So, Strasbourg locuta, causa finita? Apparently not, considering what followed the assessment of the Holy See’s financial transparency at the plenary assembly of MONEYVAL in the French city.  Right after the Holy See’s official press release, rumors spread that the Italian delegation to the plenary had been «gagged» and prevented – by the Italian government itself – from complaining about some (presumed) outstanding international requests and about some operations by the IOR, the Institute for Religious Works. The Italian Minister of Economy did not deny it, and offered further information about the Italian intervention at the MONEYVAL plenary assembly. A sharing of information that probably will not please European Institutions. Discussions at the MONEYVAL assembly are, in fact, confidential. Yet an observer country, Italy, through an official statement, discloses details about the Italian delegation’s intervention and makes public observations about the report on the Holy See. What will the reaction of Europe be?

It is just one episode.  But it shows the perils on the Holy See’s path to financial transparency. A path that began with the Monetary Agreement with Europe in 2009, continued with the promulgation of the Vatican anti-money laundering law in 2010 and the Holy See’s request to be evaluated by MONEYVAL in 2011, and was followed by the reform of the anti-money laundering law at the beginning of 2012, at MONEYVAL’s request.

MONEYVAL is the body of the Council of Europe that evaluates the adherence of its member states to international standards to counter money-laundering and the financing of terrorism. The standards are informed by the body’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations. There used to be «40+9» recommendations, but the most recent FATF plenary reduced them to 40, with significant revisions. MONEYVAL makes peer evaluations, and does not maintain a minimum threshold «white list». It engages, instead, on an ongoing and recurring process to constantly adjust recommendations in response to technological or other changes that criminals could try to take advantage of.

By submitting to a «technical» – non political – evaluation of its anti money laundering  protocols,  the Holy See showed that it is not interested in a fig leaf, but in materializing its commitment to implement a broad transparency policy. It opened its doors to European evaluators, who conducted two on site visits to the Vatican, delineating – together with Holy See officials – a path to transparency akin to that of any other state. No state has ever been found to be in compliance with all the recommendations.  Instead, each  state is on its own path to ever greater compliance.  Italy, for example, was found «not compliant» with 5 crucial recommendations, the so called «core and key» recommendations – and the FAFT document worriedly reported that Italy «has one of the highest cash payment ratios in Europe, and tax evasion that exists in sectors such as real estate provide a favorable environment to money laundering» (see p. 7).  According to the press, the Holy See was assessed «not compliant» or only «partially compliant» with 7 recommendations.

It is a  landmark achievement for the Holy See.  MONEYVAL, on its part, is focusing not on the past, but on the future of relations with the Vatican institutions. Paradoxically, the Vatican has better relations with Europe than with Italy.  As Europe praises the Holy See’s commitment to transparency and for having achieved overall compliance in a very short time, some foreign journalists who attended the recent «open door» meeting with the press at the IOR concluded that «relations with Italy are the issue for the Holy See».

In fact, the anti-money laundering law of Vatican City State was written in a hurry, under the pressure from the Italian authorities’ impounding of 23 million euro transferred by the IOR. After the promulgation of the law, Italian magistrates restored the money.  But the money has not been released yet, because the closure of the investigation is still pending.  The negotiations for the Monetary Agreement with Europe were also held under duress from an investigation – that lead to nothing – about an IOR account in a Unicredit Bank branch in Via della Conciliazione.  Finally, the second on site visit of MONEYVAL evaluators was followed by the news of the closing of an IOR account in a Milan branch of the JP Morgan Bank.

Now, just as Strasbourg has given its evaluation and the transparency process is moving on, rumors are spread about the presumed «gagging» of the Italian delegation at the MONEYVAL assembly. A MONEYVAL assembly where Italy is actually just an observer State, without a vote or any influence over the assembly’s decisions.

