Convive o bastante com diplomatas e representantes de países. A impressão que sempre tive é que eles vivem demais entre festas e salamaleques. Alguém que representa Cristo deve rezar o triplo para não se influenciar pelo poder e suas benesses econômicas e até sexuais.
Agora é noticiado que o ex-representante do Vaticano na ONU, o Observador Permanente da Santa Sé, arcebispo indiano Francis Chullikatt, teve relacionamentos amorosos com uma mulher, ao ponto de mandar diversas vezes mensagens com conteúdos sexuais para seus funcionários de forma equivocada (e ter de trocar de celular várias vezes) e também é acusado de cortar os salários de padres e leigos para sustentar financeiramente a mulher que tinha relacionamento. Os cortes de salários eram feito de forma arbitrária, por vezes deixando a pessoa sem qualquer recursos.
O Vaticano foi noticiado em detalhes das ações de Chullikatt em dezembro de 2013, mas nada fez. Ele se manteve no poder até junho de 2014, depois conseguiu ser nomeado núncio apostólico no Cazaquistão. Isso é, as denúncias não surtiram nenhum efeito.
New York City, N.Y., Mar 15, 2019 / 01:09 pm (CNA).- 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 is alledged to have 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.
Errant texts
Three priests who were members of the diplomatic staff
at the Vatican mission in New York told CNA that 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.”
Former staff members told CNA that on several
occasions, Chullikatt mistakenly sent these text messages to staff members, who
were left confused and concerned.
“The messages were, frankly, very inappropriate in
content and clearly romantic in nature,” one priest told CNA. “At least three
members of the mission staff received them that I know of, including me.”
“The first time this happened, he managed to send it
to a member of staff who didn’t know what to make of it. As [the recipient] was
a layman, it was doubly concerning to us,” the priest said.
Another former official said
that every time Chullikatt mistakenly sent a romantic message to the wrong
person, he would “abandon his phone and get a new cell phone or a new cell
phone number.”
Another priest said the
archbishop was obliged to change his phone “ridiculously often.”
A third priest who also served
at the Holy See’s mission to the U.N. during Chullikatt’s time also recalled
the messages.
“I cannot think how he managed
to keep doing this,” he told CNA. “I can only surmise he must have been
drinking when he would send them to the wrong people.”
“They were of an obviously
romantic character, really outlandish, and usually sent very late at night.”
As romantic messages continued
to be sent to priests, lay employees, and religious sisters, it became apparent
who their intended recipient was.
According to multiple sources,
the woman is a consecrated virgin who Chullikatt met during a previous
diplomatic assignment. Staffers say they were expected to assist her in
securing a visa and coming to the U.S., and later, in finding employment.
The office of the Holy See’s
mission to the United Nations did not respond to requests from CNA for comment.
One former official at the
mission, also a priest, told CNA that the woman had served as the archbishop’s
interpreter during a prior diplomatic posting.
“That was my understanding of
how they met,” the former Vatican diplomat told CNA.
A woman of the same name, also
a consecrated virgin was previously an auditor at a special assembly of the
synod of bishops in Rome, and was identified at that time as a university
professor.
The university where the woman
reportedly teaches did not respond to a request for confirmation. CNA was
unable to contact the woman directly.
After she came to the U.S., the
woman was, according to multiple accounts, a regular visitor at the mission’s
offices.
“She was around, we all knew of
her. She was a very significant figure in Chullikatt’s life, I think we can put
it that way,” a priest-official told CNA.
The priest told CNA that the
woman would visit Chullikatt at the mission in New York “quite frequently,” and
that he behaved with “impunity.”
“She was there, that was it,”
he told CNA. “In any normal situation, let alone one like this, you would
expect there to be some sort of backstory given – we met in school, she’s a
family friend, something – but he gave no explanation, he just carried on.”
Financial questions
The same priest said the
nuncio’s relationship with the woman was part of a pattern of dysfunctional and
unprofessional conduct during his time in New York. Another priest said the
relationship fit a pattern of “indifference” to immorality, which included financial
impropriety.
A March 11 report from Crux
alleged that Chullikatt had mistreated staff at the Holy See’s mission to the
U.N. and imposed arbitrary wage cuts on the salaries of lay staff members. The
priests who spoke with CNA confirmed those allegations
“I would say that swinging cuts
[to salaries] were a mark of his tenure,” one priest told CNA.
“He treated staff as inferiors,
across the board. There was no spirit of collaboration, no sense of working
‘with’ anyone.”
The priest also told CNA that in
additional to subjecting employees - both priests and lay people - to frequent
and “humiliating” outbursts of temper, Chullikatt was also known to dismiss
staff at a moment’s notice.
“It was alright for us priests,
I suppose,” he told CNA. “We always have a diocese to go home to, but for the
lay staff, they were often left stranded with no means of support.”
One priest told CNA that
Chullikatt would often bemoan the salaries paid to lay staffers, suggesting
that they ought to volunteer their time without concern for being paid. Because
they were paid, a priest said, Chullikatt questioned their loyalty.
