SANCTIFYING OFFICE

On the Liturgy

Cardinal Pietro Parolin believes the Church’s liturgy can be “transformative” — that a better understanding of its meaning and symbolic language, especially the Mass, can help Catholics “encounter the Lord and grow in holiness.”

In a letter for Italy’s National Liturgical Week in 2019, he said that in a “practical sense” the liturgy helps “communities to internalize better the prayer of the Church, to love it as an experience of encounter with the Lord and with brothers, and in the light of this, to rediscover its content [and] observe its rites.”

He continued: “The liturgy will be authentic, that is, able to form and transform those who participate in it, if the latter, pastors and laypeople, learn increasingly well to grasp its meaning and symbolic language, including art, hymns and music at the service of the mystery celebrated, also including silence. Mystagogy is shown to be the most suitable way of entering in this path, in which one learns to welcome with wonder the new life received through the Sacraments and to renew it continually with joy,” he wrote in the letter that drew heavily on Pope Francis’ reflections on the liturgy.

Parolin sees the liturgy as indispensable for growth in holiness, and that the liturgy “calls us” to greater sanctity.

In 2014, during a homily coinciding with a Rome conference on Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Liturgy, then-Archbishop Parolin noted how the “simplicity” of liturgical signs and symbols is disproportionate to the “superhuman extent” of their effects, realized in the “ordinariness of daily life.”

It is “almost as though the Lord wants to meet, heal and renew in the context of disarming normality, wants to reach and transform us in the daily routine of our existence,” he said. The Lord, therefore, “does not seek a show,” he continued. “The accomplished good has its own unstoppable internal dynamism of growth and diffusion, a powerful, constant, delicate, silent dynamism.”

The important task of the liturgy, he believes, is to preserve and make present the gift of grace:

“The mystery of the Church’s life is realized in the life of the Church through the action of the Spirit, and the liturgy is the main channel, always open, in which flows the pure water that emanates from the paschal mystery of Christ. The liturgy preserves and opens the door of grace and must, therefore, in turn, be cultivated and preserved in its truth and its authentic purpose.“

Cardinal Parolin’s views on more traditional forms of liturgy, such as the Traditional Latin Mass, have been negative almost without exception.

In 2014, soon after taking up his role as secretary of state, he conveyed a message from Pope Francis in which the pope gave his “most cordial welcome” to a Rome pilgrimage of traditional Catholics and hoped that their visit to the tombs of the apostles would help them “comply more closely with Our Lord as celebrated at Mass.” He also conveyed a message to French bishops on behalf ofPope Francis regarding the controversial 2021 motu proprio Traditionis Custodes that imposed severe restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass. The message called for “the greatest solicitude and paternity” for those affected by the decree and to described them as “often wounded sheep who need to be accompanied, listened to, and given time.”

But the cardinal himself has made it clear in private that he is firmly opposed to the traditional liturgy. He not only fully backed Traditionis Custodes but played a “key role” in its creation. He views the papal decree as part of a “return to the ‘pure’ Council,” and links it with other reforms of Pope Francis such as Amoris Laetitia. This indicates his alignment with Pope Francis’ vision of implementing a distinct idea of Vatican II more fully and reflects the cardinal’s ecclesiology which views the Second Vatican Council as central to a new paradigm — a fully globalised Church that incorporates different languages and extends beyond Europe.¹Cardinal Parolin is widely reported to have said at one of the sessions dealing with a survey that formed the basis of the motu proprio that “We must put an end to this Mass for all time!” although this has not independently verified. He also reportedly lamented at a January 2020 meeting at the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that the Vetus Ordo was popular with young people, and complained that ex-Ecclesia Dei institutes refused to accept change and were unwilling to concelebrate. Parolin therefore recommended that the CDF require traditional priestly groups to provide a concrete sign of communion that would acknowledge the validity of the Novus Ordo and demonstrate clearly that they are “in the Church.”

In June 2024, it emerged that Cardinal Parolin was backing even fuller restrictions, and perhaps even a blanket ban, on the Traditional Latin Mass. Parolin was reportedly joined in his support by the prefect of the Dicastery for Eastern Churches, Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, and the apostolic nuncio to Paris, Italian Archbishop Celestino Migliore.

Determined by Diplomacy

Evidence indicates that Parolin’s diplomatic career, begun early in his priesthood, has had a bearing on his role to sanctify the Church and the world. The majority of his public Masses and homilies appear to be extensions of his diplomatic work.

In 2013, in response to questions about the reform of the Curia that Francis tasked him with, Parolin stated, “I really hope there will be a real reform of the spirit.” He continued, “The important thing is for all of us to renew ourselves in order to be in a continual conversion.”

