Inside The Vatican

On Sunday, Pope Francis called for an immediate ceasefire to the violence that has escalated between Israeli and Palestinian forces, killing more than 200 people in Gaza and 10 in Israel, according to the most recent statistics.

The Vatican has long supported a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but Pope Francis’ goals also include limiting the sale of arms by countries outside the conflict and improving the situation of the Palestinians living in occupied territory. 

To that end, on Monday, the pope called Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, conversations which were believed to have included discussions about the crisis in the Holy Land. Pope Francis is also believed to have discussed the conflict with U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry in their meeting on Saturday.

But what sway does Pope Francis really have in Israel? This week on “Inside the Vatican,” veteran Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell and host Colleen Dulle take a look at Pope Francis’ goals for the region and where they have been stalled in the past.

Links from the show:

Gerard O’Connell: Pope Francis calls for an end to clashes in Jerusalem

Gerard O’Connell: Pope Francis calls for an immediate cease-fire in the Holy Land

Stephanie Saldaña: A Christian in Jerusalem at the Start of Another War

Gerard O’Connell: Head of Chinese Jesuits named new bishop of Hong Kong

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It’s been 500 years since St. Ignatius suffered the cannonball injury that would pave the way to his conversion—from an ambitious young soldier rumored to be dating a princess, to leaving it all to found the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits.

To commemorate that 500th anniversary, the Jesuits have declared an Ignatian Year, remembering their roots and announcing new initiatives for their future.

So this week, “Inside the Vatican” host Colleen Dulle teamed up with Ashley McKinless from America Media’s “Jesuitical” podcast to interview the superior general of the Jesuits, Fr. Arturo Sosa. 

Colleen and Ashley asked Fr. Sosa about his plans for the Jesuits, what it’s like to run such a huge and diverse religious order, and, of course, about his relationship with his fellow Jesuit, Pope Francis.

Links from the show:

Learn more about the Ignatian Year

Listen to the “Jesuitical” podcast from America Media

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The Vatican stepped into the U.S. bishops’ ongoing debate over giving Communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians last week, issuing a letter May 7 to every bishop in America urging them to undertake a two-part dialogue process before drafting any national guidelines on the issue.

Up to now, the decision over whether to give a pro-choice politician Communion has been up to the local bishop, with varying results: President Joseph R. Biden’s previous local bishop in Wilmington, Delaware, along with his current bishop in Washington, D.C., have both allowed him to receive Communion, while House Speaker Nancy R. Polosi’s local bishop, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, recently wrote in support of denying pro-choice politicians communion without naming Ms. Polosi. 

Last fall, the national bishops’ conference assembled a committee to draft a proposal for a guideline that could be applied nationwide, to be voted on at the bishops’ upcoming meeting next month.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stepped in with a letter signed by its head, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, putting the brakes on the drafting process until the bishops undertake an “extensive and serene” dialogue with one another and the politicians in question. It urges them to reach a “true consensus” on the issue.

Will the bishops listen? This week on “Inside the Vatican,” host Colleen Dulle and veteran Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell unpack the letter, examining how binding the letter and the U.S. bishops’ agreements are, along with what decisions the bishops now face.

Links from the show:

Vatican sends letter to U.S. bishops: Don’t rush the debate on Communion, politicians and abortion

Bishop McElroy: The Eucharist is being weaponized for political ends. This must not happen.

Archbishop Aquila: For the church to live in eucharistic coherence, we must be willing to challenge Catholics persisting in grave sin.

Lay people have been passing on the Catholic faith for 2,000 years. Now Pope Francis has made it an official ministry

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Last week, Pope Francis signed two big changes to Vatican law: First, he implemented a sweeping anti-corruption decree that limits the gifts Vatican employees can receive to $50; then, he updated a previous legal reform to remove bishops’ and cardinals’ special rights in Vatican courts.

For most of the church’s history, bishops and cardinals could only be judged by the pope. Pope Francis changed that in 2019 as part of a slate of legal reforms aimed at combatting the sexual abuse crisis. In order to increase accountability and the number of cases that could be heard, the pope created a special court called the “court of cassation” to hear bishops’ and cardinals’ trials. With last week’s change, though, bishops and cardinals can now have their cases heard in the regular, lay-led Vatican tribunal.

Why make the change now? In this week’s episode of Inside the Vatican, host Colleen Dulle and Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell take a look at what effect the change could have on the ongoing investigation—and possible trial—of the Vatican’s London finance scandal, in which bishops and cardinals may be among those tried.

