Caritas holds tense general assembly six months after Vatican intervention

With its spacious rooms, an azure blue swimming pool and vast amphitheater-like meeting rooms, the Ergife Palace Hotel is well known in Roman business circles. Located just three miles west of the Vatican, it has become a popular conference venue over the years and is even the place where the powerful Italian Bishops’ Conference often holds its plenary assemblies.

But the main event currently on at the Ergife is the 22nd General Assembly of Caritas Internationalis (CI), the Rome-based coordinating office of the Catholic Church’s worldwide charity network. During the five-day meeting, which got underway on Thursday, some 400 delegates from 200 countries will elect their new CI secretary general, six months after Pope Francis intervened to overhaul the organization.

The delegates will all have November 22, 2022 in their minds. That’s the day when they learned, without any prior notice, that Caritas Internationalis had been placed under papal supervision. In stunned silence, their then-president, Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, came to read them the papal decree announcing the cardinal’s own dismissal, the end of the mandate of the secretary general and that of the chaplain general, as well as the appointment of a provisional administrator.

While the Vatican said at the time that there was no financial problem or sex scandal behind this dramatic dismissal, the Holy See has never explained why the pope made the decision on the advice of Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development and Caritas' supervisory authority.

"Brutal management"

According to numerous Vatican sources, the criticisms directed at the then-secretary general Aloysius John, were clear. This French citizen of Indian descent, who had been the CI head since 2019, was being accused of "brutal management". Since his arrival, his detractors said, about twenty employees – out of forty – had left the offices of the organization housed in the Palazzo San Callisto in the heart of the Roman neighborhood of Trastevere.

Some of those who left accused John of moral harassment, particularly during the lockdown imposed during the coronavirus pandemic. Others criticized him for the brutal methods he used to conduct daily meetings. Eventually, the CI vice-president , Sean Callahan, informed John in March 2022 that he intended to launch an internal investigation for moral harassment. Callahan is also president and CEO of the US-based Catholic Relief Services, a member of the Caritas confederation.

It was this investigation that led to John’s dismissal and that of Pierre Cibambo, the priest who had been the CI chaplain since 2012. Cardinal Czerny called both men at 7:30 a.m. on November 22, summoning them to his office. When they arrived at 11:00 a.m., the cardinal informed them that they had been definitively dismissed. He also told them they were forbidden to enter their offices and that the Vatican gendarmerie had been instructed to keep them out.

"Collateral damage"

"The importance of the mission can never justify collateral damage," noted a senior Vatican source. "There is no justification for leaving an organization untouched because it has a divine mission."

But in facing the Vatican, John's defenders describe a man who wanted to bring order to an organization that was too expensive, notably by reducing administrative positions, at the request of Pope Francis. And what about the departures?

"Essentially non-renewable contracts," they said.

But above all, they say there was internal opposition driven by the racism of Caritas representatives from countries of the North against those of the South. 

"In 2019 the delegates from Asia, Africa and Oceania all voted for Aloysius, while those from Europe and America were vehemently opposed," explained one of John’s defenders.

In an eight-pager letter written at the end of April to the members of Caritas Internationalis, which La Croix has seen, the ousted secretary general confirmed the racist motivations. He said some of those who opposed him have a "paternalistic conception of charity". He described them as having a  "colonialist" mentality by which "those who have the subsidies and who give are also those who decide and who control". John claimed this part of what fueled the opposition to him. 

In his recent letter, he called his November 2022 ouster a "decapitation" and castigated the "incredible violence and very poor public communication" that’s been used in reaction "to the emotions of some collaborators". He also protested against the "public humiliation" he said he was subjected to at the time. And he accused Cardinal Czerny, though without specifically naming him, of being at the origin of a "brutal takeover" of Caritas Internationalis.

Six months later, however, it seems clear that this affair is also indicative of structural deficiencies in the Holy See.

"None of this would have happened at a normal company," lamented a Rome-based ambassador. The diplomat particularly noted the inexistence of a real human resources policy at the Vatican, which makes it extremely difficult to resolve interpersonal tensions. In fact, the Vatican never even had a director of human resources until the position was created just this past September.

"They're playing with dynamite," worried one observer, who is concerned above all with the long-term weakening of the world's second-largest charity network. 

"There was brutal management, but that's not a reason to act like that," continued another diplomat. "Since they didn't know how to deal with problems as they arose, they took a sledgehammer to swat a fly."