VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE
YEAR XXV - # 225
DATE 16-12-2015

Summary:
- General audience: the signs of the Jubilee
- Note from the Holy See Press Office on the Moneyval Committee Report
- In memoriam
- Other Pontifical Acts

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 General audience: the signs of the Jubilee
 Vatican City, 16 December 2015 (VIS) - In the general audience today the Holy
Father recalled last Sunday's opening the Holy Door of the Basilica of St. John
Lateran and of all cathedrals throughout the world. "I wanted this sign of the
Holy Door to be present in every particular Church", he said, "so that the
Jubilee of Mercy may become an experience that everyone can share. In this way,
the Holy Year has given life to the Church as a whole; it is celebrated in
every
diocese as in Rome, and Rome is a visible sign of universal communion. Pope
Francis expressed his hope that this ecclesial communion be "increasingly
intense, so that the Church may be a living sign of the Father's love and
mercy".
 However, he commented that "love and forgiveness must not remain simply
beautiful words, but rather should become the reality of our daily life. Loving
and forgiving are the visible and concrete signs that faith has transformed our
hearts and this enables us to express the very life of God in ourselves. Loving
and forgiving as God loves and forgives. This is a plan for life that does not
admit interruptions or exceptions, but rather drives us always to go further
ahead without tiring, with the certainty of being supported by God's paternal
presence".
 He explained that "this great sign of Christian life then transforms into many
other signs that are typical of the Jubilee", and reiterated that salvation
cannot be bought as it is free, urging the faithful not to fall prey to
deceptions. "Crossing the Holy Door is a sign of our trust in the Lord Jesus
Who
came not to judge but to save us", he continued. "It is the sign of a true
conversion of our heart. When we cross this door it is good to remember that we
must also keep open the door of our heart. The Holy Year cannot be effective if
the door of our heart does not allow Christ to pass, Who drives us to go
towards
others, leading them to Him and to His love. Therefore, just as the Holy Door
remains open, as a sign of the welcome God reserves for us, our door too must
always remain open so as to exclude no-one".
 The Pope also remarked that confession is an important sign of the Jubilee.
"Receiving the sacrament with which we are reconciled with God means directly
experiencing His mercy. ... But, how can we ask God to forgive us if we
ourselves
are not capable of forgiveness? Certainly, forgiving is not easy, as our heart
is poor and with its own strength alone it cannot manage this. However, if we
open ourselves up to welcome God's mercy for us, in turn we become capable of
forgiving". The Holy Father concluded by encouraging all those present to live
the Jubilee starting with these signs that involve the great strength of love".

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 Note from the Holy See Press Office on the Moneyval Committee Report
 Vatican City, 16 December 2015 (VIS) - The report of the Moneyval Committee,
dated 8 December, confirms that during the last two years the Holy See and
Vatican City State have achieved significant progress in the construction of an
adequate and functioning institutional and regulatory framework for preventing
and combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism (c.f., in
particular, paragraphs 18-19: Vatican tribunals have frozen 11.2 million Euros
as a result of the current investigations).
 With regard to the Office of the Promoter of Justice, the investigations are
complex from a technical point of view, and require careful analysis. They have
a strong international or transnational dimension, involving offences committed
outside Vatican territory and persons from outside the Vatican (c.f. Paragraph
18).
 The Holy See has established an international network that enables it to
collaborate actively with other States in these cases, at the levels of both
the
AIF and the tribunals. The information and statistics contained in the Report
demonstrate this clearly. The Vatican Tribunal requested and received
reciprocal
legal assistance (letters rogatory) from other States. The Report confirms that
mutual legal assistance is widely used (paragraph 79).
 The Holy See welcomes the Moneyval Committee's invitation to strengthen
further
the capacity of its Tribunals and Gendarmerie to conduct more incisive
investigations in criminal matters, and to punish the crimes of money
laundering
and the financing of terrorism committed within the sphere of the Holy See and
Vatican City State.