Because Anders Reivik – the author of the terror attack in Norway that caused more than 80 death people – has been initially described by the press as a Christian fundamentalist. Breivik was – according to the first reports – a Christian obsessed by the Islamic world and by multiculturalism. It was just like every right-nationalist is more likely to any other to have Christian roots, or like being Christian fundamentalists is the only way to be ferociously anti-islamic.

Recently, this have become a common reading of the facts. In Finland, Timo Soini, a Christian nationalist, had been accused of xenophobia. In Hungary, the new Constitution has been founded on Christian roots, and had been accused of homophobia, xenophobia and backwardness. In the Usa, David Limbaugh highlighted how the two most powerful molders of opinion in the nation, the media and Hollywood, are at the head of the line in the war on Christianity, frequently ridiculing and disparaging Christians in ways they would never dream of employing against any other group of Americans. David Limbaugh writes:  «This anti-Christian bias manifests itself in unflattering portrayals of Christians in Hollywood films and entertainment television, and also in the demonization of Christian conservatives in the media». And there are academics who are sharpening their swords and taking the usual swings at orthodox forms of religion.

Whatever comes out about Ander Breivik, one thing is certain. He is far more complex than a common «Christian Fundamentalist». He was a Freemason and a Knight Templar, and immensely proud to be it. The average Christian Fundamentalist is usually anti-Masonic, while Protestant Fundamentalists generally regard Freemasonry as occult and Pagan in nature, in essence very anti-Christian. The Catholic Church forbids all its members from becoming Freemasons under pain of excommunication. The Protestant Fundamentalist position is – on the other hand – absolute and militant, by claiming that «Christians cannot be masons». Given the general position of Christian Fundamentalists on this issue, and given the fact that Breivik listed Freemasonry as an «interest» on his Facebook page up to the day of the massacre, it is virtually impossible for him to truly be a «Christian Fundamentalist».

In fact, Breivik was baptized into the state-run liberal Protestant Church (Lutheran Church of Norway), but later became disillusioned with the way in which Liberal Protestantism has sacrificed much of its historic Christian character. He once blogged: «Today’s Protestant church is a joke. Priests in jeans who march for Palestine and churches that look like minimalist shopping centres. I am a supporter of an indirect collective conversion of the Protestant church back to the Catholic». Breivik (a political Zionist) obviously had little knowledge of Catholicism, for if he did, he would have known that one of the biggest Christian supporters of a Palestinian State is none other than the Catholic Church.

But he was baptized «by his own free will» – as he said – probably in order to be accepted into the Norwegian Order of Freemasons (Norwegian: Den Norske Frimurerorden), is the Masonic Grand Lodge in Norway. The first lodge (St. Olai Lodge – Later changed to Lodge St. Olaus to the white Leopard) was opened in 1749 and is still working. The Grand Lodge has followed the Swedish Rite since 1818, which requires its members to adhere to Christianity. During the union of Sweden-Norway, the Swedish-Norwegian king was Grand Master of the Order. The sovereign Grand Lodge of Norway was consecrated in 1891. As of 2009, the Order has about 20,000 members.

In light of his membership in the Masonic Lodge however, Breivik could not be a Catholic, for that would require breaking membership with the Lodge prior to reception into the Catholic Church. More likely, Breivik was lamenting the loss of historic Christian culture, which according to his manifesto he saw on par with historic Nordic Pagan culture.

The parallels between Anders Breivik and Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma City Terrorist) are starting to surface in the most startling way. According to Breivik’s manifesto he was originally a Liberal Protestant, but later lost his Christian faith, doubted the existence of God, and praised the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin. McVeigh in comparison, was raised a Roman Catholic, but later lost his Christian faith, believed in an impersonal and naturalistic deity, declaring that his «only god is science».

Reading the 1,500 pages manifest of the terrorist, one can understand that Reivik was obsessed with the idea that the political advance of Islam and the multiculturalism of the left have combined to make victims out of traditional European Culture. It is from that overaching framework that many of the rest of his ideas can be understood. On this basis, Reivik Action can be compared to London 7/7 attack.

