Cardinal Parolin Lying in Ambush
Father Claude Barthe
Res Novae
December 2023
Is Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State, the real candidate of the Bergoglian left[1]? It's worth remembering that in 2013, the self-appointed cardinals of the "St. Gallen Group", who brought Jorge Bergoglio to power, used the maneuver of putting forward the name of Cardinal Scherer, Archbishop of São Paulo, to more effectively advance their real papabile, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. Similarly today, behind the 66-year-old Filipino Cardinal Tagle, prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, but depressive and rather insignificant, or behind the 65-year-old Jesuit Cardinal Hollerich, archbishop of Luxembourg, rapporteur of the Synod of Bishops for a synodal Church, but too noisily heterodox, would actually be Cardinal Parolin.
Ordained in 1980 for the diocese of Vicenza, Veneto, he joined the diplomatic services of the Holy See in 1986, when Cardinal Casaroli was Secretary of State, Achille Silvestrini, Secretary for Relations with States (the equivalent of a Minister of Foreign Affairs), and for decades the leader of liberal Rome. Under the guidance of his mentor Silvestrini, Pietro Parolin acquired a thorough knowledge of the Curia at the highest level, as well as of the world's chancelleries. He served in various nunciatures, before returning to Rome in 1992, Cardinal Sodano having become Secretary of State. He was appointed Under-Secretary for Relations with States under Jean-Louis Tauran, who had succeeded his boss Silvestrini, and distinguished himself by his expertise in delicate negotiations (Mexico, Vietnam). But Cardinal Bertone, who had become Benedict XVI's Secretary of State, disgraced him and replaced him with one of his loyal followers, Ettore Balestero. He was sent to the most difficult of nunciatures, that of Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. In fact, it was a much-discussed Venezuelan prelate, Bishop Edgar Peña Parra, who had become very close to the Pope, who became his first collaborator as Substitute for General Affairs, in 2018, replacing Giovanni Becciu who became cardinal and Prefect for the Causes of Saints.
It is said that Pietro Parolin's skillful approach to Hugo Chavez in Caracas was much appreciated by Cardinal Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires. Now pope, he was easily persuaded by Cardinals Silvestrini and Tauran to call on this seasoned diplomat of liberal sensibilities in August 2013, to replace the man who had exiled him, Cardinal Bertone. Parolin's experience in Latin America seemed invaluable to the Pope, whose bête noire - Peronism obliges... - was the United States and its largely conservative Church. The election of Trump in 2016 was cruel for the Pope and his Secretary of State, and the recent election of Argentina's Trump, Javier Milei, was even crueller.
For if the election of Jorge Bergoglio to the pontificate appeared to usher in a new era, it in fact represented the return of an old world after a long period of Wojtylo-Ratzingerian "restoration". Pietro Parolin, spiritual son of Cardinal Silvestrini and admirer of Cardinal Casaroli's Ostpolitik, was the man behind this return to the old world.
The thorn in Parolin's flesh: the agreement with China
Parolin's big handicap is precisely the Holy See's disastrous agreement with China. Far more professional than his predecessor Bertone, Parolin nonetheless stunned the world with the irenicism of the agreement he signed with the People's Republic of China on September 22, 2018, the terms of which are secret.
It has to be said that the situation of Chinese Catholicism is supremely complex: fierce opposition from the heroic underground Church to the power-controlled Church; but within the latter, the lines are often blurred. Already under John Paul II, although appointed by the Patriotic Association, a number of bishops were secretly seeking recognition by Rome.
Pope Francis and Cardinal Parolin therefore organized direct negotiations with Beijing, led on the Roman side by Archbishop Celli. In addition, the services of Cardinal McCarrick, former Archbishop of Washington, who had been placed under penance by Benedict XVI for his crimes as a sexual predator, were reused. He had already visited China on several occasions, and was given a mandate to resume his travels among "official" Catholics. All this has not prevented the persecution of Catholic and Protestant Christians, including the destruction of churches on a massive scale.
