BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

January 22, Tuseday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
In the United States,
DAY OF PRAYER FOR UNBORN BABIES
(Anniversary of the 1973 v Wade decision that legalized abortion on demand in the USA)

Center photo: Sculpture of St. Vincent on the gridiron, Museum of Valencia.
ST. VICENTE DE ZARAGOZA [San Vicente Martir] (Spain, d 304)
Deacon and Martyr, Patron Saint of Lisbon
Like San Lorenzo (Lawrence), the first deacon saint, Vincent was born in Huesca, northern
Spain, but served in Zaragoza, where he was ordained a deacon by Bishop (later Saint)
Valerius. In the Diocletian persecutions, Valerius and his deacon were imprisoned in
Valencia, but Valerius was later exiled, leaving Vincent behind. He is said to have
resisted many tortures, and when offered release if he would burn Sacred Scriptures,
he refused. He was then condemned to die on the gridiron, an element probably borrowed
from the story of St. Lawrence. His hagiography is based on the work of Prudentius
(348-413), a Spanish Christian, who wrote a book on the early Roman and Hispanic martyrs.
It is said Vincent's remains were protected by ravens until his followers could bury him
in what is now Cape St. Vincent, Portugal, the most southwestern point of the European
continent. His remains were exhumed and transferred by a 12th century Portuguese king
to Lisbon, an event commemorated in the city's coat of arms.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/012213.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

The Holy Father met with

- H.E. Nguyên Phu Trong, Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam,
and his delegation.

The Vatican announced two changes involving Vatican communications officials:

- Fr.Federico Lombardi, SJ, has stepped down as director of CTV, but remains director of the Press Office
and Vatican Radio. At CTV, he will be replaced by Mons. Dario Edoardo Viganò, of the Milan clergy, and
currently a professor at the Pontifical Lateran University's Istituto Pastorale Redemptor Hominis. He was
also named to the Administrative Council of CTV.

- Layman Angelo Scelzo, who has been till now Undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Social
Communications, has been named a Deputy Director of the Press Office and will be in charge of accrediting
journalists. The first Deputy Director has been Fr. Ciro Benedettini, who has taken over as spokesman
when Fr. Lombardi is not available.


Which gives me an occasion to mount my soapbox on a familiar theme: Let us hope that Fr. Lombardi's lighter work load will mean he will now exercise editorial supervision over his staff which have been on autopilot too long. You cannot be more lax in supervision when neither you nor your deputy even noticed that the Press Office staff had cribbed from Wikipedia the biodata they handed out to newsmen when the Pope announced a new consistory this time last year. Wikicheats was almost as disgraceful as Vatileaks.

And what to do about the staff at Vatican Radio's English service whose reports are completely unedited and sometimes have to be corrected for reporting wrong data as facts, or for grammatical and syntactical errors that violate the basic rules of writing for radio (say what you have to say with the least number of direct and simple words, and do not embellish your reporting with airy-fairy personal indulgences!)? Their persistent and frequent deficiencies bring out the editor in me, which is why I have tended more and more to adapt their reports to incorporate stylistic, grammatical and vocabulary improvements. (For instance, the RV story yesterday about the pallium lamb said that the palliums were 'custodied' in an urn near St. Peter's tomb! 'Custody' is now a verb???? What's wrong with using 'kept' - which is direct, correct, and is only one syllable!)

Or why sometimes I do not post their reports at all. I think I can summarize what the Pope says much better and more efficiently than their often circumlocutory and clunky translations. Especially since I do follow it with a full translation of the Pope's text - my translation, not RV's. (I only use Vatican translations if they are.)official ones.)

Call me arrogant, but I also know whereof I speak, and it pains me to realize that a whole generation of broadcasters and journalists is allowed to coast blithely along, without any guidance from anyone but their own ego, and will never realize the many ways they could improve themselves. And I'm only talking of the English service, because even if I sometimes translate from the Italian service, I don't really follow their daily reporting closely. Does Greg Burke not read RV online at all? And if he does, why does he not intervene?

