differentistances are worth citing. ate “others” from kin by skin color.

The first work written by a Church Father that I ever Now, had I used this type of racial reasoning while I read was St. Augustine’s City of God. It was an old hardwas questioning God about the exact nature of his True back translation from the fifties. The pages were crispy Church, I wouldn’t be Catholic today. It would have as Pringles; if you handled them too roughly, they’d been too easy to dismiss its verity at a glance. flake off at sharp angles, turning to confetti in Let me give you an example. In 2015 I reyour palms. The book had the smell of dust and vealed to my cellmate my interest in joining stale cigarettes, taking me back to the consignthe Catholic Church, and his response was, ment store my mama used to frequent when I “Isn’t that a white Church?” was a child. There was a used bookstore in the I don’t believe my cellmate was a racist, but backroom, and I’d venture back there to rifle he did have some false notions about the racial through the westerns, looking for a Louis demographics of the Catholic Church. My L’Amour novel to purchase for a dollar while solution was to apply a salve to the racial the store clerk puffed away on Pall Malls. wound my cellmate was suffering.

“The glorious city of God is my theme in this It so happened that I had a copy of selections work, which you, my dearest son, Marcellinus, A FIRE IN THE BONES: from the Church Fathers. I showed him suggested, and which is due to you by my Reflections on African-American two names: Cyril of Alexandria and Cyril promise.”

(City of God, Preface, St. AugusReligious History, of Jerusalem. His stare was blank at first, tine)

by Albert J. Raboteau 44

INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

I read the first sentence of St Augustine’s preface and his heart upon the page in striking detail and with an air got the eerie feeling that the words had traveled across of dignity that commands admiration: sixteen hundred years for the specific purpose of reach“And we cannot reckon how great the damage is, ing me at that moment. I never expected to see a derivasince the mentioned merchants are taking everyday our tive of my first name in an ancient Christian text. How natives, sons of the land and sons of our noblemen and could I not see myself as the “dearest son, Marcellus, of vassals and our relatives...” the Doctor of Grace?”

I could feel myself getting angry, and righteously so.

I consumed the whole tome, start to finish, delighting “...because the thieves and men of bad conscience in the truth that St. Augustine, though probably not grab them wishing to have the things and wares of this black, was truly African and my spiritual father.

Kingdom which they are ambitious of...”

That brings me to another inThe temptation to hate the perpestance of God addressing my racial trators dangled before me like lowwound that happened after my conlying fruit and I couldn’t stop readfirmation. ing.

Accepting my place in the Cath“... they grab them and get them to olic Church meant parting ways with be sold, and so great, Sir, is the cormany of the non-Catholic Christians ruption and licentiousness that our with whom I had previously enjoyed country is being completely depopufellowship. What I felt most acutely lated, and Your Highness should not was the distancing from other Afriagree with this nor accept it as in can-American Christians. This was your service.” an organic but painful ostracism that I was totally absorbed in the text, In this 16th century colored engraving, the king of Congo João I receives the homage proceeded naturally from choosing fully committed emotionally. of a group of Portuguese a relationship with Christ in the Then, as if on cue, as if he had Eucharist above every other created thing. When I known I would need a timely sign of God’s grace, King stopped attending Protestant services and began atAfonso penned the simplest, sweetest, most beautiful tending Mass exclusively, I got questions. When I withphrase that could have followed after the scenes of hordrew from general Bible studies and began instructing ror he had just described — and the root of bitterness in other inmates on the Bible in the light of Sacred Tradimy heart was defenseless against it. tion and the Magisterium, I got bewildered looks. Soon, “And to avoid it we need from those [your] Kingdoms I started to feel like the “other” brother. no more than some priests and a few people to teach in It was a tough time. I love the way Albert Raboteau school, and no other good except wine and flour for the described being black and Catholic in America in his holy sacrament.” book, A Fire in the Bones. He said he was a “minority Wait a minute! What? He didn’t ask for vengeance, within a minority.” I couldn’t have said it better. retribution, restitution, or reparations, not even an apolThere was one particularly intense exchange between ogy. King Afonso asked only for what was already owed another black inmate and me over some point of the to him from a Christian kingdom: priests, teachers, and Faith which kept me up all night afterward. The followthe Holy Sacrament. Wow. ing day I was so vulnerable from lack of sleep that I lost While the Protestant Reformationists were busy control of my emotions and vented my frustrations to my rending the seamless garment of Christendom, throwing Catholic brothers. I wept, in public. I felt misunderstood Europe into chaos and bouts of spontaneous violence, and alone, impotent against the invincible ignorance of there were West Africans, sub-Saharan Africans like me, my people. I was going through a real trial and in need who already harbored a love for the Eucharist in their of a breakthrough, and God knew it. hearts — a love that was not irritable or resentful.

My breakthrough came from an unexpected source: a Since discovering the letter of King Afonso, I have book by a journalist for the New York Times on the postnever questioned whether the Catholic Church is where colonial violence of West Africa in the 1990s. Early in all nations, tribes, peoples and tongues can find the fullthe book he quotes medieval correspondence between ness of what Jesus won on the cross. God gave me a heart King Afonso I of Congo and King João of Portugal, check, a Catholic heart check, to certify that the Catholic dated 1526.

Church is where I belong. It is where my people belong, I was drawn in. Especially since my father’s side of where we all belong.m the family still carries our Portuguese last name, it appeared I might have stumbled upon some family history. *Marcellus Allen Roberts is a 40-year-old Prison The letter was an eyewitness account of the devastation Oblate of St. Benedict’s Abbey, Atchison, Kansas. He wrought by the African slave trade. King Afonso bleeds is serving a 25-year penance in the state of Texas.

JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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C AT H O L I C I S M A n D O R T H O D O X Y E D I T E D B Y: C H R I S T I N A D E A R D U R F F

The Message of the Icon

BY ROBERT WIESnER

THE CREED: THE HOLY SPIRIT “I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE LORD, THE GIVER OF LIFE, WHO PROCEEDS FROM THE FATHER”

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hus begins the answer to Macedonianism, laid down by the Fathers of the Council of Constantinople in the year 381. The gathered bishops of course were aware of the existence of the Third Person of the Trinity, but little doctrinal thinking had fleshed out the character of the Holy Spirit. Saint Basil the Great had penned On the Holy Spirit some years before the Council, building upon the previous thought of Saint Athanasius; Basil had already noticed some problems with the followers of Macedonius.

But serious thinking about the Spirit’s place in the Trinity was still in its doctrinal infancy. The events of Pentecost in Jerusalem still awaited serious official clarification.

The Holy Spirit is first encountered as early as the second verse of Genesis: “The Spirit of God was brooding over the face of the water.”

Much like a hen concerned with her eggs, the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters, in anticipation of the Christian offspring of God to be born again in the waters of Baptism. Like infants of all kinds, though, some further preparation was necessary for the new Christian hatchlings to achieve their full stature as mature, functioning, grown-up children of God. The Acts of the Apostles tells us that prior to Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was not yet known, since Christ had not yet been glorified. With the Ascension, Creation and Redemption were accomplished, bringing to fulfillment the special operations of the Father and the Son. The sending of the Holy Spirit inaugurated the Sanctifying (or rather the re-Sanctifying) of the created world, bringing humanity back to the original innocence of Eden.

The promise given to the Jews was now to be extended by the great commission given to the apostles; they were commanded to preach the truth first in Jerusalem

and Judea, and then to Samaria and the greater world beyond — in fact, to all nations. As a sign of the mission to come, the Holy Spirit bestowed a special gift upon the Apostles, a sort of instantaneous translation whereby all the peoples of the earth were able to immediately apprehend the teachings offered on that momentous day. The first fruits of the Spirit were impressive: some three thousand souls were added to the believers by that marvelous outpouring of God’s grace.

Pentecost has long been seen as the reversal of one particular manifestation of sin in the world. The babble inaugurated by building a tower to reach heaven was reversed; the human pride behind that doomed effort, and the ensuing misunderstanding between peoples, was destroyed.

The true path to heaven was revealed to be the work of God through the power of the Holy Spirit in human history. Human efforts to achieve heaven on earth without recourse to divinity are clearly revealed in their futility, while it is made clear that the workings of God’s Holy Spirit can bring about the most dramatic results.

Alas, much of humanity still labors under the delusion that human institutions can, by themselves, achieve a sort of earthly paradise. A great many deluded visionaries are still seeking to erect their own towers of Babel, by political, philosophical, social or religious means, causing vast destruction and misery to many millions.

The obvious conclusion is that the work of the Holy Spirit is not yet finished and the task of leading fallible human beings to appreciate divine wisdom and guidance has some distance yet to travel.

