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Pope Denounces Hypocrisy, Greed, And Mudslinging Within Vatican Walls

Pope Denounces Hypocrisy, Greed, And Mudslinging Within Vatican Walls

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Monday said the Vatican’s central bureaucracy, the Roman Curia, was suffering from 15 “diseases,” in a speech that was seen as a scathing attack against the administration’s scandal-tainted old guard.

In particular, the pontiff spoke against the “hoarding disease” that sees members of the clergy “amassing material goods, not out of need, but to feel safe.”

In what was seen as an oblique reference to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who is about to move into a 500-square-meter flat, Francis recalled the story of a young priest who was mocked by his superior for loading too many possessions on a truck ahead of moving home.

“These moves are a symptom of our (hoarding) disease,” the pope said.

Bertone was Secretary of State, the Vatican’s second-highest position, under Pope Benedict XVI. Under his watch, the Roman Curia suffered from cronyism, infighting and financial mismanagement, as exposed by the VatiLeaks scandal.

On the weekend, Bertone was stripped of the title of Camerlengo of the Roman Catholic Church — the Vatican’s interim leader when popes die or retire — because he had reached the retirement age of 80. Francis replaced him with French Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran.

In his Monday speech — a traditional pre-Christmas address to Curia members — the pope also spoke against lugubrious priests, “cold-blooded assassins” of other people’s reputations, hypocrites and sycophants.

The church hierarchy is suffering from “the disease of existential schizophrenia: it is the disease of those living a double life (who) create a parallel world, where they disregard (the rules) that they sternly teach to others and live a life that is secret and often dissolute,” he said.

In another passage, Francis said some prelates were suffering from “spiritual Alzheimer’s disease,” meaning that they had gradually lost their spirituality, forgot their connection with God, becoming slaves to “their passions, whims and manias.”

He later addressed the Curia’s lay staff, pleading forgiveness “for my failings and those of my advisers, and also for some scandals, which are very hurtful. Forgive me.”

Francis was elected in March 2013 with a mandate to clean up a Catholic Church that had been shaken by Benedict XVI’s surprise resignation, coming after the VatiLeaks affair and worldwide revelations about pedophile priests.

He has made some progress, especially on financial transparency, but a wider reform of the Curia is still under consideration. The nine-member panel of cardinals studying the matter is due to meet again in February.

AFP Photo/Andreas Solaro

Pope Wants Free Debate During Vatican Summit On Family

Pope Wants Free Debate During Vatican Summit On Family

By Alvise Armellini, dpa

VATICAN CITY — Prelates taking part in a summit on how Catholic Church teachings could be adapted to modern lifestyles should not be afraid to speak their minds, Pope Francis said Monday.
Until Oct. 19, 191 bishops, cardinals and other church leaders are taking part in a meeting known as a synod. It is to discuss family-related issues such as marriage, divorce, homosexuality, single parenthood, contraceptives and premarital sex.
“A basic, general condition is this: Speak clearly,'” Francis said in introductory remarks to the synod, where debate began Monday after a Mass in St Peter’s Basilica Sunday. “Nobody should say, ‘I can’t say this. They will think this or that of me.'”
Synod participants should “speak with parrhesia,” the pontiff said, using an ancient Greek-derived term for free speech, but also “listen with humility” and “welcome with an open heart” what is said by others.
The run-up to the Vatican meeting was dominated by conservative and progressive cardinals sparring bitterly over whether a ban on remarried divorcees taking communion should be softened, for example, by allowing them into the rite after a period of penance.
Another proposal under discussion is to streamline church procedures for the annulment of marriages, a cumbersome and expensive alternative to divorce that allows Catholics to marry again without breaking with doctrine.
Francis is usually associated with church progressives because he has shown himself willing to embrace non-orthodox lifestyles. Last month, for instance, he married a woman who had a daughter out of wedlock.
In an interview published Sunday by the Argentine newspaper La Nacion, Francis said he enjoys debating with bishops who are “very conservative, but intellectually sharp” and wants all sides to contribute to the synod.
However, he warned that at the end of the exercise, he will have the last word.
“Freedom is always very important, but governing the church is another matter,” he said. “That is in my hands after the necessary consultations.”
Francis said he was worried in particular about the decline in marriages among younger generations.
“A lot of young people prefer to live together without marrying,” he was quoted as saying. “What should the church do? Expel them? Or rather, get close to them, embrace them and try to bring the word of God to them? I support the latter position.”
In synod discussions Monday, French Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois said, “The pastoral mission of the Church … is not to make life more difficult for the children of God but to help them in their search for truth in their lives.”
The head of the European confederation of bishops, Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdo, also called for compassion, noting, “The church must have recourse to the medicine of mercy rather than to oppose error with the weapons of rigidity.”
Bishops and cardinals were expected to produce a document at the end of this month’s discussions. It will serve as the base for a second synod in a year’s time, which would be expected to submit reform proposals for the pope’s final approval.