Actually, the roots of the two attack were the same. «The multiculturalism’s celebration – Brendan O’Neill wrote – of identity over solidarity, its promotion of the politics of self-pity and victimhood, of a perception that minority identities are continually under threat from the post-colonial and xenophobic attitudes of both society’s rulers and its native masses, found its most fanatical expression in the London bombings. In the bombers’ extraordinary levels of self-pity, combined with their arrogant belief that their Muslim identity gave them the right to hector the British throng, we got a glimpse of how far the multicultural ethos can be pushed. Breivik, for all his anti-multicultural pretensions, is not that different».

In conclusion, Breivik is not Christian, and not Catholic, but a member of Freemasonry. The Freemasonry came out even in reports about  the bugging scandal in Great Britain, that seriously damaged the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch’s Reputation. There is a even a malicious link that one could do. A link that would bring to a Third World War forecasted by Albert Pike, 33^rd degree Freemason and author on Masonry, in a letter to the Italian Patriot Giuseppe Mazzini -  33^rd degree Freemason as well. After planning the first and second World War – occurred as proposed by Pike – there would be a Third World War, «fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the ‘agentur’ of the ‘Illuminati’ between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism mutually destroy each other. Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual and economical exhaustion».

Science fiction? Maybe. Actually, the Catholic Church must not face only enemies coming from outside, because the cancer is also inside the Church – as the Pope underlined in his visit to Fatima the last year. There is the need – Benedict XVI also claimed several times – for a inner purification of the Church. But the attack from the outside is strong and well structured. And Benedict XVI  in the last message for the World Day of Peace affirmed that Christians are the most persecuted confession in the world, and it is not only because of the massacre of Christians all over the world – e.g. the recent killings of Christians in India. «I also express – the Pope wrote –  my hope that in the West, and especially in Europe, there will be an end to hostility and prejudice against Christians because they are resolved to orient their lives in a way consistent with the values and principles expressed in the Gospel». The Pope also urged Europe to reconcile to its Christian roots, «which are fundamental for understanding its past, present and future role in history».

Aquinas

John Finnis followed a peculiar path during his life: born in an Anglican family, he has been atheist, then embraced a theistic vision and finally discovered Catholic faith. He followed this path by being the pupil of H.L.A. Hart, considered one of the «fathers» of Modern Anglo- Saxon jurisprudence. According to Hart view, there must not be no moral opinion implied in legislative activity. According to John Finnis «the thing about moral status is, if you believe in morality, at all, that is not a matter of choice or grant of convention, but of recognition. The very idea of human rights and status is of someone who matters wheter we like it or not, and even when no one is thinking about them; and matters, wheter we like it or not, as at bottom an equal, because like us in nature as substantial kind of being».

It is the same approach the Holy See follows in all of its activities under this Pope. Benedict XVI focused in several speeches on natural law, and he outlined  the «basis» of this attention in his three catechesis dedicated to Thomas Aquinas. It’s the try to overcome the clash between faith and reason. The method is Saint Thomas’ one. Unify, not divide. Thinking and dialoguing, not clashing. That’s the Benedict XVI recipe for the modern times.

«For St Thomas – the Pope said - the encounter with the pre-Christian philosophy of Aristotle  opened up a new perspective. Aristotelian philosophy was obviously a philosophy worked out without the knowledge of the Old and New Testaments, an explanation of the world without revelation through reason alone. And this consequent rationality was convincing. Thus the old form of the Fathers’ “our philosophy” no longer worked. The relationship between philosophy and theology, between faith and reason, needed to be rethought».

It is in some way what is happening nowadays. That’s why John Finnis looked back to Thomas thought. «He is –  the philosopher explains – a founder of modern thought because he is by far the most lucid and comprehensive transmitter of the best parts of the best philosophical tradition in human history, the tradition running from Plato through Aristotle, a tradition whose relevance and validity are not at all exhausted or really surpassed, apart from some aspects of the natural sciences».

