Diplomatic Briefing
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Newsline: The oldest embassy in the world turns 400
The permanent diplomatic mission of the Kingdom of Spain to the Holy See was established 400 years ago, and is therefore the oldest in the world still in existence. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Pope’s Secretary of State, presided over a Mass this past October 12 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the establishment of the Spanish Embassy in the Vatican, the oldest embassy in the world. (https://aleteia.org/2022/10/14/the-oldest-embassy-in-the-world-turns-400/) The Spanish Embassy still sits today in the Monaldeschi Palace, also known as the Palace of Spain (Palazzo di Spagna). Until 1622, the Spanish ambassador did not have a permanent residence. He chose to establish it on a square located in the heart of Rome which, in homage, was later baptized Spain Square, Piazza di Spagna. The Square is today a tourist hot spot.
Newsline: Ukraine’s ambassador criticises Pope over comments on Russian killed by car bomb
Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican on Wednesday criticised Pope Francis for referring to Darya Dugina, daughter of a prominent Russian ultra-nationalist, who was killed by a car bomb near Moscow, as an innocent victim of war. It is highly unusual for ambassadors to the Vatican to criticise the pope publicly. “Innocents pay for war,” Francis said earlier at his Wednesday general audience in a sentence where he referred to “that poor girl thrown in the air by a bomb under the seat of a car in Moscow”. In a Tweet, Andrii Yurash, Ukraine’s ambassador to the Holy See, said the pope’s words were “disappointing”. “How (is it) possible to mention one of ideologists of (Russian) imperialism as innocent victim?” he said. Francis called the war “madness”. He said Ukrainian and Russian children had been killed and that “being an orphan knows no nationality”. In his Tweet, Yurash said: “can’t speak in same categories about aggressor and victim, rapist and raped”. (https://news.yahoo.com/pope-warns-potential-nuclear-disaster-083301194.html) The Vatican did not immediately respond to Yurash’s comments.
Newsline: Ex-Vatican ambassador to France goes on trial on sexual molestation charges
The Vatican’s former ambassador to France goes on trial in Paris on Tuesday accused of molesting four men in the latest sex scandal to rock the Roman Catholic church. Prosecutors opened an investigation after a junior official at Paris City Hall accused papal nuncio Luigi Ventura, then 74, of molestation in January 2019, and city authorities filed a complaint to the Paris prosecutor. (https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-france-religion-trial/ex-vatican-ambassador-to-france-goes-on-trial-on-sexual-molestation-charges-idUKKBN27Q1B5) Ventura’s lawyer has denied the allegations. The Vatican last year lifted Ventura’s diplomatic immunity and he resigned from his post in December. A Paris City Hall official told Reuters last year that in January 2019, during Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s New Year address, Ventura caressed the junior official’s buttocks repeatedly. Since then, three other men have come forward with similar allegations. Jade Dousselin, a lawyer for one of the men, a City Hall community manager who was 39 at the time, said her client had been molested in 2018. Ventura was papal envoy in France from 2008 to 2019, following postings in several African countries and in Canada.
Newsline: Coronavirus kills Iran’s ex-ambassador to Vatican
Iran’s former ambassador to the Vatican and prominent cleric Hadi Khosrowshahi has died of the coronavirus, local media reported. According to the semiofficial Tasnim News Agency, the 81-year-old cleric died at a hospital in Iran. (https://www.dailysabah.com/world/mid-east/coronavirus-kills-irans-ex-ambassador-to-vatican) Iran had put the death toll in the country from the coronavirus to 26, with 254 confirmed cases. Iran has seen a spike in COVID-19 cases over the past week. Iran is one of over 35 countries that account for the nearly 80,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 around the world. The outbreak’s epicenter in Iran is the holy Shiite city of Qom, where the faithful in reverence reach out to kiss and touch a famous shrine. That shrine and others have remained open, despite Iran’s civilian government calling for them to be closed.
Newsline: Pope names first woman to senior Vatican diplomatic post
Pope Francis named the first woman to hold a high-ranking post in the Secretariat of State, the male-dominated Vatican’s diplomatic and administrative nerve center. Italian lay woman Francesca Di Giovanni, 66, will assume a newly-created post in a division known as the Section for Relations with States where she takes the rank of under-secretary, effectively one of two deputy foreign ministers. (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-women/pope-names-first-woman-to-senior-vatican-diplomatic-post-idUSKBN1ZE1XC) The Roman Catholic Church allows only men to be ordained as priests and women have traditionally been consigned to the shadows of its administration. However, women’s groups, including the International Union of Superiors General (UISG), an umbrella group of Catholic nuns, have long called on the pope to appoint more females to senior jobs within the Vatican bureaucracy.
