Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 6:23pm

PopeWatch: Mammon

It is good for the clergy to rail against Mammon, because that often seems to be their besetting sin:

 

 

Leaked documents obtained by LifeSiteNews connect the Pope himself to a new Vatican financial scandal and raise serious questions about his global reputation as the “pope for the poor.”

LifeSiteNews has obtained internal documents of the U.S.-based Papal Foundation, a charity with a stellar history of assisting the world’s poor, showing that last summer the Pope personally requested, and obtained in part, a $25 million grant to a corruption-plagued, Church-owned dermatological hospital in Rome accused of money laundering. Records from the financial police indicate the hospital has liabilities over one billion USD – an amount larger than the national debt of some 20 nations.

The grant has lay members of the Papal Foundation up in arms, and some tendering resignations. Responding to questions from LifeSiteNews, Papal Foundation staff sent a statement saying that it is not their practice to comment on individual requests.

Speaking of grants in general, the Papal Foundation said their mission has not changed. “The grants to help those in need around the world and of significance to the Holy Father are reviewed and approved through well-accepted philanthropic processes by the Board and its committees,” it said.

Lay membership or becoming a “steward” in the Papal Foundation involves the pledge “to give $1 million over the course of no more than ten years with a minimum donation of $100,000 per year.”  Those monies are invested in order to make a perpetual fund to assist the Church.

However, the majority of the board is composed of U.S. bishops, including every U.S. Cardinal living in America. The foundation customarily gives grants of $200,000 or less to organizations in the developing world (see a grant list for 2017 here) via the Holy See.

According to the internal documents, the Pope made the request for the massive grant, which is 100 times larger than its normal grants, through Papal Foundation board chairman Cardinal Donald Wuerl in the summer of 2017.

Despite opposition from the lay “stewards,” the bishops on the board voted in December to send an $8 million payment to the Holy See. In January, the documents reveal, lay members raised alarm about what they consider a gross misuse of their funds, but despite their protests another $5 million was sent with Cardinal Wuerl brooking no dissent.

 

Go here to read the rest.

“Entering the presence of Innocent IV., before whom a large sum of money was spread out, the Pope observed, “You see, Peter is no longer in that age in which he said, ‘Silver and gold have I none.’”—“True, holy father,” replied Saint Thomas Aquinas; “neither can Peter any longer say to the lame, ‘Rise up and walk!’”

 

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Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Thursday, February 22, AD 2018 5:55am

Maybe Jorge Bergoglio and his cohorts ought to take today’s epistle reading from 1st Peter 5:1-4 to heart, especially verses 2 and 3:

Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking care of it, not by constraint, but willingly, according to God: not for filthy lucre’s sake, but voluntarily: neither as lording over the clergy, but being a pattern of the flock from the heart.

Hey, you Argentinian Marxist Peronist, attend to the Word of God! Repent just as we all have to repent!

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