During an official state visit to the Republic of Bulgaria in 2016, at the conclusion of a Mass, Parolin stated: “We find ourselves in a Church, intended as a structure in which the faithful gather together to pray and celebrate the liturgy. The community gathered here is not isolated but connected to all the other Christian communities in the world. We are therefore called to turn our eyes to the Church in its catholicity, that is, in its universality. When we are united in church, dear brothers and sisters, we can sense our belonging to this great Christian family which lives, works, and prays in the entire world.”

Sanctification of Vatican II

Cardinal Parolin sees the Second Vatican Council as marking a significant break with the past, the advent of a “new paradigm of a Church with a global dimension,” and “irreversible” through the process of synodality. These comments were made in a revealing 2017 talk he gave at the Catholic University of America. Entitled The Council: A Prophecy That Continues with Pope Francis, he said that among the chief fruits of the Second Vatican Council was the introduction of the liturgy into local languages.

At a Mass celebrating the Church’s social doctrine, Parolin stated, “The believer who lives in union with Christ, the Incarnate Word, head of a people who walks toward a new heaven and earth, is solicitous to take account of the social dimension of his faith, as Pope Francis has shown in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium.”

In a homily delivered during a Mass in 2018 celebrating the 750th anniversary of the dedication of the Sicilian Cathedral of Monreale, Parolin praised the beauty of the cathedral, spoke of the “daily miracle” that is Transubstantiation, and named as a “fundamental pillar” of “every truly ecclesial community” the worshipping community’s participation in the Eucharist, which he called the “source and center of the community,” recalling the familiar words of Sacrosanctum Concilium.

GOVERNING OFFICE

Meteoric Diplomatic Rise

Pietro Parolin has been an influential force in the Church for over twenty years, known for his diplomatic expertise and pragmatism, which have catapulted him to the second-highest position in the Church.

After training at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy and entering the Holy See’s diplomatic service in 1986, he served in Nigeria and Mexico, took a degree in canon law, and worked on matters related to the Lateran Pacts before Cardinal Angelo Sodano secured Parolin’s first major diplomatic appointment in 2002 as undersecretary of the Holy See’s Relations with States — effectively its deputy foreign minister.

During the end of John Paul II’s pontificate and the beginning of Benedict XVI’s, Parolin was the Holy See’s chief negotiator with Israel, Vietnam, and China. In 2006, Inside the Vatican magazine named Parolin one of its “Top Ten” people of the year, citing his work on nuclear disarmament, dialogue with Iran and North Korea, and the fight against human trafficking.

As undersecretary, Parolin was at the forefront of Vatican efforts to conclude a long-standing impasse with Israel over its 1993 agreement establishing diplomatic ties with the Holy See, but as of 2024, seemingly intractable issues concerning tax and property rights for the Holy See continue to be unresolved.

Parolin had more success in helping to approve and implement the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and in trying to find a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear program. By raising the Holy See’s profile and good offices to be an effective “soft-power” mediator, he forged close relations not only with Iranian diplomats in Rome but also with United States officials who would often rely on him as one of the most accessible, informed, and straightforward contacts within the Holy See.

His accessibility was especially valued at a time when, during Benedict XVI’s pontificate, efficiency of communications between the Holy See and foreign diplomats in Rome had reached a low ebb. Confidential files published by WikiLeaks showed him appearing far more often in diplomatic cables during the first four years of Benedict’s pontificate than even the Vatican secretary of state at the time, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone (who did not speak English and was deemed too powerful to be easily accessible), and Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Holy See’s then foreign minister. An unnamed U.S. diplomatic source described Parolin in 2002 as an “open-minded” Vatican diplomat, “someone who has been trained to be able to take on more responsible positions.”

As undersecretary, he also helped pave the way for the establishment of diplomatic ties between the Holy See and Vietnam and made several trips to North Korea in a bid to improve relations with the rogue communist state. During this time he was also entrusted with delicate roles such as discussion on the war in Iraq with Alexei Meshkov,  Russian Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs.

Venezuela

Benedict appointed Parolin to his first senior diplomatic post as apostolic nuncio to Venezuela in 2009, a move that some analysts have viewed as a classic case of promoveatur ut amoveatur (promoted to get out of the way) following strained relations with untrained diplomat Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, then Secretary of State.

During that time, Archbishop Parolin had to guide the Church carefully through the tumultuous last years of President Hugo Chavez and his hostility to the Church. Chavez died shortly before Parolin came to Rome as Secretary of State in 2014. The late Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, the archbishop emeritus of Caracas, said Parolin “played an important role in the process of rapprochement between the Church and the government, between different sectors of society and the authorities.”