The Parolin agreement of 2018, signed for two years and extended in 2020 and 2022, conceded to the Chinese authorities the "presentation" of bishops to be invested by Rome. Under this agreement, the last seven "official" bishops appointed were reintegrated into the Roman communion, two of whom happened to be married. In addition, clandestine bishops, not approved by the Communist authorities, were excluded from diocesan government. This provoked outraged criticism, notably from Cardinal Zen, who accused Pietro Parolin, "a man of little faith", of "selling the Catholic Church to the Communist government", and also, very recently, from Cardinal Müller: "You can't make a pact with the devil"[2]. For it must be stressed that the pact in question grants to the Communists, who continue to persecute the Church, the appointment of bishops.
Last July, Pietro Parolin conceded that this policy was leading the Holy See to swallow huge gulps: "for the good of the diocese and of dialogue", Rome had recognized the unilateral appointment by the Patriotic Association, contrary to past agreements, of Joseph Shen Bin as head of the Shanghai diocese[3]. In reality, this way of proceeding - announcement by the Chinese ecclesiastical authorities of a bishop's appointment and consecration of the bishop, subsequently endorsed by Rome and published by the Vatican Press Room - is the usual process.
Cardinal Zen pointed out that the Secretary of State had quoted a sentence from Benedict XVI's Letter to the Church in China of May 27, 2007, which reads: "The solution of existing problems cannot be sought in a permanent conflict with the legitimate civil authorities". Parolin, all too happy that Pope Ratzinger had recognized the legitimacy of the Communist authorities, truncated the rest of the sentence: "However, it is not acceptable to surrender to the will of the civil authorities when they intervene unduly in matters concerning the faith and discipline of the Church". And Cardinal Zen invites the culprit of this "incredible betrayal" to resign.
The globalist cardinal
Much has been made of the second most important figure in the Church's participation in the meeting of a club whose aims are perfectly foreign to his social doctrine: the annual conference, behind closed doors, of the Bilderberg Group, held in Turin from June 7 to 10, 2018, on the menu of which was an analysis of the "worrying" rise of populism. The group was founded in 1954 by David Rockefeller, and today serves as an effective relay for globalist ideologies. Its 100 or so members and guests are co-opted from influential figures in diplomacy, business, politics and the media, many of whom make no secret of their "humanist" credentials. The total secrecy of the debates - participants are locked up for two days as if in a conclave - sustains all kinds of fantasies. But according to the Press Room, the Vatican Secretary of State was present for "only a short time - about an hour and three-quarters", during which he delivered a speech "on the social doctrine of the Church". In a word, Parolin part of the capitalist-globalist elite...
In keeping with this line of openness to themes dear to the globalists, but always with the same caution, on April 5, 2019, Parolin had received, for over an hour, high-profile LGBT activists, namely some fifty lawyers, magistrates, politicians, all campaigning for the decriminalization of homosexuality. The key figure in this delegation was Buenos Aires criminology professor emeritus Raúl Zaffaroni, a long-standing friend of Jorge Bergoglio, known for his very liberal positions, his commitment to the legal recognition of homosexual "marriages", and to the decriminalization of abortion. The Secretary of State had affirmed that the Church condemned "all violence against people", which was hardly a commitment, while making with this reception a gesture of great symbolic power. It's less crass than the Pope's lunchtime reception for a group of transgender women, but just as significant in terms of "openness". It's all Parolin.
A complex relationship with Pope Francis
Pietro Parolin was a member of the group of cardinals who worked on the reform of the Curia, which was supposed to reduce the importance of the Secretariat of State. It all came down to finances. Pietro Parolin skillfully manoeuvred to thwart Cardinal Pell's effective reorganization of the financial organs of the Holy See and the Vatican City State. In theory, the Pell reform removed a significant part of the control exercised by the Secretary of State. In reality, however, Pietro Parolin had the Secretariat of State excluded from the audit of all Vatican financial entities, thus torpedoing Pell's overhaul.