As the work of the Holy Spirit continues, perhaps it is well to keep in mind through all our modern turmoil that the finest fruits of the Holy Spirit are yet to be seen.m

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East-West Watch

BY PETER ANDERSON

THE “ANCIENT PATRIARCHATES” In this icon we see the face of Christ between the Fathers of the Western and Eastern Church

n the early Christian Church, the Iwasprimary organizational structure the “diocese” – an area under the jurisdiction of a single bishop.

However, certain dioceses were more important than others. The First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325 gave special recognition to the Churches of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch as having certain powers extending beyond the geographical area of their own diocese. Each of these three dioceses had apostolic roots. The Churches of Rome and Antioch were founded by St. Peter, and the Church of Alexandria was founded by St. Mark, Peter’s disciple.

At the Second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in 381, the Council fathers recognized Constantinople as the see which is second in honor after Rome, because Constantinople was the “New Rome” and the capital of the Empire. In 451 the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon recognized a fifth church, Jerusalem, as having powers beyond its own diocese. In 531 Emperor Justinian used the term “patriarch” to describe the heads of the Churches of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.

In subsequent centuries, these five Churches have sometimes in the East been referred to as the “pentarchy.” The theory: if all five patriarchs agreed, the decision must be correct. Rome did not accept this theory as it would limit the universal authority of the Pope.

The influence of both Alexandria and Antioch was weakened by schisms following the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon. This Council affirmed the teaching that Christ had two natures (human and divine) as opposed to one nature (divine). The Council also deposed Patriarch Dioscorus of Alexandria, who did not accept the Council’s teachings, and appointed a new patriarch, Proterius, who did. The vast majority of the native Christians of northeastern Africa remained faithful to Patriarch Dioscorus, and they formed what is

today the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria. Patriarch Proterius became the head of what is today the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria.

The Patriarchate of Antioch was also affected by divisions caused by the Council of Chalcedon. In 512 a synod was convened in Sidon and replaced the pro-Chalcedon Patriarch Flavian II of Antioch with a new patriarch, Severus, who did not accept the Council of Chalcedon. The result was a schism. The followers of Severus became the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, and the followers of Flavian became the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch.

The spread of Islam decreased the number of Christians in the four ancient patriarchates of the East. The sultans of the Ottoman Empire made the Patriarch of Constantinople responsible for all Christians within the Empire. During the Ottoman rule, the Patriarch of Constantinople controlled the other three eastern patriarchates. With the passage of time, the churches of certain nations broke away from the Patriarchate of Constantinople and formed their own national churches. Four of these national churches — Russia, Romania, Serbia, and Bulgaria — have adopted the title “patriarchate,” but they are not one of the “ancient patriarchates” which continue to receive special honor.

Both Catholics and Orthodox agree that Rome is one of the “ancient patriarchates” and holds the first place in honor. Beginning in 642, Popes have sometimes used the title “Patriarch of the West.” From 1863 to 2005, this title was listed in the Vatican yearbook as one of the titles of the Pope. However, the title was deleted under Pope Benedict XVI in 2006. This raised concerns among the Orthodox that deletion of “the West” implied non-recognition of the four ancient patriarchates of the East. Now, in the Vatican yearbook for 2024, the “West” has suddenly and unexpectedly reappeared. Orthodox Christians are undoubtedly pleased.m

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C AT H O L I C I S M A N D O R T H O D O X Y E D I T E D B Y: C H R I S T I N A D E A R D U R F F

NEWS from the EAST

BY MATTHEW TROJACEK

POPE FRANCIS REINSTATES PAPAL TITLE of Mass – with the priest facing the altar – that the synod intro“PATRIARCH OF THE WEST” IN PONTIFICAL duced in 1999.

YEARBOOK An apparent majority of the faithful want the celebrant to face In the 2024 edition of the Annuario Pontificio, or Pontifical the congregation throughout the Mass, as has been their practice Yearbook, released April 9, Pope Francis reinstated the ancient, since 1970. As the synod pressed for compliance, they sought to honorary pontifical title of “Patriarch of the West,” reversing become an independent Church directly under the Pope.

Pope Benedict XVI’s 2006 decision to suspend the title.

Pope Francis addressed the leaders of the Church’s synod, This honorific designation has reappeared among the list of including the Church’s head, Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil, “historical titles” used to designate the theological and temporal on May 13. reality of the pontifical office. Those “I wish to help you, not supersede include Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor you, because the nature of your Church is of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme sui iuris (self-governing),” the Pope told Pontiff of the Universal Church, and the members of the hierarchy. But the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Province Pope urged the Church leaders to “keep of Rome, among others. the doors open” to those who have Following Pope Benedict XVI’s decirebelled. (UCANews) sion to drop the title in 2006, the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity (then POPE FRANCIS: YOUNG PEOPLE the Pontifical Council for Promoting “CAN BREAK THE CHAINS OF Christian Unity) issued a statement notANTAGONISM” BETWEEN ing that it had become “obsolete” and “no The dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox, already put CATHOLICS, ORTHODOX longer usable.”

Pope Francis has placed in young in crisis by the latter's support for the invasion of Ukraine, is becoming more complicated after the release of the The title “Patriarch of the West” was people his hope that Catholics and document Fiducia supplicans on blessing same-sex adopted in the year 642 by Pope TheoOrthodox may be “united in diversity” couples. Here, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, on a peace mission dore and was used for centuries, though to Moscow on Pope Francis' behalf, speaks with Russian and “break the chains” of antagonism, it was not until 1863, during the pontifi- Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow. (Photo/Russian Orthodox misunderstanding, and prejudice that Church, Department for External Church Relations) cate of Pope Pius IX, that the title first have kept them prisoners for centuries. appeared in the Annuario Pontificio. (CNA) In an audience on May 16, the Holy Father received the director-general of the Apostolikí Diakonía – the official publishing RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH: DIALOGUE WITH house – of the Orthodox Church of Greece, Metropolitan AgathTHE CATHOLIC CHURCH DIFFICULT angelos, and a delegation from the Theological College of The dialogue between the Russian Orthodox and Roman Athens.

Catholic Churches is now difficult because of the latter’s attitude The Holy Father expressed his gratitude for the collaboration towards same-sex unions, Metropolitan Anthony (Sevryuk), between Apostolikí Diakonía and the Dicastery for the Promochairman of the Department for External Church Relations tion of Christian Unity.

(DECR) of the Moscow Patriarchate, said in an interview with He also addressed a particular greeting to the archbishop of RIA Novosti on Easter.

Athens and all Greece, His Beatitude Ieronymos II, who was pre“We have been conducting a dialogue with the Roman sent at the audience and whom the pontiff described as “a man of Catholic Church for many years. But today this dialogue is sigdeep faith and a wise pastor.” (CNA) nificantly more difficult,” he said. The dialogue, he added, is complicated by the Vatican document Fiducia supplicans on CARDINAL FERNÁNDEZ MEETS WITH COPTIC blessing same-sex couples .

CHURCH LEADER OVER SAME-SEX BLESSING The vicar general of Moscow’s Catholic archdiocese, Fr. KirRIFT ill Gorbunov, told RIA Novosti in response that the blessing of Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, who heads the Dicastery people in same-sex unions does not mean the Church legitimizes for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), met with the leader of the or recognizes such unions. (Pravoslavie) Coptic Orthodox Church to ease tensions over the recent Vatican declaration that permits non-liturgical blessings for same-sex POPE ASKS INDIA’S EASTERN RITE CHURCH TO couples.

SOLVE ITS LITURGY DISPUTE In March — less than three months after the DDF published The Eastern-rite Syro-Malabar Catholic Church of some 5 the December 18, 2023, declaration Fiducia Supplicans — the million, based in southern Kerala state, India, faces the threat of Coptic Orthodox Church suspended dialogue with the Catholic a split after a majority of priests and laity in its Ernakulam-AngaChurch amid concerns about the blessings. maly archdiocese persistently refused to follow a uniform rubric In a meeting with Coptic Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria on 48

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Wednesday, May 22, Fernández told Tawadros that the Catholic Church remains opposed to marriage for same-sex couples and emphasized that non-liturgical blessings cannot be performed in a way that would confuse the blessing with a marriage, according to Vatican News.

The cardinal further affirmed that the Holy See agrees with the Coptic Orthodox Church’s March 7 statement, which affirmed the “firm position of rejecting all forms of homosexual relationships, because they violate the holy Bible and the law by which God created man as male and female.” It added that “the [Coptic] Church considers any blessing of such relations, whatever its type, to be a blessing for sin, and this is unacceptable.”

