Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini on Monday defended his invocation of God at a political rally, after Italy’s Catholic establishment criticized it as a cynical exploitation of faith ahead of European Parliament elections this weekend.
Salvini brandished a rosary and entrusted Italy to the Virgin Mary at a rally on Saturday, which featured a host of far-right European leaders. He spoke glowingly of St. John Paul II and retired Pope Benedict XVI for having tried to remind Europe of its Christian roots.
Asked to comment, the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said God was for everyone and “invoking him for yourself is always very dangerous.”
An Italian Jesuit close to Pope Francis, the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, denounced the use of the rosary and the invocation of God for political campaigning. Spadaro, who has criticized the influence of right-wing evangelicals in U.S. politics, tweeted a photo of a commemorative coin of U.S. President Donald Trump being promoted by U.S. evangelicals as a “point of contact” with God.
“There are those who in electoral campaigns use God and saints, and those who even sell coins to pray for the re-election of their candidate,” he said.
“The exploitation of religion seems to know no decency.”
He might add that the Vatican also lacks decency because it exploits the Church Christ founded and sells tickets to enter the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican museum and different sorts of religious items, stamps and other souvenirs to defray some of the costs of maintaining the Vatican and its surrounding grounds, to pay salaries and to support in part the Holy See (the political branch, the governing body of the Catholic Church).
The foregoing assertion may or may not be true.
This blogger is looking forward for the Vatican to prove that his assertion is false by being transparent in all of its finances by itemizing each and every transaction related to income from every source around the world, including receipts from donations everywhere and by accounting for each and every expense (including settlement claims) with no miscellaneous category permitted, no write-offs for small amounts due to immateriality, and by specifying the names of every the poor and needy individual and charitable organization that it supports around the world, the name of every law firm and lawyer it consulted, as well as the name of every church, seminary, religious organization, politician and political entity it donated funds to, if any. Evidence, including but not limited to bank records, brokerage statements, real property holdings, and all other kinds of investment holdings, loans and contracts, business relationships must be submitted to independent auditors to do a full and complete annual audit of every single financial line item so that the truth can be revealed.
The Vatican would not dare. It, like any political entity, survives best and most successfully on secrecy and words.
Bergoglio has always used his position to dictate to others to help migrants but he has not himself acted. He could auction off all of the Vatican's art collection to help migrants but he has not. He wants to use the resources of other countries (tax revenues) to aid migrants.
It is not that migrants do not need help. They do. Mary, Joseph and Jesus were migrants when they fled to Egypt to escape from Herod. Egypt was their sanctuary country.
Vatican City State, even though small in size, has a lot of churches, seminaries and land around the world under its authority. It could open up all the spaces to house the migrants but it has not done so. Is it because it fears for the safety of those who occupy the spaces, and because it wants maintain the existing beauty and tranquility of those spaces?
If so, then it is acting like Salvini who according to the article cited, tweeted that "'I’ll continue to give witness to my Faith with my work for a more beautiful and secure Italy....'" [2] Therefore, the Vatican and its surrogates are hypocrites for criticizing Salvini because he is not in line with its political agenda.
[1] https://www.apnews.com/5cb13f019ce64824b88150a1fec0e6bb
[2] Ibid.
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