Free Republic

[Catholic Caucus] What we know about the Príncipi case, and why it’s a scandalOne month after an extraordinary attempt from the pope’s chief of staff to reinstate a laicized sexual abuser, questions remain about who in the Vatican did what in the case of Alberto Ariel Príncipi.Despite those questions, the Holy See has offered no clear answers on why an order was issued by sostituto Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra which aimed to to restore the twice-convicted child abuser to the clerical state, or about how the head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s disciplinary section was able...

[Catholic Culture] When top Vatican officials clash on sex-abuse discipline...In more than 40 years of covering news of the Catholic Church, I have never encountered a Vatican story as wild as this one, nor one that is potentially—I stress, potentially—as revealing about the way the Vatican actually works.First bear in mind that this story involves the sex-abuse scandal: an issue on which any sensible Catholic prelate by now recognizes the importance of getting things right; an issue on which Pope Francis has repeatedly promised transparency and accountability. And yet:A powerful Vatican dicastery overturned the sentence imposed by two ecclesiastical tribunals...

Top Vatican official admits spying on banker’s phoneArchbishop Edgar Peña Parra admitted to asking Vatican national police to spy on the director of the Vatican's primary bank. The sostituto of the Secretariat of State, Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, appeared as a witness before a Vatican City court on Friday, telling judges that he had ordered unsanctioned electronic spying on the phone of the director general of the IOR, the Vatican bank which had rejected a loan application from Peña Parra’s office.Admitting that he ordered electronic “monitoring” of IOR director Gianfranco Mammì, both in Vatican City and in Italy without a...

The former director of the Vatican’s anti-money laundering entity said Francis had voiced ‘the interest of the Holy See in turning a new page.’ VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Testifying at the massive trial resulting from the Vatican’s latest financial scandal Wednesday (April 27), the former director of the Catholic Church’s anti-money-laundering watchdog agency said Pope Francis and other high-ranking prelates backed efforts to gain sole ownership of the prime London real estate at the center of the scandal. Tommaso Di Ruzza, who ran the entity now called the Supervisory and Financial Information Authority, known as ASIF, is charged with abuse...

Vatican spy story takes center stage as fraud trial resumesVATICAN CITY — The Vatican's big fraud and extortion trial resumes Friday after exposing some unseemly realities of how the Holy See operates, with a new spy story taking center stage that is more befitting of a 007 thriller than the inner workings of a papacy.According to written testimony obtained Thursday, one of Pope Francis' top advisers brought in members of the Italian secret service to sweep his office for bugs and commissioned intelligence reports from them, completely bypassing the Vatican's own police force in the process.The reported actions of Archbishop...

The second-ranking officials at the Vatican Secretariat of State engaged Italian intelligence officers to sweep his Vatican offices for bugs, a former official at the department told Vatican prosecutors. Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, who is sostituto at the Secretariat of State, along with Msgr. Mauro Carlino, asked Italian intelligence officials to examine their offices and phones for electronic surveillance, and requested information on individuals who were “trying to break into the economic structures of the Holy See with malicious intent,” according to newly-reported testimony in the Vatican’s financial crimes investigation. The testimony reportedly comes from Vincenzo Mauriello, a former lay...

Vatican claims suspended bishop accused of sex abuse should be allowed to leave country for Rome job ORAN, Argentina, August 28, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — The Vatican’s third-highest ranking prelate claimed in a letter to an Argentine judge that a bishop accused of sexual abuse against seminarians in Argentina has a job in Rome, even though he’s been suspended since January, Crux reported Wednesday. Venezuelan Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, the Substitute for the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, signed a June 3 letter stating Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta is “employed by the Vatican” and must return to Rome “to continue his daily...

[Catholic Caucus] Francis Removes Nephew of Whistleblower Viganò Monsignor Carlo Maria Polvani, a nephew of Whistleblower Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganó, was removed as the head of the Secretary of State’s Information and Documentation Office. Surprisingly, Pope Francis shifted Polvani to the irrelevant Pontifical Council for the Culture where he will be a second under-secretary. He is therefore no longer in Holy See’s diplomatic service. Polvani’s place was taken by Monsignor Mauro Carlino, a protégé of the former Deputy Secretary of State, Angelo Becci, who now is a cardinal. According to Italian media the changes were decided by the Secretary of...