(CNA)

ing the first reading of 8371 on October 19, 2023.

The latest version, 22 pages long, is the third version of 8371, adopted on April 4, 2024. The second version, 20 pages in length, was adopted on March 5, 2024, after considering the many amendments submitted by deputies. The full text of the second version was never posted on the Internet.

Although none of the three versions referred to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) by name, both deputies in the Rada and the Ukrainian media have repeatedly referred to 8371 as a law to ban the UOC. In accomplishing this goal, the second and third versions take a different approach than the original version in establishing the criteria for banning a religious organization. In the original version, the key provision was as follows: “Activities of AnTIOCH PATRIARCH’S CHURCH In InDIA FACES religious organizations that are affiliated with the centers of THREAT OF SPLIT influence of a religious organization (association), the governFifty thousand Christians in the ing center (control) of which is located Archdiocese at Chingavanam in outside of Ukraine in a state that carries India’s Malankara Syriac Orthodox out armed aggression against Ukraine, Church, based in southern Kerala are not allowed.” This ambiguous prostate, are divided after Patriarch of vision was construed by the UOC and Antioch Ignatius Aprem II suspended many others to mean that the activities their Archbishop Severios Kuriakose of the UOC could only be prohibited if May 17. its “governing center (control)” is locatAt a May 21 emergency meeting, ed in Russia. the archdiocesan members declared This interpretation provided some the suspension of their Metropolitan optimism to the UOC that it would illegal, saying “The Patriarch has escape the sanctions imposed by 8371, of the Ukrainian Parliament called in recent days to only spiritual powers and no power to A session because there is no evidence that the legislate on the legitimacy of the activities of the Russian deal with temporal matters, including Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) is in Orthodox Church in favor of the Russian invader dismissing our Metropolitan.” fact controlling the decisions of the The archdiocese is part of the larger Knanaya Christian comUOC after the UOC’s Local Council of May 2022. munity in Kerala, who claim to descend from a group of JewishFaced with the possibility that the UOC might escape the Christian emigrants from Cana in Southern Mesopotamia. The sanctions of 8371, the Draft Law was changed to make it certain migrants are believed to have landed on the Kerala coast in AD that the UOC could not escape; language was added that a reli345. (UCANews) gious organization is not allowed to operate if it is simply “affiliated” with a Russian religious organization.

UKRAInE PARLIAMEnT MOVES TO BAn On February 1, 2023, an “Expert Group” found that a UKRAInIAn ORTHODOX CHURCH Church-canonical connection did exist and that the UOC was On May 6, 2024, the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian Parliapart of the ROC. ment) posted on its website a “comparative table” for Draft The latest version of 8371 has been reviewed by the Law 8371 which includes the original one and one-half Main Legal Department of the Rada and concludes that pages of its first version, submitted by the Prime Minister “the draft law can be adopted in the second reading, takof Ukraine on January, 2023, and a brief summary of ing into account the comments of the Main Legal each of the 1,260 amendments that were offered followDepartment.” (Peter Anderson)m

The Christian Churches, the communities of the disciples of Christ, were intended to be united as one; Pope John Paul II proclaimed, “The Church must breathe with Her two lungs!” Unfortunately, the Churches are not united. This is a great scandal, an impediment to the witness of the Church. Since unity was desired by Christ Himself, we must work to end this disunity and accomplish the will of the Lord.

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49

TradiTion and BeauTy

What CatholiC artists should expeCt from the Coming Jubilee Could it be a time to reClaim their Call to authentiC beauty? n BY AURELIO POFIRI *

A

s we all know, in 2025 mass culture — which we owe, there will be a Jubilee in in large part, to the influence of Rome, and I — who live American consumer culture on in Rome — am able to truly Europe and the world. We cannot experience how the city is prehide the fact that Europe is largeparing for this significant relily a culturally devastated contigious event, with the hope of nent, especially in those counwelcoming millions of spiritual tries which, like Italy, are “cryppilgrims. to-colonies” of the United States.

Now, if we are more realistic Of course, we do not forget and less grandiose in our thinkour debt of gratitude [to Ameriing, we cannot fail to recognize ca], but we must also be careful that, in reality, the constant denot to definitively lose who we cline of faith among the masses are. Americans have a strong will certainly be felt in this Jubisense of their own identity — so lee — and many of the “pilgrims” will what about us? Furthermore, it would be simply be tourists who take advantage nice to hope that the Church stops chas“THE WORLD NEEDS BEAUTY of such an event and the various orgaing modernity, trying to give birth to IN ORDER NOT TO SINK nized Jubilee trips just to enjoy a Rome something completely new and still INTO DESPAIR” vacation. But a particular category of somehow Catholic. How many times people that I would like to look at carefully is that of have we seen fashionable artists having the red carpet Catholic artists: musicians, poets, painters, sculptors, rolled out for them in churches, so that their clients could architects and so on. What can these people expect from a feel at peace with their consciences, as being judged to be Jubilee, which we would like to think of as a time of renewin step with modernity. Dear priest, bishop, cardinal: don’t al? you realize that modernity has largely evolved as an antiThe situation of artistic culture in the Catholic Church Catholic function and that therefore it must not be simply has collapsed to its lowest levels for a few decades now and accepted, but must be redeemed? the saddest thing is that there are no real signs of a return Unfortunately, it is not easy to escape this error, given to the great artistic tradition of which we are the unworthy that, generally, education in the fundamentals of Catholiheirs. When you experience this situation from the inside cism is extremely incomplete and that many struggle to — as, for example, a Church musician — it is understandunderstand what is right and what is wrong. In the past, the able that you feel deeply discouraged. But still, trying to Church, through the voice of Pope Paul VI, addressed a have a little hope, what can we expect? message of great solemnity to artists on the occasion of the It would be one thing for all the disciplines I mentioned closing of the Second Vatican Council: above to be taken seriously again. Unfortunately, today, in “The Church has long since joined in alliance with you. the vast majority of cases, there is an ignorance on the subYou have built and adorned her temples, celebrated her ject that borders on obtuseness. As one cardinal pointed out dogmas, enriched her liturgy. You have aided her in transto me, even priests, bishops and cardinals are children of lating her divine message in the language of forms and figcontemporary society, a society heavily vulgarized by ures, making the invisible world palpable. Today, as yes50

INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

terday, the Church needs you and turns to you. She tells you through our voice: Do not allow an alliance as fruitful as this to be broken. Do not refuse to put your talents at the service of divine truth. Do not close your mind to the breath of the Holy Spirit.

“This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. It is beauty, like truth, which brings joy to the heart of man and is that precious fruit which resists the wear and tear of time, which unites generations and makes them share things in admiration. And all of this is through your hands. May these hands be pure and selfless.

Remember that you are the guardians of beauty in the world. May that suffice to free you from tastes which are passing and have no genuine value, to free you from the search after strange or unbecoming expressions.”

But, Holy Father, now, more than to artists, similar words should be addressed to your brothers in the priesthood of every order and degree: “Brothers, why have you abandoned Catholic artists to chase fashions and disfigure the face of the Bride of Christ with works that would be considered unworthy even in hovels? Why don’t you stop chasing these and instead start promoting a truly and proudly Catholic art, which will influence secular art?”

If any Pope wishes to use these words of mine, I will grant him permission… but I highly doubt it.

The Church must return to producing a beauty that speaks to everyone, and which elevates us to God… a beauty that comes from God, which is primordial Beauty,

and returns to God, our consolation. If only the Church were to rethink its recent path, perhaps we could begin to see the light. Don’t they realize that up to now they have failed? What has rejecting tradition for blind progress led to? Did you fill the churches? No, the churches continue to be empty, and I am not so naive as to think merely re-instituting Gregorian chant would be enough to fill them again.

As I have said, the aesthetic miseducation that spans from the level ecclesial hierarchy down to the last believer now leaves little hope that the world can be Catholicized again. They have emptied us, only to fill us with pseudospiritualistic junk, and have dug an abyss of solitude around our hearts.

It would be beautiful to hope that the Jubilee will be that time in which we return to being clothed in the beauty of God and his Son, Splendor Paternae Gloriae, with the intercession of the Holy Spirit, dulce refrigerium. It would be nice if this time could be the event in which Catholic artists who resist the filth from which they are effectively excluded raise their heads and have the courage to say: Enough! Give us back the chance to serve, as we are able, the most beautiful of the sons of man with our art.m *Aurelio Porfiri is an extensively published composer, conductor, writer and educator. He has lived and worked for 7 years in Macau, China and is the founder of the publishing company Chorabooks. Find him on his YouTube channel Ritorno a Itaca and on Facebook.

JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN

51

Of Books, Art and People

A Blind Singer’S Shining Soul n BY LUCY GORDAn Introduction by ITV staff

For Andrea Bocelli, 65, whose powerful, melodious tenor voice has made him one of Italy’s most beloved singers, the Christian faith is at the heart of who he is as a person and a performer — and as a philanthropist.

Bocelli has described his faith as a “priceless gift,” which he said helps drive the selection of his musical repertoire and his charitable outreach. “Whoever has this same gift improves their own life and the world around them,” he once said. “I believe that having faith means believing in the power of good, and at every crossroad choosing the road that leads to it.”

Music itself is a potential expression of the sacred and of faith in the transcendent, Bocelli said.

Bocelli was not always so devoted to his faith. Although he found inspiration as a child worshipping in a small Catholic church in the Tuscan village where he was born and raised, he became agnostic as a teen — a decision he attributed to the “arrogance of youth.”

“Later, however, at the first fundamental turning point in my adult life (that is, the moment I decided to believe or not to believe, because there clearly isn’t a third option), I chose the way that seemed the most logical — that my intellect, for however limited, saw as the path to follow without alternatives,” he said. "My work as a musician, like that of a philanthropist that I carry out through the Andrea Bocelli Foundation, reflects this choice, a choice that is old as it is fundamental, which I could sum up as the will to pay homage to beauty and saying ‘yes’ to all that is good.”

Bocelli was born with congenital glaucoma. When a soccer ball struck him in the head at age 12, he lost all vision completely. Fourteen years ago, Bocelli appeared in a YouTube video outlining his thankfulness to his mother for choosing life. Seated at a piano, he recalled how his mother’s doctor suggested an abortion in anticipation of her son’s disability. “But the young brave wife decided not to abort, and the child was born,” Bocelli said in the video.

52 INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

Here, Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli (who is blind), with the head of his Andrea Bocelli Foundation, Laura Biancalani, at the recent inauguration of the foundation’s new Maria Manetti Shrem Educational Center in Florence, Italy. Photos courtesy of The Andrea Bocelli Foundation. Photo credit: Giacomo Moresi, 2024.

“That woman was my mother, and I was the child. Maybe I’m partisan, but I can say that it was the right choice.” He added that he hoped sharing the story would encourage “many mothers who sometimes find themselves in difficult situations,” but who want to “save the life of their baby.”

Although he is a busy virtuoso opera singer who tours the world and has sold more than 90 million records, Bocelli makes time for solitude and silence. “Silence, I believe, hides true treasures, because it leads to reflection, while it is also an essential space in which to collect one's thoughts in prayer,” he said. “Whenever I can, I try to escape the clamor and confusion of cities and go to the country and nature that are a haven for the spirit, ideal for finding the right dimension for reflection.” Singing for three Popes — St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis — were among the most emotional moments in Bocelli’s career, he said. The 65-year-old singer described St. John Paul as “magnetic,” Pope Benedict as “pure intellect,” and Pope Francis as “a man of few words but of great deeds.”

He was especially moved when St. John Paul placed his hand on his shoulder “like a father.”

The performer, who has sung with his son, Matteo, and his daughter, Virginia, said good music contributes to spiritual growth. His charitable foundation promotes music and artistic education for children, in addition to promoting humanitarian outreach around the world to deal with poverty, illness and complex social issues. “Being a philanthropist, taking care of people... does not simply mean being generous and it is not only a moral duty. It’s an act of intelligence, a path that all of us ─ each as much as we can ─ should perceive as the only path to follow.”

—From a February 19 article in the Detroit Catholic by George P. Matysek Jr., managing editor of the Catholic Review, the news outlet of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

A

ndrea Bocelli and Lauto create projects for poor commura Biancalani, the CEO nities with high illiteracy. For examof The Andrea Bocelli ples, over the years, the Foundation Foundation, are from the same has raised over 60 million euros to hometown, Lajatico, about 25 construct schools in Haiti and in miles south of Pisa. Born on Italy. These schools still provide September 22, 1958, Bocelli quality education to over 20,000 grew up on his family farm students every day. where they sold farm machinery In Italy during 2020, in co-operand made wine. ation with the Italian Pediatric Hos“In 1994, shortly after he’d pitals Association (AOPI), The won the San Remo Song FestiFoundation launched a program to val in the ‘new voices’ category Center, Andrea Bocelli, with his wife Veronica Berti (right) and (left) support educational and artistic acphilanthropist Maria Manetti Shrem outside the new Shrem for his song ‘Il mare calma deltivities for the over 60,000 hospitalEducational Center in Florence during its inauguration. Below, la sera’,” Biancalani wrote me, Bocelli and his wife with Eugenio Giani, president of Tuscany, and ized students in Italy who attended Sara Funaro, the Deputy Mayor of Florence “I knocked on Andrea’s front schools in specialized facilities or door to ask him to organize a at home thanks to the Ministry of concert to benefit the local hosEducation’s Home Education serpice for the terminally ill with vice. This number rises to 1 million HIV. Impressed that only at age when it includes children with 18 I was dedicated at helping chronic illnesses. In 2022 over others, he agreed and we’ve 17,000 children benefitted while been close friends ever since. hospitalized in eight Italian hospiThat concert was Andrea’s first tals. philanthropic experience.”

Based on the success of the proTogether with Biancalani, gram, on March 21, the foundation Bocelli’s first major internationinaugurated its latest project, The al philanthropic collaboration Maria Manetti Shrem Educatook place in January 2010 after a disastrous earthquake in tional Center at the Meyer Children’s Hospital in Florence.

Haiti which killed thousands and destroyed most infraNamed for a Florentine-Californian opera-lover, art collector, structures. He, his manager Veronica Berti, whom he met benefactor, and The Foundation’s ambassadress since 2017, in 2002 and married in 2014, and Biancalani worked with it’s the world’s first school building on a hospital’s grounds.

Father Rick Frechette, the founder of St. Luc Fondation Designed by the Rome-based international architectural there, whom they’d met a few months before at a New firm Alvisi Kirimoto, the white-walled Center is surrounded York concert and with whom they still collaborate. Over by green lawns and includes a patio with tables, an area for the next decade, until 2019’s civil war, the Bocellis and an patients to grow plants and vegetables, and a playroom.

ABF team traveled to Haiti at least 4 times a year to supLarge windows brighten its large irregularly-shaped classport and participate in humanitarian projects. rooms and laboratories. Its furniture is colorful and cheerful.

Founded in 2011, The Andrea Bocelli Foundation “Attempting to describe what one experiences in places (ABF), headquartered in Florence, was inspired by Flolike… the Meyer hospital,” said Andrea Bocelli, who was rence’s three-term Christian-Democrat mayor Giorgio La hospitalized frequently, although never at The Meyer, as a Pira’s fervent charitable interventions and the Bocellis’ child for congenital glaucoma, at the Center’s inauguration, first hands-on Haitian experience the year before. Since “is futile because the joys and sorrows experienced here canthen, it’s funded humanitarian, educational and/or medical not be expressed in words. Here one experiences a season of projects in Italy, England (music scholarships), Greece, time, and time in life is short. We must optimize it and sucIraq, Syria (schools in refugee camps in all three counceed in giving a profound meaning to the time spent in hostries), The United States (music scholarships), The Holy pital... When here, children feel the need not to fall behind Land (vocational guidance), Ukraine (basic medical and their peers and even study more willingly than those not-hosfinancial aid for people who’ve had to abandon their pitalized who have the opportunity to run and play soccer. homes), and Vatican City, where it built the showers for The world is propelled forward by those who work and do, the homeless in St. Peter’s colonnade, to name just a selecnot by those who merely talk. Therefore, I would like to tion. “Our vision,” explained Laura Biancalani, “has alspeak little and simply express my endless gratitude to everyways been global. Our main, but not exclusive, mission is one and sincerely wish them the best in the work they do.”m JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN 53

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His monikers are many: Lucifer, Beelzebub, the Serpent, the Adversary, the Tempter, the Father of All Lies, the Ruler of This World. His lurking presence in the world and the history of mankind is one of the major themes of the Bible. But how many people today take Satan seriously?

Most people’s image of the Evil One resembles an old Saturday Night Live parody: a goofy guy in a bright red body suit, with a pointy tail, plastic horns, a goatee, and a ridiculous sneer — someone about as o昀ensive as Santa Claus’s “evil twin brother.”

Most people put as much stock in Satan in Hell as they do Santa in the North Pole. The reigning attitude is that all this Satan-and-Hell stu昀 is the preoccupation of infantile minds, an insult to one’s intelligence.