Newsline: Italian diplomat named as Vatican’s new ambassador to United Nations
Pope Francis has named Italian Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia to serve as his new representative to the United Nations. The appointment was announced on Saturday by the Holy See. Caccia will succeed outgoing papal nuncio, Archbishop Bernardito Auza, who has held the post since 2014. Last month, he was named as the nuncio to Spain and the Principality of Andorra. (https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2019/11/16/pope-names-italian-diplomat-as-vaticans-new-ambassador-to-united-nations-do-not-publish/) Caccia now becomes the seventh Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in New York since the Holy See became a Permanent Observer State on April 6, 1964.
Newsline: Vatican lifts immunity of papal diplomat accused of sexual assault in France
The Holy See has waived the diplomatic immunity of a Vatican diplomat who has been under investigation by authorities in Paris for allegedly sexually assaulting a city official. Alessandro Gisotti, interim director of the Vatican Press Office, said the move was an “extraordinary gesture” that underlined the diplomat’s desire to fully cooperate with French authorities. (https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2019/07/08/vatican-lifts-immunity-papal-diplomat-accused-sexual-assault) In January, prosecutors in Paris had launched a formal investigation into an allegation against Italian Archbishop Luigi Ventura, 74, a Vatican diplomat who has been representing the Holy See in France since 2009. Gisotti confirmed July 8 that the Holy See had waived the diplomat’s immunity in light of the criminal proceedings underway against him in France.
Newsline: Vatican ambassador under investigation for sexual assault
Bishop Luigi Ventura, apostolic nuncio to France since 2009 and a long-time Vatican diplomat, is under investigation for alleged sexual assault. The French newspaper Le Monde reported that Ventura, 74, is being investigated by Paris authorities after he was accused late January of having inappropriately touched a young male staffer of Paris City Hall. A Vatican statement Feb. 15 said that it was made aware of the French authorities’ investigation of the envoy through the press and is “awaiting the outcome of the investigations.” (https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/vatican-ambassador-under-investigation-for-sexual-assault-71198) The alleged assault is said to have taken place in Paris’ City Hall Jan. 17, during a reception for the annual New Year address of Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo. The address is usually given to diplomats, religious leaders, and civil society members, with a role by the apostolic nuncio. The claim against Ventura was brought to French authorities by Paris City Hall six days after it allegedly took place. The alleged victim has not been identified.
Newsline: Mystery bones found at Vatican embassy to Italy not from missing girls
The bones that were found on Vatican property at the end of October do not belong to two Italian girls who disappeared in the 1980s. In an article by La Repubblica, the remains are said to date further back than 1983, the year when Mirella Gregori and Emanuela Orlandi disappeared under mysterious circumstances. On Oct. 30, two remains were found in the basement of the Vatican Nunciature, an extraterritorial Church property, located in Rome’s city center. The villa was gifted to Pope Pius XII in 1949 by a wealthy entrepreneur called Abramo Giacobbe Isaia Levi to thank the Vatican for welcoming and protecting Jews under fascist persecution. The fact that Gregori lived just a few blocks away at the time of her disappearance and the identification of at least one of the bodies as female led to immediate speculation in Italy that the findings might bring to a long-awaited close one of Italy’s most persistent mysteries. An additional lead was that the body might belong to the wife of the custodian of the property, who disappeared in the 1960s. But inside sources have told the local press that the bones are too old to be related to these cases. Radiocarbon dating will begin Nov. 30, sources said, and take a couple weeks.
Newsline: Hungary’s ambassador to the Vatican, Habsburg with a Twitter account
Eduard Habsburg is a Hungarian-German writer, diplomat and social media personality who has served since 2015 as ambassador of Hungary to the Holy See and the Sovereign Order of Malta. A great-great-grandson of Emperor Franz Joseph, he is also known as Archduke Eduard of Austria. Ambassador Habsburg and his wife, Baroness Maria Theresia von Gudenus, have six children. According to the 2011 Hungarian census, roughly 81 percent of Hungarians today identify as Christians, with Catholics representing the largest Christian group (50 percent) more than two decades after the fall of Communism. In recent years, Hungary has taken up the call of Pope Francis to aid persecuted Christians around the world, hosting government conferences and creating a new Secretary of State for Persecuted Christians.
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