Colleen and Gerry also unpack the Vatican’s new anti-corruption law.

Links from the show:

Pope Francis issued a sweeping anti-corruption decree. How will it affect Vatican operations?

Cardinals and bishops to lose special legal privileges under new papal decree

Italian bishop-elect shot in his home in South Sudan

US Catholic bishops to vote on pressuring Joe Biden to stop taking Communion over abortion views

Bishop McElroy: The Eucharist is being weaponized for political ends. This must not happen.

Pope Francis calls for monthlong global prayer marathon for end of pandemic

Pope Francis asks for prayers for peace in Myanmar

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Almost two months after his first papal trip since spring 2020, Pope Francis has set his sights on a few more international visits before the end of the year: To Hungary and Slovakia, Cyprus and Greece, Lebanon and Glasgow.

On this week’s episode of “Inside the Vatican,” America’s veteran Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell and host Colleen Dulle dig into what we know about each trip and what is motivating the pope to go. “There’s a spiritual dimension; there’s also a political. You can’t get away from that,” Gerry says on the show.

Colleen also gives updates on Pope Francis’ name day celebration, the appointment of San Diego bishop Robert McElroy to a Vatican board, and the possible upcoming canonization of Blessed Charles de Foucauld.

Links from the show:

Where else will Pope Francis travel in 2021?

Pope Francis celebrates his name day at Vatican vaccination clinic for the poor and vulnerable

Pope Francis appoints San Diego’s Bishop McElroy to board of Vatican office promoting human development

Who was Charles de Foucauld?

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When Father John Wester received a call just before 8 a.m. Mass, he had no idea it would be the nuncio, the pope’s ambassador, phoning to tell him he would be the next auxiliary bishop of San Francisco.

Archbishop Wester’s story is not unusual. Most bishops are appointed without ever knowing they were being considered for the job and are caught by surprise when chosen.

The bishop selection process is perhaps the most secretive hiring process in the world, shielded from both the candidate and the priests and people he will serve. Those who are consulted about possible candidates are required to return the list of questions they’ve been sent, because even the questions, which reveal no particulars about a candidate, are protected under the Vatican’s top confidentiality classification: the “pontifical secret.”

There is a joke among the hierarchy that “a pontifical secret is a secret you don’t tell the pope,” but the secrecy around this process has been chipped away in recent years. In 1984, Thomas J. Reese, S.J., then the editor of America magazine, obtained the survey that the nuncio sends out to gather information on candidates. He published it, in full, in America.

The biggest blow to the secrecy around how bishops are appointed, though, came from the Vatican itself. Last fall, it took the unprecedented step of revealing how former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was removed from the college of cardinals and from the priesthood for abusing minors, managed to rise through the ranks despite rumors circling about his sexual misconduct.

The Vatican’s 460-page report detailed who supported Mr. McCarrick’s promotion to archbishop and soon after, cardinal-archbishop, of Washington, D.C., along with who opposed it and who withheld information about his abuse.

The McCarrick report was the most significant glance the Vatican had ever given into the process of making a bishop, and already there are calls for similar reports on others involved in abuse or cover-up.

America’s Vatican correspondent, Gerard O’Connell, said on this week’s episode of “Inside the Vatican,” that “the McCarrick report put a silver bullet through the pontifical secret.... It has explained largely how the system failed from down low to high up.”

In this week’s deep dive episode on how bishops are chosen, Father Reese walks host Colleen Dulle through the official process of choosing a bishop, and Gerry explains where that process went awry in the case of Cardinal McCarrick.

Pope Francis has tried to create such a system by having the secret questionnaire that is sent out to bishops rewritten, expanding it from one page to four and including specific questions about abuse and cover up. Working from a copy of the new survey that he obtained, Gerry summarizes some of the questions that the Vatican is now asking about possible bishops.

Finally, calls for laypeople to have more of a voice in the selection of bishops have come from inside and outside the church. Pope Francis has asked nuncios to reach out to a wide variety of people, including clergy, religious and laypeople, when gathering feedback. Some lay groups say that consulting with laypeople needs to be a required step in the process.

Colleen speaks to Kerry Robinson of Leadership Roundtable, an organization founded in the wake of the 2002 sexual abuse crisis that fosters collaboration between bishops and laypeople in the areas of church management, finances, communications and human resources.

Although Leadership Roundtable has not called for any changes to the bishops’ appointment process, Ms. Robinson stresses the importance of diverse voices: “We need to solve for our own myopia,” Ms. Robinson says. “If I were in charge of appointing bishops, I would want desperately for as much informed advice and opinion as possible.”