In the grand scheme of things, these concerns may be of little matter, but if you can't do the small and simple things right, how can you be trusted about the more important tasks? Great oaks from little acorns grow, and pity the gnarled trees these unsupervised persons will become!



- There's a really malicious story in yesterday's Guardian (UK) entitled "How the Vatican built a secret property empire using Mussolini's millions"
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/21/vatican-secret-property-empire-m...
claiming that the Vatican has been profiting for decades from 'millions' supposedly paid by Benito Mussolini in 1929 in exchange for Vatican recognition of his regime.

Without having to check into their 'facts' (and having had to read about the Lateran Agreements these past seven years on more than one occasion), one can only point out that, in negotiating the Lateran Agreements, 'the Vatican' obviously had to 'recognise Mussolini's regime'. Which was not really 'his' regime, because at the time, Italy was a monarchy under King Vittorio Emmanuele, but Mussolini had been Prime Minister, and therefore Head of Government, since 1922, shortly after he founded the Fascist Party. According to Wikipedia, he did not consolidate his dictatorship till 1930, one year after the Lateran Agreements between the Kingdom of Italy and the incipient Vatican City State whose creation was one of the major outcomes of the agreements.

Vatican City State was established as the sovereign territory that would allow the Popes an internationally recognized locus for their activities, though stipulating that they should observe perpetual neutrality in international relations. An attached financial agreement was meant to settle all the claims of the Holy See against Italy arising from the invasion and annexation of the former Papal States by Italy in the decade between 1860-1870.

Are these then the 'Mussolini millions' that the Guardian claims? They were not Mussolini's personal funds but the the Kingdom of Italy's. Obiously, Mussolini did not have to 'buy' recognition of his government since he was negotiating with the Vatican on behalf of the King of Italy. Besides, as compensation for all papal and Church properties seized by the Italian government, any payments made were necessarily more token than 'true value'. How do you assess a cultural patrimony accrued over centuries that left its mark all over Italy and shaped its history?

Indeed, the reason for the so-called 'otto per mille' paid by the Italian government yearly to the Church in Italy (eight-thousandths of Italian revenues in income taxes) is in continuing payment of this 'debt'. [It must be noted that all the democratic governments of Italy after Mussolini have not questioned the validity of the Lateran Agreements, which were renegotiated in 1984.

So the Vatican invested some of the money paid to it by the Kingdom of Italy in 1929. What's wrong with that? Just because the Guardian claims that 'Mussolini's millions' now amount to about 700 million euro is a tribute to the Vatican's management of its investments.

The malicious intent is obvious: To make it appear that the Vatican has been using tainted money - i.e., personal funds from a person who would eventually be counted among the worst villains of the 20th century, who was a Fascist, to boot, no pun intended - in order to pad its fortunes. The newspaper must trust few of its readers know their history or would bother to check!

Meanwhile, Fr. Lombardi has gotten around to answer the questions raised by the article:

"I am amazed by the Guardian article," said Vatican spokesman Fr. Federcio Lombardi to newsmen today. "It seems to have been written from someone who dwells among the asterits".

He added: "These are facts that have been known for 80 years about the Lateran agreements [the fact that the Vatican was paid compensation by the Kingdom of Italy, yes, not that the money was Mussolini's, much less that he was trying to buy Vatican recognition of his regime!]. Whoever wants more information on this subject on the popular level should read the new book Finanze Vaticane by Benny Lai [dean of Vaticanistas)".

He also said that the fact that the Vatican's Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA) has a special branch dealing with specific investments is no secret - it is listed even in the Vatican telephone directory.

That no other news agency has so far picked up the Guardian story more than 24 hours after it came out may indicate perhaps that at least other editors know their history better. It's an embarrassment to journalism to create a whole tale - with visions of Vatileaks-style headlines dancing in their heads - out of what is basically a distortion of historical fact masquerading as a 'Eureka! What a scandal" expose!