A source recalled a particular
instance in which a lay expert was recruited by the mission for a three month
contract.
“This man was a tenured
professor who arranged to take three months of unpaid leave from his post to
serve the Church. Chullikatt sacked him within two weeks, leaving him without a
salary for the rest of his sabbatical.”
“There was only ever room for
one opinion, one voice in the room with Chullikatt - even adult conversation
was impossible with him, let alone professional collaboration.”
Terrence McKeegan, a former
legal advisor to the Holy See’s mission to the U.N., told CNA that after he
signed a one-year contract to work for the mission, Chullikatt arbitrarily cut
his wages.
“On or about December 10 of
2013, I myself was informed by the nuncio that starting in 2014, he would only
pay me half of the salary we had contractually agreed upon,” McKeegan told CNA.
McKeegan also noted that, beyond
his contracted position, he was expected to serve, unpaid, as legal advisor to
the non-profit Path to Peace Foundation, a legally distinct U.S.-based private
foundation affiliated with the U.N. mission. McKeegan said he was not given
access to records for the foundation, or invited to attend meetings.
...
Report
to Rome
Concerns about Chullikatt’s
behavior, regarding both the woman and the office finances, were reported in a
“dossier” of complaints delivered to the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal
Pietro Parolin, in December 2013, former staffers told CNA.
This dossier included a letter
signed by McKeegan detailing numerous instances of financial malpractice by
Chullikatt, including the unjust treatment of staff and the near-systematic
withholding of agreed salaries.
“I was, and still am,
absolutely certain of the serious moral violations that were being committed by
the nuncio regarding the withholding of just wages,” McKeegan’s letter said.
“However, based on my
experience with high-ranking officials in the Church, I knew that even sins
that cry out for vengeance would likely go unheard in Rome, so I stressed in my
letter to Archbishop Parolin that the unjust withholding of Mission staff salaries
could constitute potential criminal violations of US visa and labor laws.”
According to one staff member
familiar with the delivery of the complaints in Rome, direct mention was made
of allegations that Chullikatt was supporting the woman financially, and that
he had directed mission staff to arrange a visa for her to travel to New York.
In January 2014, Chullikatt was
summoned for an extended meeting in Rome, for what a former senior mission
staffer called “a dressing down.”
Chullikatt remained in Rome for
nearly two months, while his absence from New York went unexplained to staff.
“He was supposed to be removed
then and there,” one priest said, “but he was able to run around to enough of
his friends in Rome to stay on [in his position] a little while longer.”
One staff member told CNA that
Chullikatt had “exploited” the pope’s well-known disposition toward mercy, in
order to avoid being removed from his position.
Another staffer told CNA that
Chullikatt demanded a stay of his removal, insisting that members of the
Spanish royal family were scheduled to visit the U.N. in June at his personal
invitation, and that he needed to be in place to welcome them.
In June 2014, Queen Sofia of
Spain visited the U.N. in New York. Chullikatt’s resignation from the U.N.
position was accepted July 1 of that year.
“He used that time [between
December and June] to clear out the opposition to him, dismissing staff and
generally making life even more miserable before he went,” one former mission
staffer told CNA.
During the final six months of
Chullikatt’s tenure, several mission staffers were dismissed from their posts.
Sources told CNA that Chullikatt waged a “vendetta campaign” because of the
complaints to the Secretary of State.
...
Kazakhstan
After he resigned from his role
New York, Chullikatt spent nearly two years without an assignment before being
sent to Kazakhstan in June 2016 - a post one priest characterized as “the back
end of beyond as far as the diplomatic service goes.”
One former official of the U.N.
mission told CNA simply “he doesn’t deserve to be anywhere.”
McKeegan described the handling
of the allegations against Chullikatt, and his eventual rehabilitation as part
of an “all-too-familiar pattern.”
“Rome followed a very specific
playbook with its handling of Archbishop Chullikatt. Although giving the
impression (never directly but via back channels and rumor) to the
whistleblower or accuser that Rome was dealing with the problem, the Vatican
was instead maneuvering to protect yet another high-ranking official who had
“played ball” with the corrupt leadership in the Church.”
“Archbishop Chullikatt was quietly given a sabbatical.
This sabbatical period was not used by Rome to fully investigate the serious
allegations against him, of which my letter only constituted a small portion,
but rather to wait out mission staff accusers like me to give up in
frustration,” McKeegan said.
Another former senior member of the mission’s staff
told CNA he was unsurprised that the allegations went without formal response,
and that Chullikatt had been restored to the diplomatic service.
“You have to understand the culture of the diplomatic
service, and the curia more widely,” he told CNA.
“There is a powerful incentive to keep a problem like
Chullikatt under wraps. You aren’t just touching one man by speaking out, you
touch a whole genealogy of those who have covered for him, and those who he’s
covered for and been promoted by in turn,” the priest said.
The Vatican press office acknowledged receipt of
questions from CNA regarding the allegations against Chullikatt, but did not
respond before deadline.
Despite repeated attempts, Chullikatt could not be
reached for comment.
...
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