Secretary of State, Foreign Relations

On his appointment as secretary of state at the age of fifty-eight — the youngest since Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who later became Pope Pius XII — L’Espresso magazine wrote of Parolin: “From Syria to Lebanon to Iran, from the Middle East to Cuba, from China to East Timor and Venezuela, there is no chessboard on which Monsignor Parolin does not demonstrate his ability to move and know how to handle great situations.” On receiving news of his appointment, Parolin said in 2014 he was “surprised and even a bit troubled at the idea of being called to such an important responsibility.”

Many of Rome’s state diplomats who had had dealings with him over the years lauded his appointment. According to Honduran cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, Pope Francis took only four days after his election in 2013 to choose Parolin to replace Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone as secretary of state, and Parolin had still to be made a cardinal.

Early on in his tenure as secretary of state, Cardinal Parolin was called on again to use his arbitration skills in Venezuela when, in 2014, Chavez’s successor, President Nicolás Maduro, invited him to mediate talks between his government and the opposition as violence killed dozens in the worst unrest in the country in decades. Vatican-backed talks in 2017 failed after Venezuela’s opposition walked away, and the protests and political crisis continue to this day.

In December 2014, Parolin and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry agreed to find an “adequate humanitarian solution” for prisoners in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. The number of detainees was significantly reduced, but despite the Vatican’s wishes, the camp remains open. Cardinal Parolin had more success, at Pope Francis’ instigation, in allowing the Holy See to play a major role in reestablishing U.S.-Cuba diplomatic relations in 2014. He reportedly played a key role in those talks, partly helped by having built up a “very good relationship” with Kerry.

“Dialogue” and “encounter” are two of Parolin’s main objectives for Vatican diplomatic policy. For him, “the reason why the Holy See has a diplomatic corps is in order to strive for peace. Vatican diplomacy is concerned with the common good of humanity.” Furthermore, he believes “diplomacy should have the good of humanity as its aim.” He has frequently stressed that the Church’s diplomacy is a “diplomacy of peace” and that it does not have “power interests, neither political, economic, nor ideological” For this reason, he says, it has “greater freedom to represent the reasoning of one side to the other side, and make both aware of the risks that a self-referential vision can entail for all.”

In June 2018, Cardinal Parolin controversially spoke at the secretive Bilderberg Meeting, noted for its globalist agenda and what some say are aspirations for a one-world government. A Vatican official said the cardinal decided to attend after persistent invitations from its organizers and because he wished, after giving it much thought, to take the teaching of the Church to a group who would not otherwise hear it.

Cardinal Parolin is especially interested in conflict mediation and has been involved in several peacemaking efforts as a Vatican diplomat and especially as Vatican Secretary of State. Most recently, he has repeatedly offered Vatican mediation to help resolve the conflict between Ukraine and Russia; he has frequently sought to mediate in the Israel-Hamas conflict; and he has expressed more generally the Holy See’s readiness to mediate in various international conflicts and crises. As well as his emphasis on dialogue for peace, the Vatican’s diplomatic efforts under his leadership have focused on humanitarian concerns and facilitating communication between conflicting parties.

PROPONENT OF OSTPOLITIK

The Italian cardinal’s view of Vatican diplomacy matches most closely that of the Vatican secretary of state under the early part of John Paul II’s pontificate, Cardinal Agostino Casaroli — as Parolin himself emphasized in a conference dedicated to the hundredth anniversary of Casaroli’s birth.

Under Pope St. Paul VI, but less so under John Paul II, Casaroli reversed Pius XII’s confrontational strategy with communism and other anti-Catholic forces, instead employing the strategy of Ostpolitik, that is, pragmatic collaboration through compromise and conciliation. Cardinal Parolin has clearly adopted the strategy in his relations with China’s Communist Party (see “Diplomacy with China,” below).

Benedict XVI’s assessment of Casaroli is remarkably distinct from Parolin’s. Benedict said:

It was clear that Casaroli’s politics, although well-intentioned, had basically failed. Of course, one could not hope that this [dictatorial] regime would soon collapse. But it was clear that, rather than trying to be reconciled with it through conciliatory compromises, one must strongly confront it. That was John Paul II’s basic insight, which I shared.²Pope Benedict XVI and Peter Seewald, Last Testament: In His Own Words (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), 170.