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 In memoriam
 Vatican City, 16 December 2015 (VIS) - The following prelates have died in
recent weeks:
 - Archbishop Peter Alfred Sutton, O.M.I., emeritus of Keewatin-Le Pas,
Manitoba, Canada, on 5 September at the age of 80.
 - Archbishop Bruno Tommasi, emeritus of Lucca, Italy on 17 September at the
age
of 85.
 - Archbishop Georg Eder, emeritus of Salzburg, Austria on 19 September at the
age of 87.
 - Bishop Giovanni De Vivo of Pescia, Italy on 20 September at the age of 75.
 - Bishop Raphael Michael Fliss, emeritus of Superior, Wisconsin, USA, on 21
September at the age of 84.
 - Bishop Carlos Anibal Altamirano Arguello of Azogues, Ecuador on 25 September
at the age of 73.
 - Bishop Claudio Baggini, emeritus of Vigevano, Italy on 25 September at the
age of 79.
 - Bishop Ferdinand Joseph Fonseca, auxiliary emeritus of Bombay, India on 2
October at the age of 89.
 - Bishop Salvador Trane Modesto, auxiliary emeritus of San Carlos, Philippines
on 11 October at the age of 85.
 - Archbishop Ignazio Cannavo, emeritus of Messina-Lipari-Santa Lucia del Mela,
Italy on 18 October at the age of 93.
 - Archbishop Alessandro Plotti, emeritus of Pisa, Italy on 19 October at the
age of 83.
 - Bishop Gilberto Jimenez Narvaez, auxiliary emeritus of Medellin, Colombia,
on
20 October at the age of 78.
 - Cardinal Jan Chryzostom Korec, S.J, bishop emeritus of Nitra, Slovakia on 24
October at the age of 91.
 - Bishop Gaston Poulain, P.S.S., emeritus of Perigueux (-Sarlat), France on 24
October at the age of 88.
 - Bishop Georg Muller, SS.CC, prelate emeritus of Trondheim, Norway on 25
October at the age of 64.
 - Bishop Giuseppe Nazzaro, O.F.M, apostolic vicar emeritus of Aleppo, Syria on
26 October at the age of 77.
 - Bishop Joseph Dergham, emeritus of Cairo (Maronites), Egypt on 28 October at
the age of 85.
 - Bishop Jorge Scarso, O.F.M. Cap, emeritus of Patos de Minas, Minas Gerais,
Brazil on 28 October at the age of 99.
 - Archbishop Johannes Maria Trilaksyanta Pujasumarta of Semarang, Indonesia on
10 November at the age of 65.
 - Bishop Jose Benedito Simao of Assis, Sao Paulo, Brazil on 27 November at the
age of 64.
 - Bishop Federico Ocampo Escaler, S.J, prelate emeritus of Ipil, Philippines
on
28 November at the age of 93.
 - Bishop Antonio Troyo Calderon, auxiliary emeritus of San Jose de Costa Rica,
Costa Rica on 1 December at the age of 92.
 - Archbishop Ricardo Guizar Diaz, emeritus of Tlalnepantla, Mexico on 4
December at the age of 82.
 - Archbishop emeritus Luigi Conti, formerly apostolic nuncio in Malta on 5
December at the age of 86.
 - Archbishop Rrok Kola Mirdita of Tirana, Albania on 7 December at the age of
76.
 - Bishop Anthony Francis Sharma, S.J., apostolic vicar emeritus of Nepal, on 8
December at the age of 77.
 -Cardinal Carlo Furno, Grand Master emeritus of the Equestrian Order of the
Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem on 9 December at the age of 94.
 - Bishop Matthew Shija, emeritus of Kahama, Tanzania on 9 December at the age
of 91.
 - Cardinal Julio Terrazas Sandoval, C.SS.R., archbishop emeritus of Santa Cruz
de la Sierra, Bolivia on 9 December at the age of 79.
 - Bishop Dermot Patrick O'Mahony, auxiliary emeritus of Dublin, Ireland on 10
December at the age of 80.
 - Bishop Jiri Pa?our, O.F.M. Cap, emeritus of Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic
on 11 December at the age of 72.

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 Other Pontifical Acts
 Vatican City, 16 December 2015 (VIS) - The Holy Father has:
 - accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the diocese of Sao
Carlos,
Brazil, presented by Bishop Paulo Sergio Machado, in accordance with canon 401
para. 2 of the Code of Canon Law.
 - appointed Msgr. J. Gregory Kelly as auxiliary of Dallas (area 19,457,
population 3,847,430, Catholics 1,165,582, priests 213, permanent deacons 144,
religious 205), United States of America. The bishop-elect was born in LeMars,
United States of America, in 1956 and was ordained a priest in 1982. He holds a
Master of Divinity from the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas, and has
served in a number of pastoral roles in the diocese of Dallas, including parish
vicar, chaplain at the University of Texas, parish priest, director of priestly
vocations, vicar forane, rector ad interim of the Holy Trinity seminary, and
member of the college of consultors, the presbyteral council and the board of
directors of the University of Texas. He is currently vicar for the clergy. In
2013 he was named Chaplain of His Holiness.

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