I have never been one to turn a blind eye to synchronicity. Coincidence is the driver of discovery. Providence has a certain sense of humor.
On October 2020 a friend and I on a hungover whim decided to head to St Peters square to hear Señor Bergoglio’s weekly address to i Fedeli. It was the first and only time I heard him speak that year. By some bizarre twist of fate, it was also the day he decided to make a surprise announcement, the elevation of 13 cardinals. At the time I did not think much of it. I knew it was an event of some historical significance, as it marked the first time a Black American was elevated to the Red in all of Church history. But there was another historical anomaly that occurred in this selection, one I would not piece together until a year later. And one that I would not fully comprehend until recently.
Mauro Gambetti would be the first Conventual Franciscan, or Minorite, to be named a cardinal since 1861. Gambetti was young, and what’s more, was not even a bishop at the time of the announcement. In the November consistory he was simultaneously raised to arch bishop and Cardinal. He is the third youngest individual in the College of Cardinals. A meteoric rise for sure. And then, on 20 February 2021, Pope Francis appointed him archpriest of Saint Peter's Basilica, Vicar General for the Vatican State, and president of the Fabric of Saint Peter. Basically giving him power over the jurisdiction of certain aspects of Vatican City, and the administrative upkeep of St Peters Basilica. This Conventual Franciscan came out of nowhere, and in the space of a year went from priest to cardinal and then arch priest of St Peters.
Before we even begin to unravel the intentional damage he has done, let’s use His Eminence as a microcosm for modern Franciscan hypocrisy. Gambetti in his Franciscan faux piety projects an image of humility and poverty, and yet one of his first actions in his new position was that he “moved his office (of the Fabric) from the ground floor where he was easily accessible, to the third floor with a nice living room, new bathrooms, a coffee room, new furniture. All paid by the Fabric.” Instead of following the spirit of St Francis, focused on the salvation of souls, Franciscan piety has been transformed into an earthly mission of open borders and WEF style economic reform. Anyone who questions this is smashed with the cudgel of “you don’t care about the poor?” Gambetti, instead of preaching salvation, instead attends economic conferences.
Here he is at the Trento festival of economics, where he cried crocodile tears over the condition of workers, while implementing draconian measures for the employees of the basilica he manages. Huge pay cuts for the regular employees, but not for the managers. He has also been accused of nepotism, bringing in a bunch of his lay friends with him to Rome, and giving them giant pensions. Gambetti while custos of the Basilica in Assisi, awarded Angela Merkel for bringing in the influx of refugees to Germany.
The Franciscan mission has been transformed from its original goal of saving the souls of the poor, to employing them for political purposes.
But the real focus of this article today, is what Gambetti is doing and why.