The topics of Satan and Hell are generally laughed o昀 in our secularized society. Even many Catholic priests and bishops are reluctant to mention them, for fear of appearing out of touch.

But you don’t have to be a brain surgeon to realize that suppression of the reality of Satan and Hell involves grave consequences. The whole notion of evil is compromised; man’s propensity to sin gets glossed over; and people begin to wonder what exactly it is they need salvation from. If people have no need of salvation, they have no need of a Savior; if they have no need of a Savior, they have no need of a Church in which to receive Him.

Should we be surprised, then, that weekly Mass attendance has dropped from a high of 74% before Vatican II to a nadir of 17% since the ill-advised COVID-19 lockdowns? Or that former Catholics now outnumber converts by a ratio of 5-1?

If Satan’s cleverest wile is to convince us that he doesn’t exist, then he’s been wildly successful.

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THE END EXCERPTS fRom LoRD of THE WoRLD

“faiTH in man WaS of THE vERy ESSEnCE of RELigion” MORE THEN A CENTURY AGO, MONSIGNOR ROBERT HUGH BEnSOn FORESAW THE RISE OF SECULAR HUMANISM, THE CONTRACTION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, AND THE COMING OF THE ANTICHRIST n BY ITV STAFF Editor’s Note: The passage below is from the Prologue to the novel Lord of the World, written by the English Catholic convert Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson (the son of the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury) in 1907. He attempts a vision of the world more than a century in the future — in the early 21st century… our own time… pre-

LORD OF THE WORLD

BY ROBERT HUGH BENSON (1907) BOOK II, THE EnCOUnTER, CHAPTER VII, SECTIOn II (Note: Government official Oliver Brand comes home to comfort his wife in the midst of violent unrest in the streets, aimed against Catholics. She is a Catholic herself, although also a devotee of the secular “savior” Julian Felsenburgh. She is troubled and confused; her husband soothes her by reminding her, Benson writes, of the new “faith in man’s best self, in what he would become, not in what at present he actually was.

They were at the beginning of the new religion, not in its maturity; there must be sourness in the young fruit.”)

T

he same night Oliver Brand came home about an hour before midnight.

For himself, what he had heard and seen that day was still too vivid and too imminent for him to judge of it coolly. He had seen, from his windows in Whitehall, Parliament Square filled with a mob, the like of which had not been known in England since the days of Christianity — a mob full of a fury that could scarcely draw its origin except from sources beyond the reach of sense. Thrice during the hours that followed the publication of the Catholic plot and the outbreak of mob-law, he had communicated with the Prime Minister, asking whether nothing could be done to allay the tumult; and on both occasions he had received the doubtful answer that what could be done would be done, that force was inadmissible at present; but that the police were doing all that was possible.

As regarded the despatch of the volors to Rome, he had assented by silence, as had the rest of the Council. That was, Snowford had said, a judicial punitive act, regrettable but necessary. Peace, in this instance, could not be secured except on terms of war — or rather, since war was obsolete — by the sternness of justice. These Catholics had shown themselves the avowed enemies of society; very well, then society must defend itself, at least this once. Man was still human. And Oliver had 56

INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

dicting the rise of Communism, the fall of faith in many places, the advance of technology (he foresees helicopters) and so forth up until... the Second Coming of the Lord, with which his vision ends. For this reason, and also because Pope Benedict and Pope Francis have repeatedly cited the book, saying its clarification of the danger of a type of humanitarianism without God is a true danger that we do face, we print a selection from it in ITV, now and in the months ahead.

listened and said nothing.

As he passed in one of the Government volors over London on his way home, he had caught more than one glimpse of what was proceeding beneath him. The streets were as bright as day, shadowless and clear in the white light, and every roadway was a crawling serpent. From beneath rose up a steady roar of voices, soft and woolly, punctuated by cries.

From here and there ascended the smoke of burning; and once, as he flitted over one of the great squares to the south of Battersea, he had seen as it were a scattered squadron of ants running as if in fear or pursuit…. He knew what was happening… . Well, after all, man was not yet perfectly civilized.

He did not like to think of what awaited him at home. Once, about five hours earlier, he had listened to his wife’s voice through the telephone, and what he had heard had nearly caused him to leave all and go to her. Yet he was scarcely prepared for what he found.

As he came into the sitting-room, there was no sound, except that far-away hum from the seething streets below. The room seemed strangely dark and cold; the only light that entered was through one of the windows from which the curtains were withdrawn, and, silhouetted against the luminous sky beyond, was the upright figure of a woman, looking and listening….

He pressed the knob of the electric light; and Mabel turned slowly towards him. She was in her day-dress, with a cloak thrown over her shoulders, and her face was almost as that of a stranger. It was perfectly colorless, her lips were compressed and her eyes full of an emotion which he could not interpret. It might equally have been anger, terror or misery.

She stood there in the steady light, motionless, looking at him.

For a moment he did not trust himself to speak. He passed across to the window, closed it and drew the curtains. Then he took that rigid figure gently by the arm.

“Mabel,” he said, “Mabel.”

She submitted to be drawn towards the sofa, but there was no response to his touch. He sat down and looked up at her with a kind of despairing apprehension.

God as depicted by British poet William Blake as the “architect of creation,” now in the British Museum, London

“My dear, I am tired out,” he said.

Still she looked at him. There was in her pose that rigidity that actors simulate; yet he knew it for the real thing. He had seen that silence once or twice before in the presence of a horror — once at any rate, at the sight of a splash of blood on her shoe.

“Well, my darling, sit down, at least,” he said.

She obeyed him mechanically — sat, and still stared at him.

In the silence once more that soft roar rose and died from the invisible world of tumult outside the windows. Within here all was quiet. He knew perfectly that two things strove within her, her loyalty to her faith and her hatred of those crimes in the name of justice. As he looked on her he saw that these two were at death grips, that hatred was prevailing, and that she herself was little more than a passive battlefield.

Then, as with a long-drawn howl of a wolf, there surged and sank the voices of the mob a mile away, the tension broke…. She threw herself forward towards him, he caught her by the wrists, and so she rested, clasped in his arms, her face and bosom on his knees, and her whole body torn by emotion.

For a full minute neither spoke. Oliver understood well enough, yet at present he had no words. He only drew her a little closer to himself, kissed her hair two or three times, and settled himself to hold her. He began to rehearse what he must say presently.

Then she raised her flushed face for an instant, looked at him passionately, dropped her head again and began to sob out broken words.

He could only catch a sentence here and there, yet he knew what she was saying….

It was the ruin of all her hopes, she sobbed, the end of her religion. Let her die, die and have done with it! It was all gone, gone, swept away in this murderous passion of the people of her faith … they were no better than Christians, after all, as fierce as the men on whom they avenged themselves, as dark as though the Savior, Julian, had never come; it was all lost … War and Passion and Murder had returned to the body from which she had thought them gone forever…. The burning churches, the hunted Catholics, the raging of the streets on which she had looked that day, the bodies of the child and the priest carried on poles, the burning churches and convents. … All streamed out, incoherent, broken by sobs, details of horror, lamentations, reproaches, interpreted by the writhing of her head and hands upon his knees. The collapse was complete.

He put his hands again beneath her arms and raised her. He was worn out by his work, yet he knew he must quiet her. This was more serious than any previous crisis. Yet he knew her power of recovery.

“Sit down, my darling,” he said. “There … give me your hands. Now listen to me.” ***** He made really an admirable defense, for it was what he had been repeating to himself all day. Men were not yet perfect, he said; there ran in their veins the blood of men who for twenty centuries had been Christians…. There must be no despair; faith in man was of the very essence of religion, faith in man’s best

self, in what he would become, not in what at present he actually was. They were at the beginning of the new religion, not in its maturity; there must be sourness in the young fruit. … Consider, too, the provocation! Remember the appalling crime that these Catholics had contemplated; they had set themselves to strike the new Faith in its very heart….

“My darling,” he said, “men are not changed in an instant.

What if those Christians had succeeded!… I condemn it all as strongly as you. I saw a couple of newspapers this afternoon that are as wicked as anything that the Christians have ever done. They exulted in all these crimes. It will throw the movement back ten years…. Do you think that there are not thousands like yourself who hate and detest this violence?… But what does faith mean, except that we know that mercy will prevail? Faith, patience and hope — these are our weapons.”

He spoke with passionate conviction, his eyes fixed on hers, in a fierce endeavor to give her his own confidence, and to reassure the remnants of his own doubtfulness. It was true that he too hated what she hated, yet he saw things that she did not…. Well, well, he told himself, he must remember that she was a woman.