There are several parallelism between Thomas Aquinas and the Pope. «Together with the agreement between reason and faith – the Pope told – we must recognize on the other hand that they avail themselves of different cognitive procedures. Reason receives a truth by virtue of its intrinsic evidence, mediated or unmediated; faith, on the contrary, accepts a truth on the basis of the authority of the Word of God that is revealed». This distinction «guarantees the autonomy of both the human and the theological sciences. However, it is not equivalent to separation but, rather, implies a reciprocal and advantageous collaboration. Faith, in fact, protects reason from any temptation to distrust its own abilities, stimulates it to be open to ever broader horizons, keeps alive in it the search for foundations and, when reason itself is applied to the supernatural sphere of the relationship between God and man, faith enriches his work».

Are there common goods which can be recognized by anyone, wheter he is a beliver or a non-beliver? «I think – John Finnis answers – everything ontologically rests on, or “presupposes”, divine existence and Creation and Providence.  But one can do physics without attending to that philosophically established ontological precondition of physics.  And similarly, one can go very far in following practical reason where it leads without attending to the ultimate ontological (metaphysical) precondition of intelligibility, intelligence, practical principles, the goods to which those principles direct us, and so forth.  As St Thomas makes extremely clear (but very many of his followers neglect and overlook this), the proper epistemological order of  discovery and the true metaphysical order of dependence run in opposite directions.  So, by focusing on the epistemological order or sequence of reflection, one can indeed provide a meeting point for all but dogmatic nihilists.  The value of truth and knowledge, for example, can be made perspicuous by clearing away misleading images and distractions».

Benedict XVI goes in the same direction. His thought strongly influenced the diplomatic work of the Holy See. It is evident by browsing the web site of the State Secretariat: speeches on religious freedom are focused on the equality among human beings, statements about «life» issues are on the focused on the same «reasonable» argumentations, statements about interreligious dialogue are based on the research of “common goods” among religions. Thomas Aquinas, facing the challenges of this modern times, would do the same, according to John Finnis. «One – the philosopher says – can point especially to his realism about truth and its accessibility to natural reason, that is to an open-minded and rigorous and deep-going enquiry, using sources of information accessible to anyone.  He also is very conscious that philosophical positions should be abandoned if the articulation and defence of them as true is inconsistent with their content – which is obviously the case with post-modernist theses, but also certainly the case with empiricist and idealist positions.  On the dialogue (but there is also really a clash) between civilizations, he would say essentially what was said by the holy Father at Regensburg university.  On neurosciences he would serenely point out that however extensive our knowledge may be or become about the physical preconditions of human thought and decision, the spiritual character of thought and of choice transcends those material preconditions, not simply is special circumstances but also in the ordinary activities of, say, conversation.  This is the source of the dignity and inviolability and radical equality of all human beings, which is the central issue and truth of bioethics».

Benedict XVI’s method is Thomistic. But is aim comes directly from the example of Saint Benedict. During an age of decade, Saint Benedict retired in the mountains, and from his monastery in Montecassino gave birth to European civilization. It was not his final goal. His final goal was quaerere Deum. «Our cities – Benedict XVI explained in his speech to College of Bernardins – are no longer filled with altars and with images of multiple deities.  God has truly become for many the great unknown.  But just as in the past, when behind the many images of God the question concerning the unknown God was hidden and present, so too the present absence of God is silently besieged by the question concerning him.  Quaerere Deum – to seek God and to let oneself be found by him, that is today no less necessary than in former times.  A purely positivistic culture which tried to drive the question concerning God into the subjective realm, as being unscientific, would be the capitulation of reason, the renunciation of its highest possibilities, and hence a disaster for humanity, with very grave consequences.  What gave Europe’s culture its foundation – the search for God and the readiness to listen to him – remains today the basis of any genuine culture».