As a result, Cardinal Parolin found himself directly concerned by the exposure, in 2019, of a suspicious transaction carried out by the Secretariat of State in 2012: the investment of almost 200 million euros in a luxury London building encumbered by a mortgage. The property had been purchased at a highly overvalued price with funds raised by the Peter's Pence, then sold at a heavy loss. It was a classic case of clergymen who, believing themselves to be seasoned financiers, turned out to be extremely naive. The main responsibility lay with Pietro Parolin's first collaborator, Angelo Becciu, now Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. He was forced to resign his post, lost all the rights associated with the cardinalate and was brought before the Vatican courts along with other high-ranking Roman officials: René Brülhart of Switzerland, former president of the Financial Information Authority (AIF), the Holy See's financial watchdog; Mgr Carlino, long-time private secretary to Angelo Becciu; and Mgr Crasso, former manager of the reserved patrimony of the Secretariat of State. Their lawyers did not hesitate to allege that Parolin was aware of their activities.
Did Parolin fall into semi-disgrace? These accusations of embezzlement or gross imprudence meant that, at the end of 2020, the Secretariat of State was stripped of its assets and its enormous portfolio of investments. However, whatever Cardinal Parolin's involvement, this affair is so complex, both in itself and in the completely atypical - Bergoglian - way in which it has been pursued by the Pope himself, that it poses no real danger to the cardinal Secretary of State's chances when a conclave opens.
Furthermore, despite the participation of Parolin's diplomatic staff in international discussions on climate issues, he was excluded from the drafting process of the papal exhortation Laudate Deum. What's more, Cardinal Zuppi, a member of the powerful Sant'Egidio Community and President of the Italian Episcopal Conference, has been entrusted with implementing the Pope's efforts to secure a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. In this way, the Cardinal of Bologna, who has already taken on important diplomatic missions in the past, is seen as a kind of second Secretary of State.
But being less close to the Pope could be an asset for Pietro Parolin when the succession to Francis has to be filled, and there is bound to be a reaction against the despotism under which the Curia and the cardinals groan.
In this kind of speculation, his uncertain state of health - Parolin has been treated for cancer - would compensate for his "young" age (69) for electors who, since the interminable pontificate of John Paul II, want to limit the risks by seeking papables for short reigns (Cardinal Ricard revealed that Cardinal Bergoglio's age was one of the arguments put forward by his supporters, during the 2013 conclave).
A return to the "pure" Council: Amoris laetitia and Traditionis custodes
What tells us most about Parolin's ecclesiology is the speech he gave on November 14, 2017, in Washington, at the Catholic University of America, where he was receiving an honorary doctorate in theology. He gave a 55-minute masterly lecture in Italian in praise of Vatican II, which had all the makings of a manifesto, and in which he insisted that he was following in the footsteps of Pope Francis, who was fully realizing the intentions of the Council[4].
For Pietro Parolin, the Second Vatican Council is the fons et origo of the Church of today and of the future. The Fathers adopted a new paradigm, that of a Church which has always been Catholic, but which has become global, freed from its coincidence with Europe. This had various consequences, such as the introduction of local languages into the liturgy and the legitimization of local theologies. The adjective "worldwide" is used to describe the Church, with an ambiguity similar to that of the adjective "ecumenical" to describe the Second Vatican Council, which was ecumenical because it was general and/or because it led to the triumph of rapprochement with the "separated brethren".
Pietro Parolin quoted Archbishop Doré, for whom, after Vatican II, nothing will never be the same again. Just as the Church had originally passed from Judeo-Christianity to Pagan-Christianity, so it underwent an equally radical transformation at Vatican II. An "irreversible" process, insisted the cardinal, who emphasized that among the profound novelties of Vatican II highlighted by Pope Francis was the introduction of synodality, which "rebalanced" the pre-conciliar monarchical organization.
But aside from the "communication" aspect of synodality, for him the essence of the present pontificate lies in the harmonization achieved by Amoris leatitia. There was a contradiction: Vatican II had adopted a liberal ecclesiology (ecumenism, religious freedom), but Paul VI, with Humane vitæ, had retained an old-fashioned conjugal morality. Amoris lætitia bridged this gap by also committing morality to a liberal opening. It should be noted that Pietro Parolin made this opening sanctified by having the pope's praise of the Argentine bishops for their ultraliberal interpretation of Amoris laetitia inscribed in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis on June 7, 2017, under the title of "authentic magisterium"...