Links from the show:

Gerard O’Connell | Deep Dive: The McCarrick Report and the popes it implicates

Can the Catholic Church find a better way to choose bishops?

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Ten years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine the pope having the kind of strong relationship with a top Muslim leader that Pope Francis has with the Grand Imam Ahmed Al-Tayeb. Back in 2019, the two signed the groundbreaking document on Human Fraternity together in Abu Dhabi, but a new book by the Muslim judge, Mohamed Abdel Salam, who was intimately involved in the process of putting that document together, explains that the road to signing that document was not always easy.

Judge Mohamed Abdel Salam presented his new book about the process, The Pope and the Grand Imam: A Thorny Path, to Pope Francis last week. On this episode of “Inside the Vatican,” America’s Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell walks listeners through the story of how the pope and the grand imam rebuilt the once-icy relationship between the Vatican and the top Sunni institute, Al-Azhar University.

Links from the show:

Gerard O’Connell: An inside look at how Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar have revolutionized Catholic-Muslim relations

Buy The Pope and the Grand Imam: A Thorny Path: A Testimony to the Birth of the Human Fraternity Document

Holy Father Names New Under-Secretary for CDF

Pope Francis warns World Bank and IMF: Covid-19 is not the only global crisis we’re facing right now

Read: Pope Francis on the risen Jesus’ message of mercy

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Pope Francis celebrated a private Holy Thursday Mass at the apartment of Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the high-ranking prelate whose resignation Pope Francis ordered last September. The dismissal was widely believed to be linked to the Vatican’s $200 million London real estate scandal.

Most years, Pope Francis has left St. Peter’s Basilica and opted to commemorate the Last Supper in prisons or refugee housing facilities, where he has washed the feet of women, inmates and asylum seekers. Some have read his private Mass at Cardinal Becciu’s home as a sign that the pope has changed his mind about accepting Cardinal Becciu’s resignation and asking him to renounce his rights as a cardinal.

This week on “Inside the Vatican,” Gerry explains why he does not believe Pope Francis is retracting his decision and explains how he interprets the gesture.

Links from the show:

Pope Francis celebrates Last Supper Mass at the home of Cardinal Becciu whose resignation he accepted last September

Podcast: The Vatican’s $200 million London real estate scandal, explained

Pope Francis at Chrism Mass: Preaching the Gospel will always mean embracing the Cross

Cardinal, at pope’s Good Friday service, decries divisions within church

Pope Francis on Easter: ‘The risen Christ is hope for all who continue to suffer.’

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Why does the Vatican advocate for democracy in Myanmar but not Hong Kong?

This week on “Inside the Vatican,” host Colleen Dulle and Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell discuss Gerry’s wide-ranging interview with Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Paul Gallagher. In the interview, Gerry and Archbishop Gallagher discussed the Vatican’s strategies in China and its hopes for the Biden administration.

Gerry took the opportunity to discuss the Vatican’s view on democracy more broadly, asking whether the Vatican, as Europe’s last absolute monarchy, supports democracy around the world and why it has been silent on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong when it has advocated strongly for democracy in Myanmar.

Gerry and Colleen also discuss revealing comments Archbishop Gallagher made about the Vatican’s often opaque relationship with China.

Links from the show:

Pope Francis spoke out against oppression in Myanmar. Why is he silent on China and Hong Kong?

Interview: Joe Biden says ‘America is back.’ What does that mean for U.S.-Vatican relations?

Pope Francis instructs Vatican to provide vaccines for 1,200 of Rome’s poorest people during Holy Week

Pope Francis names Juan Carlos Cruz, prominent abuse survivor and whistleblower, to Vatican panel

Podcast: The Vatican-China deal, explained

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Church historian and Villanova University professor Massimo Faggioli joins host Colleen Dulle to discuss the Vatican’s recent guidelines banning private, individual Masses in St. Peter’s Basilica and restricting celebrations of the Traditional Latin Mass (officially called the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite) to one chapel in the basilica’s crypt.

Dr. Faggioli explains how the change is part of Pope Francis’ ongoing effort to implement the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and how the Council’s changes to liturgy reflect new understandings of theology and ecclesiology.

The two also discuss liturgical divisions within the church and how those may be affected with these changes to worship in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Links from the show:

Why the Vatican is restricting the Traditional Latin Mass | Behind the Story

Gerard O’Connell: The Vatican restricts Traditional Latin Mass and suppresses private Masses at St. Peter’s Basilica

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