The Vatican to Fr. Manelli:
‘Put your hands up, give us the moolah -
or you will be sanctioned canonically’
Translated from
June 1, 2017
There is no end to the Calvary of Fr. Stefano Manelli, 83, founder of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate (FFI), which has been under Vatican administration for almost four years now, although the competent authorities have never stated a clear reason for the takeover.
The most that was said was that the FFI had a ‘Lefebvrian drift’, which now sounds funny because the pope is getting ready to welcome the heirs of Mons. Lefebvre into a personal prelature in the Church.
From the outside, one might hazard the opinion that there were realy multiple causes, the first being an assault on the founder’s management and style by a small group of ‘young Turks’ among the FFI who wished to rule the order. (Which at the time, had been among the most fruitful in terms of vocations - now, Italian seminaries are importing seminarians from Africa, which violates the new Bergogian directive that candidate priests should be trained ‘locally’.) And just as important: money, possessions.
This last hypothesis helps to understand the furious defamatory media campaign that was launched regarding supposed abuses against the sisters of the order’s female side – charges were filed which the local magistrate dismissed last November. But there will be likely dire financial and professional consequences for some websites and newspapers who will face civil suits with claims for damages from those who were falsely accused.
There are also the latest moves by the Congregation in charge of religious orders – not so much its Prefect, Brazilian Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, as its secretary, Franciscan friar José Rodriguez Carballo, a Spaniard, who has direct ties with the pope.
Carballo was directly involved in the financial scandal that led to the Franciscan order’s worldwide financial crack-up in 2014. He was Minister-General at the time of the events that led to the crisis. A scandal that “placed in grave danger the financial stability of the Franciscan order”, according to Fr. Michael Perry, the American who replaced Carballo as Franciscan superior, in a letter written to all the members of the order.
The scandal erupted after a Swiss prosecutor sequestered tens of millions of euros that the order had invested in companies that ended up under investigation for illegal traffic in arms and weapons. [WOW! And Bergoglio does not mind that one of his closest collaborators is involved in activities that he, Bergoglio, loves to denounce???]
The FFI’s patrimony is not insignificant – they have 59 buldings, 17 landholdings, 5 photovoltaic plants, 102 cars, and numerous bank accounts. All of which were sequestered by the first Vatican commissar, Fr. Bruno Volpi. Subsequently, the courts ruled that they had to be returned to their owners - lay associations supporting the FFI (as friars, they have a vow of poverty).
Rebuffed by the civilian justice system, the Vatican has since increased pressure on Fr. Manelli
[a holy man who was baptized ans was a disciple of Padre Pio, and whose parents are candidates for beatification], whom it had condemned to house arrest since the Vatican takeover – a fact that sounds very anachronistic today.
[Because of the house arrest, he has been prohibited from even visiting his parents’ graces on All Souls’ Day.
Recently, he was formally asked, in the name of the pope, to pledge his loyalty and obedience to the pope personally. Which he did. Then two weeks ago, he received a letter from the Congregation for the religious asking him to place the material assets of the FFI lay associations at the disposition of the Congregation!
Ingenuously, Fr. Manelli answered that he could not do that because the assets belong to the lay associations. He would have done better to tell the lay associations about the Vatican demand, and have them answer the Vatican - since the laity are not bound by obedience in this case, and are free to decide what they want to do. But since he did not, the Vatican can now use his answer as disobedience to the pope, for which he could incur canonical sanctions.
One might note that this use of ‘obedience to the pope’ is becoming a weapon of choice for the Vatican. Remember how Fra Matthew Festing was obliged by the pope to resign on the spot and to sign a letter with very disputable provisions about this demand for obedience?
[I can well imagine Bergoglio asking Benedict XVI to sign a vow of obedience, loyalty and ABSOLUTE SILENCE - which includes NO WRITING, NO MESSAGES!]
A reaction from Hilary White
June 3, 2017
...Remember the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate? Remember how the guy the Vatican put in charge of the whole demolition project, Fr. Volpi, tried to squeeze them for real assets valued at a total of about 30 million Euros? And how Fr. Volpi accused Fr. Manelli, the saintly founder of the FFIs, with embezzlement and fraud? Yeah, that’s what these people are like.
Well, the court, after a thorough investigation by disinterested third parties, discovered that the assets belonged perfectly legitimately to other people – a pair of lay groups associated with the FFIs, but not the FFI itself – and that Fr. Volpi was guilty of defamation. He was ordered to return the assets to the people who owned them – from whom he had already confiscated them – pay 20,000 euros in fines, and issue a press release making a full apology and retraction of his slanders.
.
What did he do? Well, I don’t think we heard much more about it after, and it’s a little hazy what happened to the property (since Volpi also tried to abolish or suspend all the lay associations of the FFIs) but we know what he did do next:
he died. And that, we thought, was that.
It was a massive scandal, of course, but it has not budged the Vatican on their course of destroying the FFIs, not one bit. Even though there has been no credible reason given from the demolition, and even the vague claims of financial misdeeds have been totally discredited by the courts, and no accusation against the FFIs or the sisters has ever been formally made, the steam roller just keeps on rolling. (And how quaint the “crypto-lefebvrian and definitely traditionalist drift” slander sounds now that the pope has gone to such a lot of trouble to be seen to be making mooney-eyes at the SSPX.)
The new Commissioner has now said he’s aiming at rewriting the order’s constitutions – mainly to write out their special devotion and consecration to Our Lady… because lawks a mercy! Can’t be having that sort of thing these days, now can we?! (If you’re interested in seeing what the “secret vow” innuendos were about, read Fr. Manelli’s “Traccia Mariana” the order’s Marian manifesto, that, in my opinion, is what all this fuss is really about.)
What we didn’t know was that the V’s were having another go at the money.
[She goes on to quote from Tosatti's article.]
Yep. It’s the same package of assets that Volpi tried to get out of them by main force, backed up by threats. Now isn’t it funny that even after the secular courts found Volpi to be a fraudster and a thug, the Braz de Aviz gang didn’t budge an inch on the whole Crush Kill Destroy routine with the FFIs. The steamroller just kept on crushing.
And now, a few years later – we get the Vatican just casually saying, “Well, come on now. Just give us the money, OK? Don’t be difficult. Hand it over, there’s a good chap.”
Does that number sound familiar? 30 million Euros…
Oh, right! Parolin got 30 million out of the Knights of Malta, after basically exactly the same kind of take-over bid, just bullying it out of them, using disaffected “dissidents” from within to push the claims. And now we’ve got the New Improved Knights of Malta. We know that Parolin is his own man and is not, in point of fact, a Franciscreature, so we may have seen the formation of a new faction in all that.
Well, Cardinal Braz de Aviz certainly is a Francisman… in spades. The Brazilian head of the Congregation for Religious – with his buddy the new Francisappointment, José Rodríguez Carballo of odious ill-fame – is the one under whom the FFI persecution really started.
It crossed my mind; you can sure buy a lot of Conclave votes with that kind of dosh, hey?...