The look of frantic horror passed slowly out of her eyes, giving way to acute misery as he talked, and as his personality once more began to dominate her own. But it was not yet over.

“But the volors,” she cried, “the volors! That is deliberate; that is not the work of the mob.”

“My darling, it is no more deliberate than the other. We are all human, we are all immature. Yes, the Council permitted it, … permitted it, remember. The German Government, too, had to yield. We must tame nature slowly, we must not break it.”

He talked again for a few minutes, repeating his arguments, soothing, reassuring, encouraging; and he saw that he was beginning to prevail. But she returned to one of his words.

“Permitted it! And you permitted it.”

“Dear; I said nothing, either for it or against. I tell you that if we had forbidden it there would have been yet more murder, and the people would have lost their rulers. We were passive, since we could do nothing.”

“Ah! but it would have been better to die…. Oh, Oliver, let me die at least! I cannot bear it.”

By her hands which he still held he drew her nearer yet to himself.

“Sweetheart,” he said gravely, “cannot you trust me a little?

If I could tell you all that passed to-day, you would understand.

But trust me that I am not heartless. And what of Julian Felsenburgh?”

For a moment he saw hesitation in her eyes; her loyalty to him and her loathing of all that had happened strove within her.

Then once again loyalty prevailed, the name of Felsenburgh weighed down the balance, and trust came back with a flood of tears.

“Oh, Oliver,” she said, “I know I trust you. But I am so weak, and all is so terrible. And He so strong and merciful. And will He be with us to-morrow?” (to be continued) JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN

57

VATICAN WATCH

By Matthew Trojacek with CNA Reports - Grzegorz Galazka and CNA photos

APRIL

Ukraine, fighting against the Russian invasion, la Repubblica reported. (Reuters)

THURSDAY 11

FRIDAY 19

POPE DECRIES HOW “THE UNBORN POPE FRANCIS ISSUES MOTU PROPRIO WITH DISABILITIES ARE ABORTED” ON VATICAN JUDICIARY RETIREMENT AGE Pope Francis decried how “the unborn with disabilities AND BENEFITS are aborted” in a speech on April 11 to a Vatican conference In the latest move in Pope Francis’s reform of the Vatican on disability inclusion. judiciary, the Pope issued a new motu proprio on April 19 on The Pope warned that “the throwaway culture” turns into the retirement age and benefits for cardinal judges and mag“a culture of death” when people “presume to be able to esistrates in the Vatican’s court system. tablish, on the basis of utilitarian and functional criteria, The motu proprio states that Vatican magistrates will rewhen a life has value and is worth being lived.” tire at the end of the judicial year in which they turn 75, and He pointed out that we see this today especially on the cardinal judges at the age of 80, unless Pope Francis asks two extremes of the spectrum of life — “the unborn with disthem to remain in office beyond the age limit. abilities are aborted and the elderly close to the end are adThe Pope also has the prerogative to dismiss magistrates ministered an ‘easy death’ by euat any time. Upon the termination of thanasia.” their duties, magistrates will retain According to the University of the rights to assistance and welfare Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for provided to Vatican citizens and emChurch Life, it is estimated that there ployees. (CNA) are as many as 27,000 abortions annually due to a poor prenatal diagnoTHURSDAY 25 sis in the United States.

PAPAL AUDIENCE FOR “Every human being has the right CATHOLIC PRESIDENT to live with dignity and to develop OF HUNGARY Pope Francis met with Tamás Sulyok, President of the integrally. Even if they are unproducOn April 25, Pope Francis met Republic of Hungary, who visited Rome on April 25 tive, or were born with or develop with Tamás Sulyok, President of the limitations, this does not detract from their great dignity as Republic of Hungary, who later also discussed geopolitical human persons, a dignity based not on circumstances but on matters with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State, acthe intrinsic worth of their being,” the Pope declared. (CNA) companied by Monsignor Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations.

THURSDAY 18 On social media, President Sulyok, who is Catholic, statITALIAN POLICE ARREST “MOST WANTED” U.S. ed: “Pope Francis received me in a personal audience, and I FUGITIVE IN SAINT PETER’S SQUARE had a meeting with the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro On April 10, Italian police arrested a “most wanted” U.S. Parolin. As a devout Catholic, it is a great honor for me to fugitive who was carrying three concealed knives in a meet the successor of Saint Peter.” (Zenit) crowded Saint Peter’s Square outside the Vatican, a judicial source said on April 18.

MAY The fugitive, now in police custody, was identified as Moises Tejada, who is classified as violent by the New York state prison service’s investigations unit. The 53-year-old is SUNDAY 5 listed among the department’s most wanted individuals.

PRIEST IS ARRESTED WHO SOUGHT Tejada, whose name has the alternative spelling of TeiaTO ENTER THE VATICAN WITH WEAPONS da, attracted the suspicion of police who detained him and On May 5, a Catholic priest of Czech nationality was arfound he was carrying knives that were 20 cm (8 inches) rested by the Vatican City Police while carrying a weapon in long. his hand luggage.

Saint Peter’s Square was busy with pilgrims and tourists He was trying to enter Saint Peter’s Square, but the Police as Pope Francis was holding a general audience that day. It arrested him after searching his backpack and finding a BB was not clear if Tejada, who has convictions for robbery and gun, a cutter, and a screwdriver. Although the priest exkidnapping, posed any threat to the Pope. plained that it was a self-defense weapon for personal use, Investigators found that Tejada had recently arrived in the agents arrested him and confiscated the weapon. The Rome from Moldova, having previously spent time in priest also said that the objects in the bag weren’t his.

58 INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

Top, Pope blesses “voice of the unborn” bell destined for Kazakhstan.

Below, Pope Francis gave a solemn blessing with the Blessed Sacrament from the steps of the Basilica of St. Mary Major.

The priest’s name is Milan Palkovic, 58. He was in Rome with a group of Catholic pilgrims from the Czech Republic. Together with the priest was a companion, probably the owner of the luggage, who gave the backpack to the priest in the belief that he wouldn’t be searched.

(Zenit)

ny of Taiwan’s new president Lai Ching-te on May 20.

Lai, 64, a member of the ruling nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), was elected 8th president of Taiwan on January 13.

The DPP won the election for the third consecutive term despite mounting threats from China, which attempted to influence the polls on the island. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province. (UCANews)

SUNDAY 12

VATICAN MUSEUMS UNDER FIRE FROM WORKERS, LOCAL RESIDENTS Nearly 50 employees of the Vatican Museums have initiated a dispute with the Holy See over alleged poor, unfair, and unsafe working conditions, which could result in a class action lawsuit against Pope Francis’s administration.

In a petition sent to Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, President of the Government of the Vatican City State, which was first reported on in the press on May 12, attorney Laura Sgrò, who is representing the workers, claimed that current rules cause “labor conditions undermining each workers’ health and dignity.”

Sgrò’s letter marks the first step in a mandatory conciliation process under Vatican law, which, if the process fails, could result in the first-ever class action suit being brought to a Vatican court. The Vatican has 30 days to respond with any measures they intend to take before judicial proceedings would be opened. (Crux) WEDNESDAY 15

POPE BLESSES “VOICE OF THE UNBORN” BELL DESTINED FOR KAZAKHSTAN “The Holy Spirit always raises us to a higher level of selfless and practical love towards the poor, the sick and the vulnerable, such as conceived children.”

Pope Francis offered that reflection during his greetings to Polish pilgrims at his General Audience on May 15.

He praised an initiative that will bring a bell called the “Voice of the Unborn” to Kazakhstan, saying it will “serve as a reminder of the importance of protecting human life from conception to natural death.”

Ahead of the General Audience, the Pope blessed the bell and rang it with two Polish children. The initiative was promoted by the Yes to Life Foundation of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, based in Poland. (VaticanNews) MONDAY 20

VATICAN ENVOY ATTENDS PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION IN TAIWAN Vatican envoy Archbishop Charles Brown, apostolic nuncio to the Philippines, attended the inauguration ceremo-

JUNE SATURDAY 1

CARDINAL PAROLIN: POSSIBLE DIRECT ATTACK ON RUSSIA “DISTURBING” Speaking to journalists on the margins of a book presentation in Milan June 1, Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, said the use of NATO weaponry on targets within Russia — now being considered by NATO members — “should concern every person that cares about the fate of our world.”

“It could lead to an escalation that no one will be able to control; it is a disturbing prospect,” he said.

