Last September 18, during an audience, the Pope praised two Vatican Radio employees who were getting married this weekend. “It’s nice to see how love leads to starting a family,” Francisco said. Just at that time, in the offices of the IOR, the famous Vatican Bank, the process of dismissal of a couple who had married in the Church on August 31 was being completed.
The reason? That the new rules of the Vatican structure prevent two employees of the small state from getting married. In Rome, they are already known as the “Romeo and Juliet” of the Vatican. And between “capulets” and “montagues”, Bergoglio should play a fundamental role in avoiding a double standard between two Vatican organizations. And above all so as not to give the impression that getting married in the Catholic Church, in the Holy See, could cost you your job.
The forbidden love story between two employees of the Vatican Bank will cause a lot of noise. Not only because of the event itself, but also because of the manner in which the termination occurred. The two employees met in the offices, fell in love and, after a long relationship, in February this year they announced that they were getting married. So far no problems. However, in May the Holy See approved new internal regulations for Vatican Bank employees that, among other measures, ban workers with tattoos or piercings and those who are not married in the Church. But it also prohibits marriages between employees, with retroactive effect.
Lack of loyalty
It was of no use if everyone knew and approved in advance the relationship and the announcement of the marriage: from now on, getting married in the Church between IOR employees meant the resignation of one of them from their position or automatic dismissal. And this is what happened: thirty days after the wedding they were informed of the dismissal and, moreover, as pointed out The messengerthey were accused of lack of loyalty to Rome for having relayed the scandal to the media.
Because? The couple retained the services of Laura Sgro, a lawyer known (and feared) in the Vatican and who, among other things, deals with the disappearance of the young Emanuela Orlandi, 40 years ago now, in a case in which they mixes the relationships between the mafia, the Vatican and the Ambrosian Bank, with scenes like that of a banker hanged on the Thames bridge which inspired the filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola in his saga The Godfather.
Sgro sent a statement to the media this Wednesday in which it announced the “contestation” of the termination of the marriage, which it “considers void, illegitimate and seriously prejudicial to the fundamental rights of people and workers and, therefore, devoid of any effect.” “.
Among the reasons for denouncing the dismissal of the employees, he affirms that there is no possible conflict of interest or risk of data leakage, since the newlyweds “are not civil servants occupying management positions, but rather employees without decision-making positions, without access to confidential information. » customers, and located in separate areas. »
“Stupefaction” of the Workers’ Association
It’s not just Sgro. Even the recently created Vatican Lay Workers’ Association, the closest thing to a union (a figure banned in the state) in the Holy See, showed “stupefaction” at the dismissal.
“We hoped for an amicable solution, but ultimately dubious regulations prevailed over the sacraments, over the most authentic feelings. Indeed, from today, we run the risk of having one more poor family. “Who among us, in fact, could survive without a salary?”, they underline in a press release, in which they regret that “marriage, today degraded in all parts of the world, instead of being defended and supported (by the Church), has become grounds for dismissal. That’s not all: contracting a Catholic marriage while employed by the Vatican Bank “is comparable to a seriously illicit act such as theft or corruption. revelation of office secrets.
He union The Vatican invokes Articles 12 and 19 of the Declaration of Human Rights, which protect family life and freedom of expression, while recalling that the ILO considers that marriage is not a valid reason for dismissal . At the same time, they denounce that, with its “legal tricks”, the IOR “compromises the image of the Church and that of Pope Francis” and announce “concrete measures of protest in support of our two colleagues”.
Vatican sources consulted by elDiario.es recognize the lack of “humanity” in the application of the regulations and hope that ultimately an agreement satisfactory for both parties can be reached, which could lead to the transfer of the one of them, or both, to the other. Vatican organization which is not affected by the new regulations.
In the latter case, the direct intervention of the Pope is not excluded, to whom the couple has already appealed to stop a dismissal that is contradictory to say the least: “What God has united, let no one separate”…
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