Church and Curial Reform

Parolin is a firm backer of Pope Francis’ sweeping reforms of the Church. Asked in April 2024 what will happen to those reforms in the future, the Italian cardinal said they were irreversible “precisely” because, according to him, they were the “action of the Spirit, there can be no U-turn.”

He said prayer, patience, and discernment were needed to determine how the reforms should continue and “what to make institutional.” Recalling the Latin expression Ecclesia semper reformanda, he said, “the Church is always in need of reform,” and that “the Church must always be brought back to its proper form.” He also recalled the teaching of Lumen gentium, that the Church, “which includes sinners in its bosom” is “in need of purification, advancing on the path of penance and renewal”.

Parolin had a low public profile when it came to reform of the Roman Curia, one of Pope Francis’ mandated tasks on being elected pope, but the appearance was deceptive, and in fact, Francis has relied on him. According to Italian Vaticanist Andrea Gagliarducci, Parolin helped the Secretariat of State to regain its position as guiding and coordinating the Roman Curia, and it now also acts as a kind of “regulator” of Pope Francis’ reforms, with Parolin issuing papal decrees (rescripts) in the pope’s name — a change aimed at enabling reforms to be more quickly enacted. Under Parolin’s watch, the Secretariat of State also exercises more diplomatic influence than before, delineating pastoral initiatives from diplomatic ones and placing a premium on diplomatic pragmatism. This contrasts with Benedict XVI’s approach, which was to ensure Vatican diplomacy was, first and foremost, grounded in truth.

In 2017, Pope Francis reorganized the Secretariat of State by establishing a “Third Section.” This new section is meant to manifest the “attention and closeness” of the pope with respect to diplomatic personnel.³Vaticanist Marco Tosatti wrote that Parolin is a “progressive nuncio with ties to Silvestrini’s faction,” a reference to the late liberal cardinal Achille Silvestrini and the so-called Saint Gallen Group of diplomats and Vatican insiders who banded together to promote the cause of a progressive pope originally for the conclave following the death of John Paul II and then again in 2013. Significantly, shortly before the 2013 conclave, Bergoglio began meeting with diplomats from the Spanish section of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, which included Parolin.

The creation of the Third Section reportedly extended Parolin’s influence, enabling him to exercise oversight and control more directly all persons who work for the Secretariat of State. In the midst of Francis’ curial changes, Parolin “gradually achieved an ever more central role.” Contrary to initial predictions, the “bureaucratic” Secretariat of State is the only office whose structure was reinforced in the reforms and even strengthened in its powerful work.

In 2015, Parolin suggested that an “office for pontifical mediation” be established within the ranks of the Secretariat of State, in order to function as a link between the on-the-ground commitment of papal diplomacy and its commitment within international institutions. That office has yet to be created. In 2022, Parolin said the creation of such a body was uncertain, and underlined how it would need “massive investment.” In addition, public mediation work was taken out of the Secretariate of State’s hands when Pope Francis assigned Cardinal Matteo Zuppi the role of mediator between Russia, Ukraine, and the United States following the outbreak of the Ukraine War in February 2022. The choice of Zuppi over Parolin was seen by some as a snub to the Secretary of State, although in June 2024 Parolin led a Vatican delegation to Swiss conference on peace in Ukraine.

Regarding further curial changes, in 2014 Parolin sent a letter to all Vatican department heads, notifying them of an immediate end to new hires, wage increases, and overtime in an urgent effort to cut costs and offset budget shortfalls. He has helped to oversee a number of cost-cutting initiatives that have been welcomed by some in terms of increased efficiency and lower costs but have also led to loss of morale among Vatican staff who have complained of these internal reforms being poorly executed.

Following the publication of Praedicate Evangelium, Pope Francis’ 2022 apostolic constitution that reformed the Roman Curia, Cardinal Parolin revealed that investments and funds previously handled by the Secretariat of State would be transferred to APSA. The change came in light of high profile financial scandals for which the Secretariat of State was largely held responsible.

Cardinal Parolin also stated that the publication of Holy See documents through the official Bulletin Acta Apostolicae Sedis would remain reserved to the Section for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State.

Handling of Vatican Finances

Cardinal Parolin has been connected with a number of Vatican financial scandals although never indicted for his role in any of them.

In 2019, it emerged that the Secretariat of State had become embroiled in a dubious financial deal involving a London property deal in the 2010s largely associated with Cardinal Parolin’s deputy at the time, Archbishop (now Cardinal) Angelo Becciù.

Cardinal Parolin initially appeared to have little knowledge of the deal, saying the fund in question appeared to be “well managed” but the transaction was “rather opaque” and his office was “trying to clear it up.”