SUNDAY 2

POPE JOINS CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION FOR FIRST TIME IN YEARS Pope Francis gave a solemn blessing with the Blessed Sacrament from the steps of the Basilica of St. Mary Major on June 2, in the culmination of a Eucharistic procession through the streets of Rome.

Holding the monstrance in his hands, the pope offered the blessing on the solemnity of Corpus Christi on June 2, following prayers of adoration in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

Crowds lined the streets as the Eucharist was carried under a canopy from the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran to the Basilica of St. Mary Major along the Via Merulana, following the historic route Pope Gregory XIII created for religious processions between the two basilicas during the Jubilee of 1575.

Cardinals, bishops, priests, religious sisters, and families walked together in the one-hour procession, singing hymns and reciting prayers. Curious tourists stopped to ask what was happening and onlookers leaned out their windows to watch as the real presence of Christ passed by.

“We are not doing this to show off or to flaunt our faith but to invite everyone to participate in the bread of the Eucharist, in the new life that Jesus has given us,” Pope Francis said.n JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN 59

PEOPLE B M Y

ATTHEW TROJACEK with G. Galazka photos

MURDER OF PRIEST MYANMAR MILITARY BOMBINGS HIGHLIGHTS RISING HIT TWO CHURCHES VIOLENCE IN SOUTH AFRICA Aerial bombings by milFather Paul Tatu Mothobi, itary junta have left a Cathformer Media and Communicaolic Church and a Baptist tions Officer of the Southern Church damaged in a vilAfrican Catholic Bishops’ Conlage in the Christian-majorference (SACBC), was found ity Chin state in western shot to death on April 27.

Myanmar May 11 and 12, According to Father Jeremia Thami says a report (photo).

Mkhwanazi — the Provincial Secretary of the The bombardment also Congregation of the Sacred Stigmata (CSS/ destroyed five houses, Stigmatines) to which Mothobi belonged — prompting terrified vilhis body was found in his car with bullet lagers to flee their homes. The affected Catholic Church is under wounds along the road that runs from Cape Kalay Diocese and the local parish priest Titus En Za Khan managed Town through Bloemfontein, Johannesburg, to flee to nearby forests with local Catholics to escape bombings.

Pretoria, and Polokwane to BeitBridge, a bor“The violence continues to impact the civilian population, espeder town with Zimbabwe. cially in the area of Sagaing, part of the diocese of Kalay,” a local The priest, who comes from Lesotho’s Catholic told Fides.

Catholic Archdiocese of Maseru, was studying The junta forces targeted churches, Church-run organizations and for his Doctorate in Communication at the Christian villages as some of the states including Chin, Shan, Kachin, University of Johannesburg when he met his and Kayah are predominantly Christian, where largely Christian ethdeath. nic rebels have been battling the military. (UCANews) Johan Viljoen, the Director of the Denis Hurley Peace Institute (DHPI) of the SouthINDIA GETS ITS FIRST ern Africa Bishops’ Conference, said he was “deeply SPEECH-IMPAIRED PRIEST shocked by the killing of Father Paul.”

Born deaf and speech-impaired, Father “Nobody is safe in South Africa and the government is Joseph Thermadom, 38, of the Holy Cross doing nothing to improve the situation. They have lost Congregation, was ordained at Our Lady of touch with the people they claim to represent, thinking only Dolours Basilica in Thrissur, in the state of Kerof how to enrich themselves,” Viljoen said. (Crux) ala, by Archbishop Mar Andrews Thazhath on May 3.

According to Church sources in India, Thermadom is the U.S. AMBASSADOR TO VATICAN STEPS DOWN first deaf person to be ordained as a priest in the Catholic After two years serving as the Church in the country.

U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, Joseph Donnelly will ROBERTO BENIGNI JOINS POPE soon step down from the post, AT WORLD CHILDREN’S DAY the U.S. Embassy to the Holy The Italian actor and coSee announced May 30 in Rome. median Roberto Benigni, “It has been an honor and a privilege to best known in the Englishserve my country in this unique way,” Donspeaking world for his nelly, a pro-life Democrat who served one 1997 film Life is Beautiful, term each in the U.S. House and Senate, said which won three Oscars, is in a statement. No reason was famous in his native councited for his departure. try for his monologues, President Joe Biden nomiwhich blend humor with nated Donnelly, an alumnus of commentary on politics the University of Notre Dame and literature.

Benigni delivered one of them to a packed St. Peter’s with both BA and JD degrees, for Square on Sunday, May 26, following Mass for the first World Chilthe post in 2021; he was confirmed in 2022. dren’s Day. (In the photo, Benigni is on the lower right, facing Pope Donnelly has defended Biden as a man of Francis and a group of children, in St. Peter’s Square.)

“In life, peofaith. Donnelly served as co-chair of Cathple give a lot of advice,” Begnini said.

“But I can honestly say: the olics for Biden through the 2020 election, and only sensible thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life, do you know even wrote an op-ed in the Indianapolis Star who I heard it from?

From Jesus.

In the Gospel, the Sermon on the when Biden’s faith was questioned by PresiMount…

‘Blessed are the merciful’...

It seems to me to be the only dent Donald Trump, saying Biden “lives his sensible thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.” (VaticanNews) faith every day.” (Catholic Herald) 60 INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

He is believed to be the second such priest in Asia and the 26th in the world.

He did his theology studies at the Dominican Missionaries for the Deaf Apostolate in the United States. He conducts his prayers in sign language.

Speaking to Crux, Thermadom said his mission as a priest “is to provide all sacraments in Indian Sign Language to all Catholic deaf people in India.” (Crux) WEIGEL: “PONTIFICAL ACADEMY FOR LIFE

BETRAYING ITS FOUNDER” George Weigel, biographer of Pope St. John Paul II, lamented that the Pontifical Academy for Life betrayed Dr. Jérôme Lejeune, its founding president, with a book that dissents from the pontiff’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae (“The Gospel of Life”).

In a talk titled “St. John Paul II and Jérôme Lejeune: Two Lives at the Service of Life,” given as part of the second InJERUSALEM PATRIARCH ON GAZA CATHOLIC COMMUNITY’S “STEADFAST FAITH”

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa (above, in Gaza, wearing his red cardinal’s hat), the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, described the small resilient community of the Holy Family Parish compound in Gaza City as one with “steadfast faith,” amid horrific destruction and constant bombardment following his return from a four-day pastoral visit during Pentecost.

“Despite the everyday issues, I saw a community united, well-organized, concerned about the future.

There was suffering and complaints, but there were no words of anger or resentment. This is something which should not be taken for granted,” he said in a press conference on May 20. Their main concern at the moment is for their children and their education, he said, having already lost an academic school year. “Inside the compound, there are dozens of children but also all around is full of children. Everything is destroyed and it is very difficult to find one house (intact).” (UCANews)

ternational Conference on Bioethics in Rome from May 1718, Weigel said that “the academy has published a book with the ironic title La Gioia della Vita, (“The Joy of Life”) authored by theologians who can only be described honestly as dissenting from the authoritative teaching of Evangelium Vitae.”

“That book not only weakens the Catholic case for a culture of life that rejects the grave crimes against life identified by Evangelium Vitae. It does so in terms of an anti-biblical and anti-metaphysical anthropology that would have been completely foreign, indeed abhorrent, to both Jérôme Lejeune and John Paul II,” he pointed out. (CNA) FRANCIS: JUBILEE A TIME TO ACT ON DEBT RELIEF Pope Francis spoke on June 5 to participants in a meeting on the “Debt Crisis in the Global South,” and suggested that the coming Jubilee Year would be an appropriate time for action to relieve that debt.

He said: “In order to try to break the debt-financing cycle, it is necessary to create a multinational mechanism, based on the solidarity and harmony of peoples, that takes into account the global nature of the problem and its economic, financial and social implications.” (Vatican News) VATICAN STING OPERATION: ALLEGED MANUSCRIPT THEFT A former Vatican employee, identified by news outlets as Alfio Maria Daniele Pergolizzi, was arrested in a sting operation for trying to sell back a manuscript he allegedly pilfered from the archives of St. Peter’s Basilica (left, a sketch of the basilica’s main altar), the Vatican confirmed June 6. Pergolizzi is an art historian who ran the communications office for St. Peter’s Basilica from 1995 to 2011. At least one individual, however, has raised doubts about actual Vatican ownership of the manuscript.

Maria Grazia D’Amelio (photo) a professor of architecture who authored the 2021 volume edited by Pergolizzi, Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini and the Gold for the Baldacchino of St. Peter (1624-1633), said she never saw any trace or reference to the manuscript during the many times she used the archives in her research, and only saw a scanned copy provided by Pergolizzi.

