Becciu case, the ‘cheated Pope’ label is no longer enough. Here are the five mistakes of the pontiff

There is no doubt that the worm unearthed in Vatican since Becciu scandal has squashed the attention of public opinion on the new encyclical of French Pope, who nevertheless will validly walk in the coming years because his thinking is powerful. But for the moment the media catastrophe because scandal overwhelms everything.

Meanwhile, the saga of embezzlement in the upper floors of the apostolic palace is enriched with new chapters. The wolves who develop Vatican finances have acted quiet for years and the damage caused to the Church and to Francis is serious. However, it is precisely the obvious disaster that should push the defenders of the pontiff’s reformist line to wonder if Francis has not made a mistake. mistakes. The icon of the “Pope deceived” it is not enough to explain the complexity of the situation.

The Catholic Church It is an organization of 1,300 million members, present on five continents. Those at the top, precisely because there is an ongoing civil war in which conservative opponents are fierce and saboteurs abound, must continually question whether they have deployed their troops in the most careful manner and whether all their moves have been successful.

Francis often exhorts bishops and cardinals to parrhesia. It is a Greek word that indicates “to speak frankly.” These days, not a few of his followers would like to talk about his mistakes.

That I am five.

one) On June 29, 2017, upon the news of his indictment in Australia for alleged acts of pedophilia (of which he will be acquitted this year), Francis sends the cardinal on leave George Pell, prefect of the Ministry of Economy. Decision perfect. But the Pope makes the mistake of not immediately appointing a head of the dicastery in his place. ad interim equally energetic.

Everyone knows, in fact, that Pell has made numerous enemies in the Vatican because he did not tolerate independent financial fiefdoms and asked, according to his mandate, to exercise strict control over the transparency the use of funds managed by the different administrations of the Holy See. The papal decision to allow the Secretariat to limit itself for two long years toordinary administration, entrusting the secretaries of the dicastery with the “handling of ordinary affairs” (official statement of the Vatican Press Office), he sent the signal to the powerful men of the Vatican bureaucracy that the time had come to drive restlessness sparked by Pell’s rude activism.

A doubly wrong sign, both because it led to an arrest of reformist action and because it did not take into account the fact that even a part of the conservative cardinals, including personalities close to Ratzinger, agreed to a clean-up operation.

two) In the same month of June 2017, the Auditor General of the Vatican was expelled: Free milone, a professional with an impeccable resume. He had also noticed that his effort to to clarify according to the accounts of the Vatican administrations, it was sabotaged. The then deputy Angelo Becciu summons him on the spot and tells him that he no longer enjoys the trust of the Pope. The commander of the gendarmerie Domenico Giani threatens to arrest him. She must confess that she is responsible for a diversion of funds and that she has entrusted the investigations into the private life of representatives of the Holy See to an external agency.

A year later, the Vatican court is forced to certify that no file has been opened against him: no investigation, without conviction. Milone is clean.

Milone sent a letter to the Pope through a secure channel to explain that you are the victim of a trap. The pontiff never received a reply. Milone could say many things to Francesco. By giving him an audience, the Pope could have had a more realistic idea of ​​the resistance and the risks of deviations on the part of the Vatican apparatus.

3) In 2013 Francesco creates the Council of Cardinals. Nine cardinals from all over the world and from different ecclesial tendencies, who have not only the task of studying the reform of the Curia. The Pope specifies that they have the “task of helping me in the government of the universal Church.”

It is a great novelty, which goes beyond the image of the pontiff as absolute monarch. The Pope defines the organism as an expression of the “episcopal communion” and of the “help” that the world episcopate can give to the papal function.

For two years, the Council has been incomplete. Australian George Pell, the Chilean, has been retired Francisco Javier Errazuriz (responsible for not having informed the pontiff about the background of the Karadima-Barros abuse scandal) and the Congolese Laurent mosengwo. It is not clear why the advice was not reinstalled. The great crisis of the embezzlement of the secret funds of the Vatican and the Pennies of St. Peter, which lasts for a year, if anything, reinforces the function of an ecclesial body International composition with which the Pope can consult.

4) Francesco inaugurated a line of great communicative clarity. Not only with documents, but with apparently simple words and gestures and, nevertheless, an expression of a precise theological complexity or with a clear value of ecclesial politics.
That in July two protagonists of the scandal, active officials within the central government of the Church, the monsignors Mauro Carlino ed Alberto Perlasca have been expelled from the diplomatic service of the Holy See and returned to their respective dioceses cannot be done quietly without an official statement, indirectly revealed by Future. In these situations, transparent communication is everything.

How can one not understand, for example, that the unprecedented decision to transfer the liquidity of the various Vatican departments under the control of a single centralApsa (Administration of the patrimony of the apostolic see), acquires a different value in this crisis depending on whether it appears in an article-interview onRoman observer Or that it be communicated to the press by senior Vatican officials to clarify all its implications?

5) When Pope Francis decided to torpedo Cardinal Becciu, dismissing him as prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and expelling him from the College of Cardinals, he did not inform the Cardinal Secretary of State. Pietro Parolin neither before nor after. The news that Parolin learned of Becciu’s beheading by the news did not receive denial.

The Secretary of State, under the direction and authority of the pontiff, is in charge of a machine that involves 1,300 million faithful. Parolin is a more than loyal personality, faithful to reforming line of Francisco and inspired by a great religious feeling. Not informing you in advance is unthinkable.