Vatican Diplomat Accused of Corruption and ‘Romantic’ Relationship While at U.N.

Archbishop Francis Chullikatt is alleged to have maintained an inappropriate relationship with a woman during his time as the Holy See’s permanent observer to the United Nations.

NEW YORK — An archbishop who served as the Holy See’s permanent observer to the United Nations is accused of financial and professional misconduct, including the use of Vatican staff and influence to assist and support financially a woman with whom he had a romantic relationship. Sources say that although Vatican officials were informed of the man’s conduct, he was quietly reassigned to a new diplomatic post without facing sanctions.

Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, 65, now apostolic nuncio to Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, is alleged to have maintained an inappropriate romantic relationship with a woman during his time as the Holy See’s permanent observer to the United Nations in New York, a post he held from July 2010 until June 2014. Three priests who were members of the diplomatic staff at the Vatican mission in New York told CNA that 65, now apostolic nuncio to Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, is alleged to have maintained an inappropriate romantic relationship with a woman during his time as the Holy See’s permanent observer to the United Nations in New York, a post he held from July Archbishop Chullikatt would frequently send the woman “inappropriate” and “romantic” text messages from his phone, and that the Holy See’s mission staff assisted her in obtaining a visa to come to New York. One priest-official said this was “the most unfortunate part of the story having to do with Archbishop Chullikatt.” The Vatican press office acknowledged receipt of questions from CNA regarding the allegations against Archbishop Chullikatt, but did not respond before deadline.

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/vatican-diplomat-accused-of-corruption-and-romantic-relationship-while-at-u

Vatican defrocks Poulson as priest in Erie diocese

He agreed to be removed from the clerical state as part of his guilty plea and sentence for molesting two boys. The Vatican ordered the laicization, Erie Bishop Persico says. The Vatican has removed from the priesthood David L. Poulson, 65, the former pastor in the Catholic Diocese of Erie who was sentenced to two and a half to 14 years in state prison in January for molesting two boys. Poulson, 65, applied to be defrocked, or laicized, as a condition of his guilty plea and sentence, which was imposed in Jefferson County. He is at the state prison at Camp Hill, near Harrisburg.

Erie Catholic Bishop Lawrence Persico, who announced the removal on Friday, forced Poulson to resign as a priest in the 12-county diocese in February 2018, when the criminal investigation against Poulson started. The laicization formally removes him from the priesthood. The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the approval of Pope Francis, notified Poulson on March 5 that he had been laicized, or granted a dispensation from all the obligations attached to holy orders, Persico said in a statement. Poulson “has been removed from the clerical state,” Persico said, and “is forbidden to function as a priest in the Catholic Church and should no longer present himself as a priest and not be admitted as a priest in the celebration of the sacraments.” Poulson pleaded guilty in October to one count each of corruption of minors and endangering the welfare of children, both third-degree felonies, for molesting the two boys in 2002 and 2010. He was ordained in 1979 and is a native of Oil City.

The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office accused Poulson abusing the two boys in separate incidents at Poulson’s hunting cabin in Jefferson County. He was also charged with molesting one of the two victims in the rectories at St. Anthony of Padua Church in Cambridge Springs and the St. Michael Church in Fryburg, Clarion County, where Poulson was assigned as pastor before he was pastor at St. Anthony. Poulson was prosecuted in Jefferson County for charges related to all of the incidents. Jefferson County President Judge John H. Foradora gave him the maximum sentence under the law on Jan. 11. The Attorney General’s Office charged Poulson in May as part of the office’s sweeping grand jury investigation of clergy sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania. Under Persico, the bishop since October 2012, the Catholic Diocese of Erie provided information that helped lead to the grand jury’s presentment against Poulson. He is one of two Catholic priests statewide charged as a direct result of the grand jury probe.

The probe led to the August release of the grand jury report, which named Poulson as one of 301 “predator priests” who abused more than 1,000 victims dating to the 1940s. The report named 41 priests, including Poulson, in the Erie diocese. The report covered six of the eight Catholic dioceses in the state: Erie, Allentown, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton. The dioceses of Altoona-Johnstown and Philadelphia were subjects of previous grand jury reports.

The one other priest charged as a result of the grand jury report is the Rev. John T. Sweeney, 76, of the Catholic Diocese of Greensburg. He pleaded guilty in July to a misdemeanor charge of indecent assault of a minor for an incident that happened in the early 1990s. Sweeney received 11½ months to five years in prison at his sentencing in December. He is also at the state prison at Camp Hill, according to prison records. The Greensburg diocese has said it is in the process of defrocking Sweeney. The allegations against most of the other priests named in the grand jury report are beyond the criminal statute of limitations. A number of the accused priests have died.

https://www.goerie.com/news/20190315/vatican-defrocks-poulson-as-priest-in-erie-diocese

Vatican next year to open archives on wartime Pius XII

VATICAN CITY — Declaring that the church "isn't afraid of history," Pope Francis said Monday he has decided to open up the Vatican archives on World War II-era Pope Pius XII, who has been criticized by Jews of staying silent on the Holocaust and not doing enough to save lives. Describing that criticism as fruit of "some prejudice or exaggeration," Francis told officials and personnel of the Vatican Secret Archives that the documentation would be open to researchers starting March 2, 2020.

The move could speed up Pius' path to possible sainthood, a complex process that in Pius' case bore the weight of questions of what he knew and did about Nazi Germany's systematic killing of Europe's Jews. Pius was elected pope on March 2, 1939, six months before World War II erupted in Europe. He died on Oct. 9, 1958, at the Vatican summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, near Rome. The Vatican usually waits 70 years after the end of a pontificate to open up the relevant archives. But the Holy See has been under pressure to make the Pius XII documentation available sooner and while Holocaust survivors are still alive. "The church isn't afraid of history," Francis told the archive staff. He said the Pius papacy included "moments of grave difficulties, tormented decisions of human and Christian prudence, that to some could appear as reticence." Instead, Francis said, they could be seen as attempts "to keep lit, in the darkest and cruelest periods, the flame of humanitarian initiatives, of hidden but active diplomacy" aimed at possibly "opening hearts."

https://newsok.com/article/5625132/vatican-next-year-to-open-archives-on-wartime-pius-xii

>>5726887

>What does this have to do with anything?

How about the sexual abuse of minor's, little boys..it's all there you just have to read!

>>5726495

No this just happened…..wonder what you are afraid of here… Try again here's the date Nation | Mar. 16, 2019

>>5726915 @ >>5727013