Pergolizzi told gendarmes that he received the manuscript from Italian Monsignor Vittorino Canciani, a former canon of St. Peter’s Basilica who died in 2014, suggesting it was part of a private collection.

The news site Faro di Roma (“Lighthouse of Rome”) was critical of the Promoter of Justice’s use of deception to ensnare Pergolizzi. “Clearly, this is an investigation based on a trap set for a former employee… it’s stupefying that this kind of logic is followed within the Vatican State,” said a May 6 statement by Faro di Roma.m JULY-AUGUST 2024 INSIDE THE VATICAN 61

Food FoR THoUGHT n BY MOTHER MARTHA

T

the restaurant’s website. A favorite of he ancient Romans were the the world-famous actor Roberto Begworld’s first gourmets. They nini, be sure to book (obligatory) at owe their obsession with food, least five days in advance. In addition at least in part, to fellow citizen Marto the standard menu, Franco and his son Maurizio have an cus Gabius. Better known as Apicius, he was a wealthy decaadditional separate menu for each day of the week. For the dent epicure who in the first century wrote De Re Coquinaria Romans traditionally eat fish on Tuesday and Friday, gnocchi (Concerning Culinary Matters), the world’s first cookbook. on Thursday, and tripe on Saturday.

He specialized in spicy sauces and cakes and held extravagant Still another dynastic homage to Romanità through its cuifeasts for his friends, in particular the emperor Tiberius’ son, sine is Sora Lella, founded in the 1950s by the short, plump, at his seaside villa at Minturnae between Rome and Naples. exuberant, comic actress Elena Fabrizi with her much more Alas, when he’d blown most of his fortune, Apicius poisoned famous and even shorter and plumper gourmand comic actor himself, afraid to die of hunger. After Apicius’s suicide, De Re older brother Aldo. The children of a widowed fruit vendor in Coquinaria was copied and recopied. The oldest two survivRome’s historic food market in Campo de’ Fiori, they considing manuscripts are in the Vatican Library and in the New ered their acting careers a hobby and their true profession York Academy of Medicine. restaurateur and gastronome.

Roman cuisine might not be to everyone’s taste. Before the Located on the Tiber Island, the only island in Rome, it’s internet, when I wrote about it for Hemispheres, United Airacross from the ancient port. Since 293 BC, lines’ inflight magazine, the editor sent me a when a temple was dedicated here to Aescufax saying “Do the Romans really eat those lapius, the god of healing, there’s always been a things?” To my answer “yes,” in shock he rehospital here. sponded, “And you?”

After Sora Lella’s death in 1993, her disciple My “I’ve learned to” left him speechless. and son Aldo Trabalza took over. Now Aldo’s Although many of Rome’s some 5,000 four children, so the third generation, run the bustling, clattery trattorie serving Roman sperestaurant. His sons Mauro and Renato, who cialties are family-run, only Checchino dal learned Nonna Lella’s recipes hands-on in the 1887 has belonged to the same family for so 1980s, are the chefs. Her, and now their, mouthlong — six generations so far. The restaurant is watering starters include supplì, artichokes carved into the man-made Monte de’ Cocci, a deep-fried Jewish style, and potato crochets. hill of discarded broken amphoras from ancient Rome’s nearby port. Brothers chef Elio and The late Elena Fabrizi, aka So- The menu includes all the classic “Roman” quinto quarto pastas, even some for celiacs. But ra Lella, an Italian actress, sommelier Francesco Mariani specialize, although not exclusively, in dishes using the cook and television presenter the house specialty, on the menu since 1961, a homemade tonnarelli alla cuccagna, with 18 ingredients in quinto quarto or fifth quarter — offal, tripe, intestines, and the sauce, bacon, sausage eggs, and walnuts and more, is a oxtail — originally discarded or used as part of the workers’ must, as are Renato’s home-made ricotta cake with wild chersalaries at the slaughterhouse across the street which closed in ry sauce and his gelati.

1975. In fact, coda alla vaccinara (oxtail braised with tomato Like Felice and Sora Lella, Armando al Pantheon, foundand celery), now a classic of cucina romana, was invented ed in the 1960s, is in its third generation of the Gargioli famhere. Also, always on the menu are: rigatoni con pajata (pasta ily ownership. It’s just across the street from the Pantheon, the with baby-calf intestines), animelle (sweetbreads), coratella best preserved of all ancient Rome’s buildings. Reservations con carciofi (chopped lamb heart, liver, lungs, and windpipe are available on line, and only a month ahead of your desired with artichokes), and trippa (tripe) cooked with wild mint and meal. If you’re among the lucky few to find a table, the musts tomato. are: spaghetti alla griscia, rigatoni con la pajata, and homeAnother dynastic eatery of Roman cuisine is Felice, owned made fettucine con le regaje di pollo (with chicken innards). by the Trivelloni family since 1936. Like Checchino dal To these all-in-the-family classics, don’t overlook the new1887, it’s located in the once working-class turned chic neigher entries: Trecca and Osteria Fratelli Mori are also both in borhood called Testaccio named for the Monte de’ Cocchi. FeTestaccio, and newest of all (opened November 2023), Casa lice’s star dish is tonnarelli cacio pepe, whisked at your table.

Sceppa, a 10-minute walk from St. Peter’s Basilica.m Present owner Franco, Felice’s son, has posted its recipe on

WHEN IN ROME, WHERE TO EAT LIKE A ROMAN

From left: Sora Lella’s son and successor with his four children (Courtesy of Mauro Trabalza). Coda alla vaccinara first served at Checchino dal 1887.

Family photo outside “Armando al Pantheon” (Courtesy of Chiara Gargioli). 9th-century manuscript of De Re Coquinaria by Apicius (Wikipedia).

62 INSIDE THE VATICAN JULY-AUGUST 2024

Southern Liturgicals “Where art and beauty embrace the sacred”

The importance of Religious statuary serve as silent sentinels of faith, stand ready to elevate hearts and minds toward the celestial realms.

Whether it be the grandeur of a cathedral or the intimacy of a private home chapel, let us assist you in the selection and acquiring of your statuary. These hand carved wood statues of our Popes shown here are a sample of the statues we can provide for you. Shown here also are other beautiful statuary we carry of Our Blessed Mother, St. Michael the Archangel, and our lifelike large church and chapel crucifixes. Visit our website to see our beautiful statuary made of various compositions.

We are an American-owned and operated company financially supporting the spiritual and academic formation of future priests since 1992.

Ordination Chalices Metalware Ordination Gifts Ciboria Monstrances

Reliquaries Tabernacles Sanctuary Lamps Statuary Thuribles Mass Kits Altar and Floor Viaticum Kits Candlesticks Religious Jewelry Crucifixes Vestments …and much more

Clergy Wear Clergy Accessories Albs and Surplices Altar Linens Candles

When a seminarian purchases a chalice from Southern Liturgicals we will donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale of that chalice to the Seminary Education fund/Seminary Burse to the respective diocese he is going to be ordained to the priesthood for in his name. We want to give back to lend our support to the Seminarians coming behind that seminarian being ordained to help with the expenses of educating priests. This program is strictly limited to the United States Seminarians as the International wiring fee of funds would make it cost prohibitive.

816-A Harding Street Lafayette, Louisiana 70503 (337) 456-5892 SouthernLiturgicals.com

“‘For to us a child is born, to us a son is given’: he is the ‘Prince of Peace.’ Let us welcome him!”

-POPE FR ANCIS

Christmas in Italy and the Opening of the Jubilee Year December 2024 Christmas is a wonderful time to be in Rome. The entire city seems to light up with a special joy, and there is even more peace throughout the city than usual. The entire city can actually seem to become a small village. We, too, will become “Roman villagers” at Christmas.

Throughout Italy, every church constructs a presepio (or presepe) — a Nativity tableau which may even include “living” crèche scenes with real people and animals — ranging from charmingly simple to stunningly elaborate. Some include hills, trees, lakes, rivers, angels suspended by wires, the Christmas star and reproductions of an entire village or the countryside of Bethlehem. Always, the straw-filled manger remains empty until the night of Natale — the birth of Christ.

Christmas time is also a special time to visit Assisi. St. Francis of Assisi began the Christian tradition of the manger scene by creating the very first one, with live people and animals, in the nearby town of Greccio. In Assisi, a beautiful life-size manger scene is displayed each Christmas in front of St. Francis’ Basilica.

Join us for this joyous Christmas celebration! Visit us online for more information on this moving spiritual pilgrimage.

PILGRIMAGE@INSIDETHEVATICAN.COM ∞ +1.202.536.4555 ∞ InsideTheVaticanPilgrimages.com