AFP Photo/

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Israel Clamps Down On Activists Ahead Of Pope’s Visit

Israel Clamps Down On Activists Ahead Of Pope’s Visit

By Jan-Uwe Ronneburger and Shabtai Gold

JERUSALEM — Israel has banned four far-right activists from entering the Old City of Jerusalem during the pope’s upcoming visit, a police spokesman confirmed Thursday.

They include three youths under the age of 18, spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said.

The orders issued by police also place the activists under administrative house arrest during parts of Pope Francis’ stay in the Holy Land on Sunday and Monday.

Roman Catholic leaders in Israel and the Palestinian territories have condemned a series of recent anti-Christian hate crimes by Jewish extremists, including racist graffiti sprayed on churches.

Israel Tourism Minister Uzi Landau told the German news agency dpa that “marginal groups” are behind the incidents.

“We are speaking about criminals. The police will deal with that, and I hope they will be even much more successful in doing that,” said Landau, adding that the incidents were “embarrassing.”

Israel’s security services said they decided to issue the house arrest orders as a preventative measure, amid concern extremists were planning to cause provocations.

Haaretz newspaper reported that the Shin Bet intelligence agency had collected evidence of “intentions by radical right wing activists to disrupt the visit of the pope planned for next week, and also to engage in provocative and illegal actions in order to incite inter-religious tensions ahead of the visit.”

The pope starts his trip on Saturday in Jordan.

 maxnathans via Flickr

Rabbi, Muslim Leader To Accompany Pope On Middle East Trip

Rabbi, Muslim Leader To Accompany Pope On Middle East Trip

By Alvise Armellini

VATICAN CITY — The leader of the Catholic Church will be accompanied by a rabbi and a Muslim leader on a trip to the Middle East this month, the Vatican said Thursday, hailing Pope Francis’ symbolic gesture as “formidable.”

Abraham Skorka and Omar Abboud, both based in Buenos Aires, are longtime friends of the Argentina-born pontiff. Skorka is the head of the Latin American Rabbinical Seminary while Abboud leads the Institute for Interreligious Dialogue.

By taking them along with him, Francis is sending “a formidable message,” namely that “good interreligious dialogue is a normal part of the holy father’s way of life and of presenting himself,” said Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi.

Official papal delegations have never included members of other religions.

Francis is to visit Jordan, the Palestinian territories and Israel May 24-26. The main purpose of the trip is to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the meeting in Jerusalem between Pope Paul VI and Eastern Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Athenagoras.

Skorka is to join the papal party in Bethlehem May 25 because he will observe the Shabbat the previous day while Abboud will be alongside the pope from May 24 when Francis is due to arrive in Amman, Lombardi said.

Despite usual security concerns for high-profile visits in the region, the pope is not planning to use any armored cars and will ride an open-top jeep to celebrate Masses in an Amman stadium and in Bethlehem’s Manger Square.

Lombardi expressed the Vatican’s “obvious condemnation” of recent acts of anti-Christian vandalism in Israel but said there were “no grounds to doubt” that the papal trip “would not take place in an absolutely serene manner.”

During the trip, Francis is likely to renew calls for peace in Syria and between Israelis and Palestinians, condemn the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, urge Christian unity and reach out to other religions.

Francis is due to meet Athenagoras’ successor, Patriarch Bartholomew I, sign a common declaration and jointly recite Our Father prayers in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem — an unprecedented gesture of reconciliation between the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

In Israel, Francis is to visit the Wailing Wall and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Center. He will not celebrate a public Mass in the country, but in a first for a visiting pontiff, he will lay flowers at the tomb of Zionist movement founder Theodor Herzl.

AFP Photo/Andreas Solaro