This defense of the new lex credendi in its fullness is manifested, as it should be, by a defense of the new lex orandi, the liturgy reformed in the wake of the Council. As Secretary of State, Cardinal Parolin played a key role in the elaboration of Traditionis custodes. The first act was the survey of the world's bishops organized by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on March 7, 2020, to take stock of the application of Summorum Pontificum. Although the results could be interpreted as an endorsement of Summorum Pontificum, its abrogation was programmed. At the Congregation assemblies that discussed the matter, some very hostile figures to the usus antiquior intervened, such as Cardinal Stella, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, the very virulent Cardinal Ouellet, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Versaldi, Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education (in charge of seminaries), and Cardinal Parolin, who is reported to have said at one of these sessions, playing on the term "mass of all time" sometimes given to the Tridentine Mass: "We must put an end to this mass for all time!"
A timely refocusing
Extreme discretion was imposed on the members of the Synod's October assembly on synodality, and it was surprisingly respected. We know, for example, that Cardinal Parolin gave a speech described as "very strong" and "very frank", which made a deep impression on those present, but without disclosing its content. He reportedly "defended doctrine", which must be placed at the heart of synodality. Andrea Gagliarducci quipped in Il Foglio on October 20: "It is unlikely, however, that Parolin spoke like a warrior. It seems likely that he spoke in a refocused tone, in harmony with the thinking of Francis, who is keen to distance himself from the German Synodal Way. Indeed, the heavy Roman synodal machine can be understood as a process of transaction between Rome and the German Church, or rather between the "exaggerated" Bergoglians (Hollerich) close to Germany, and the "realistic" Bergoglians (Parolin), the latter expressing the thinking of the Supreme Pontiff.
Moreover, this speech turned out to be a preparation of minds for the publication of a letter addressed by the Secretary of State to Ms Beate Gilles, the General Secretary of the German Bishops, on October 23, in which he recalled that Church doctrine reserves priestly ordination for men, and that, without judging the subjective responsibility of those concerned, the objective morality of sexual relations between persons of the same sex has been "evaluated [...] in a precise and certain manner".
From now on, the Secretary of State's public interventions are expected to be repeated in a "conservative" sense, and in the event of the Pope's serious illness or a vacancy in the See, he could as a matter of course take center stage, as happened with Cardinal Ratzinger in 2005.
Basically, Parolin offers the institutional version of Bergoglionism, that of being as open as possible without jeopardizing the institution too much. Iacopo Scaramuzzi, writing in La Repubblica on October 25, classified the important cardinals, including the papabile, into five groups. Leaving aside the outsiders, who come from distant and often indefinable lands, there are still four well-characterized groups:
- The ironclad Bergoglians, the most "advanced" Bergoglians (Luis Tagle, Jean-Claude Hollerich);
- The more realistic "institutional axis" Bergoglians, including Pietro Parolin (with Marc Ouellet, Arthur Roche). In our opinion, we should add Cardinal Becciu, whose clientele remains important and who is neither more nor less "to the left" than Parolin;
- Cardinals who could be described as center-left liberals (Scaramuzzi calls them "Mediterranean"), such as Mateo Zuppi of Bologna, Jean-Marc Aveline of Marseille;
- And the conservatives (Peter Erdö from Budapest, Robert Sarah, Gerhard Müller, Raymond Burke, Willem Eijk from the Netherlands, Timothy Dolan from the USA).
If the votes were weighed today, where would the scales stop? No one knows. But after the bulldozing authoritarianism of the present pontificate, Parolin's meticulous professionalism could pass for acceptable to cohorts of cardinals looking for an open-minded papabile, but presenting, in their view, the minimum of risk. In other words, with maximum risk for the Church.
-----
[Notes:]
[1] In this article, we have reused some of Daniel Hamiche's considerations from a May 1, 2019 Res Novae article, The Parolin "hypothesis" - Res Novae - Roman Perspectives.
[2] Cardinal Gerhard Müller, En toute bonne foi. Le catholicisme et son avenir, Artège 2023.
[3] Parolin: il Papa nomina il vescovo di Shanghai per il bene della diocesi e il dialogo - Vatican News.
[4] Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Parolin - YouTube.
