On August 5, the Italian newspaper Il Foglio published a letter from a group of laypeople addressed to Pope Francis. The letter, elaborating on the title of Andrea Riccardi’s latest book, “La Chiesa brucia,” wanted to highlight a profound distress that is being experienced in the Church. Transformed – say the authors of [...]

The process that began in the Vatican on July 28th will not be a short one. Proof of this is that the first hearing, in which all the objections of the lawyers of the ten accused were presented, lasted 7 hours, without breaks, and the Vatican judges met for an hour and twenty minutes [...]

Are we already thinking about an upcoming conclave? And, above all, is Pope Francis already thinking about it? Various clues suggest that we are facing a new season of the Church. Whether it will be with or without Pope Francis is all to be seen. Nevertheless, that Pope Francis somehow wants to leave [...]

The veteran Vatican watcher Sandro Magister observed that a progressive detachment from the positions of Pope Francis is taking place. Magister gives us as examples two books recently released, “Il Gregge smarrito” by the think tank “Essere qui” and “La Chiesa Brucia” by Andrea Riccardi. Books that highlight how the situation of the [...]

As usual, Pope Francis took July as a holiday month. The Pope is not going anywhere. He remains in Santa Marta to read, study and perhaps plan something, such as the reform of the Curia, which is now set to be finalized in October. This July, the Pope also had a scheduled colon operation. [...]

Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco was in Poland to investigate allegations of cover-up of abuses made against Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, Archbishop Emeritus of Krakow and legendary secretary of John Paul II. The cover-up would have taken place during the period in which Cardinal Dziwisz was the archbishop of Krakow. But the news itself is enough [...]

Three clues are said to make a piece if evidence. Therefore, the news of the third inspection ordered by Pope Francis in a Vatican dicastery in just over two months can reasonably be considered the expression of a particular way of working by Pope Francis. When a transition is ongoing, Pope Francis will appoint [...]

What is happening to Pope Francis’ pontificate? Many ask this, especially after Alberto Melloni wrote a long piece in Repubblica that started from Pope Francis’ “unmatched Christian authenticity” and went so far as to predict a “storm” after making a list of several contradictory decisions of this month, defined as “a black June.”

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Two events of the week do not seem connected, and yet they are. The events are the publication of the MONEYVAL report, which certifies all the structural problems of the Vatican judicial system, and the resignation as Archbishop of Munich – Freising offered by Cardinal Reinhard Marx and rejected by Pope Francis.

They [...]

In 2010, Benedict XVI wrote a letter to the Church of Ireland shaken by the case of abuse. And there was a passage in that letter that was enlightening: after the Second Vatican Council – we read – “there was a well-intentioned but misguided tendency to avoid penal approaches to canonically irregular situations.”

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