Consultant’s volte-face in Vatican court hearing
A former consultant to a pontifical commission who denied to a Vatican court that she leaked documents about Vatican financial reform admitted to sending the documents when originally interrogated, a Vatican policeman has said.
Stefano DeSantis, an officer investigating the matter, testified on May 24 that Francesca Chaouqui, one of five people on trial for the illegal dissemination of confidential material, told police officials she sent documents regarding the Vatican asset management to Gianluigi Nuzzi, author of Merchants in the Temple. Mr Nuzzi is also on trial.
“We never assumed that she gave the documents, she admitted to it,” Mr DeSantis told the court, adding that she exhibited “exemplary behaviour” when she gave the Vatican police her formal statement and even made clarifications to her formal declaration before signing it.
During cross-examination, Ms Chaouqui’s lawyer said while she had admitted sending documents to Nuzzi, she never said she had passed along “secret” or “private” documents in her admission.
Death of 100-year-old cardinal
Italian Cardinal Loris Capovilla, who served St John XXIII before and after he became Pope, died in Bergamo, near Milan, on May 26.
Born in October 1915, he was ordained to the priesthood in 1940 and worked as a journalist before the then-new patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, appointed him as his private secretary in 1953.
As his secretary and friend, he was by the Pope’s side during the launch of the Second Vatican Council, and subsequently served Pope Paul VI for a time after St John’s death. He retired in 1988 but was made the world’s oldest living cardinal by Pope Francis in 2014 at the age of 98.
Call to protect vulnerable children
Pope Francis marked International Missing Children’s Day with a call during his Wednesday 25 general audience for civil and religious leaders to raise people’s awareness and inspire action in protecting vulnerable children.
“It is the duty of everyone to protect children, most of all those exposed to a high risk of exploitation, trafficking and deviant behaviours,” the Pope said.
He added that no one should be indifferent to the problem of children who are “alone, exploited and removed from their families and social context, children who cannot grow up in peace and look to the future with hope”.
He invited everyone to pray that every missing child would be “returned to the affection of their own loved ones”.
Liturgy chief looks east
The Vatican’s liturgy chief has urged priests to celebrate the liturgy of the Eucharist facing east.
In an interview with the French Catholic magazine Famille Chrétienne, Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, said Vatican II had never required priests to celebrate Mass facing the people.
Readers and listeners should face each other during the Liturgy of the Word, he said, “but as soon as we reach the moment when one addresses God – from the Offertory onwards – it is essential that the priest and faithful look together towards the east. This corresponds exactly to what the Council Fathers wanted.”
Rejecting the view that priests celebrating Mass facing east are turning their backs on the faithful, he said, rather that both priests and faithful should together be “turned in the same direction: towards the Lord who comes”.