Public opinion got again aware of the Green Pope when Wikileaks began publishing the Us Embassy dispatches about the Vatican. The first cable about the Holy See was titled «The Green Pope Supports US Path Forward From Copenhagen». It tells about a meeting that took place on the 20^th of January between an embassy officer and Dr. Paolo Conversi, according to the cable the  «point person on climate change» for the Holy See’s Secretariat of State. Conversi agreed to encourage countries «discreetly to associate themselves with the Accord, as opportunities arise». The Copenhagen Accord is a non-binding expression of commitment to reduce greenhouse emissions and to help developing countries adapt to anticipate climate changes.

Other cables talk about the pressure of Us government on the Vatican to make the Holy See change its position about Gmo. The Holy See refused, but promoted a sophisticated criticism stating that «a large diffusion of Gmo Food in developing countries would create a form of economic imperialism useful to enrich multinational corporations». Then, Marcelo Sanchezo Sorondo, Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, held a speech during which he stated that transgenic agriculture can be useful only in order to alleviate hunger in the world, but – on the other hand – transgenic agriculture should not become a way of speculating against the social justice. Sanchez Sorondo underlined that developing transgenic seeds to fight hunger is «a positive fact» that may help the assertion of «justice among goods and people». This statement was considered as a Vatican statement in favour of Gmo. That’s not true. The speech opened the debate inside the Church itself, which offers various standpoints about the issue.

Actually, there is not an official Vatican position on climate change, nor on Gmo because there is still nothing certain. The contribution of the Vatican to the debate is in order to alleviate world hunger. Osservatore Romano, Holy See newspaper underlined a couple of years ago that the problem was that everybody wanted the Church to be part of the debate, and everybody wanted the Church to be in favour of any topic. Vatican opinion is highly requested and it has a strong impact on public opinion. Another Wikileaks cable reports that «even more important than the Vatican’s lobbying assistance, however, is the influence the pope’s guidance can have on public opinion in countries with large Catholic majorities and beyond».

These are misleading analysis. True, the Vatican installed solar panels on Aula Paolo VI (its 10,000-seats main auditorium building), and it arranged to reforest land in Hungary to offset Vatican City’s carbon emissions. Benedict XVI considers the respect of the creation as a more in deep topic. Taking care of creation implies a relationship between the creator and what the creator created. So, the Vatican as a prudent approach to eco-issues: take care of the earth, but don’t consider the man as an intruder, and don’t fall on “Malthusian” adrift. Human being lives on the earth, and needs to take care of the earth to respect himself and the future generations. From Genesis to Kyoto Protocol, it’s always the same. Even former Popes deserved to environmental issues the same attentions. Pope Paul VI, in his 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio, linked heavy consumption to injustice, declaring that «no one may appropriate surplus goods solely for his own private use when others lacks the bare necessities of life… The earth belongs to everyone, not the rich». John Paul II added a spiritual dimension in Centesimus annus, critiquing «a style of life which is presumed to be better when it is directed towards having rather than being». The late Pope so urged people to «create life-styles in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which we may use responsibly to satisfy our legitimate needs, material or otherwise, while respecting the intrinsic balance of the creation».

Benedict XVI is in continuity with this statements of his predecessors. He indissolubly links the care to creation to the car to human being. A proof is in the themes the Pope chose for World Day Peace: truth (In Truth, Peace, 2006), dignity of human being (The Human Person, the heart of peace, 2007), unity of human family (The Human Family, a Community of peace, 2008), the poverty issue (Fight the poverty, build peace, 2009) and finally guardianship of creation (If you want cultivate peace, protect the creation, 2010). This is the path: from human being, to the community of human beings, to the care human being must have to the freedom of the other, as stated in the last message for the World Day of Peace, Religious Freedom, a path to peace. From Genesis to Kyoto, attention is always focused on the human being. Ecology of nature, but of the man first.