The deal involved a controversial speculative purchase of a London property development that led to a Vatican police raid on the offices of the Secretariat of State. Some reports claimed that the transaction involved the use of Holy See funds meant for the poor and was financed using loans, although Becciu denied the accusations, saying such property investments were “accepted practice for the Holy See.” The deal was reported to have accrued losses for the Holy See of over $200 million.

An investigation into the real estate deal was launched in 2019 after Parolin and other leaders of the Secretariat of State sought to pressure the Institute for Works of the Religion (the Vatican Bank) to grant a 150 million euro loan to the Secretariat to refinance the mortgage on the property. This led to a complaint to Vatican financial authorities.

Furthermore, it later transpired that Parolin was aware of, and approved, the London deal with Gianluigi Torzi, a broker who facilitated the Vatican’s acquisition of full ownership of the London property. Prosecutors claimed that Parolin, along with other high-ranking officials, did not fully comprehend Torzi’s contract change that granted Torzi full voting rights in the deal.

Despite his involvement in these aspects of the scandal, Cardinal Parolin was not indicted in the case. The investigation and subsequent trial focused on other individuals, such as Cardinal Becciù who, along with several financial brokers involved in the property deal, received prison sentences in December 2023 for financial malfeasance.

Cardinal Parolin was also in overall charge when the first external audit of the Vatican was undertaken in 2016 and then swiftly aborted. Becciù had instructed the external auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers that the audit was not to include the Secretariat of State. This rendered the audit useless, causing it to end abruptly just four months after it had begun in December 2015.⁴Marcantonio Colonna (Henry Sire), The Dictator Pope: The Inside Story of the Francis Papacy (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2018).

The finance reforms had already faced obstructions, and by 2016, whatever progress had been made since Francis’ election had been rolled back by an “old guard” resistant to change and exposure of malpractice.

Overall it is unclear how much of a role, if any, Cardinal Parolin played in these obstructions, but they appear to have had the intention of regaining for the Secretariat of State some of the powers it had lost to the Secretariat for the Economy, established by Francis in 2014 to bring Vatican finances to order. At the very least, despite holding the second-highest ranking position in the Vatican, Cardinal Parolin was in a position to prevent these obstructions and see to it that finance reform continued along the path being mapped out by Cardinal George Pell, then the Vatican treasurer, but the evidence suggests he either did not do so or was ineffective in whatever action he did take.

This appears to be especially true in the case of the forced resignation of the Vatican’s first auditor general, Libero Milone. Parolin had signed the decree appointing Milone in 2015, but when Milone began uncovering financial malpractice through his audit, his offices were raided two years later on the orders of Becciù and he was forced to resign. Milone said he and Parolin nevertheless maintained a “good relationship” in the years that followed, but Parolin failed to act to help clear Milone’s name, resulting in the former auditor and his deputy, Ferruccio Panicco, having to sue the Vatican for damages. “Cardinal Parolin always appeared to want to help, but never helped,” Milone said. Panicco, who was suffering from cancer, died in 2023, after his condition was exacerbated by the Vatican losing his medical documents in the 2017 raid on his office. The Vatican has so far failed to award Milone damages on the grounds that there was “no working relationship” between Milone and the Secretariat of State, despite the fact that it was Parolin, as Secretary of State, who employed him. Milone is appealing the decision but to date has still received no concrete assistance from Parolin to clear his name.

Another area of Vatican finances relating to Parolin was his role in allowing funds belonging to a Vatican children’s hospital to be used to keep afloat a bankrupt Italian hospital, despite warnings from the Vatican treasurer not to go ahead with the transaction.

Fifty million euro from the children’s hospital in Rome, the Bambino Gesù, was reportedly used in 2014 by Vatican officials to guarantee a loan to the Istituto Dermopatico dell’Immacolata hospital, also in Rome. The loan was firmly opposed by Cardinal George Pell, then prefect of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy, who, according to an informed source, advised Cardinal Parolin and Pope Francis not to proceed with it because he considered it “immoral to condemn the children’s hospital to losing money that it needed to treat needy children.”

But Parolin and the pope went ahead with the loan guarantee on the strength of a dubious feasibility study carried out by accountancy firm KPMG that appeared to show how the loan could and would be repaid, but which the firm refused to sign or endorse.

Although the loan was primarily arranged by lower officials who received large payments for their work, Cardinal Parolin said he was responsible for arranging the controversial loan guarantee.

Order of Malta Controversy

Cardinal Parolin became embroiled in a controversy that came to a head in 2016-2017 involving the Holy See and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (hereafter the Order). The Knights of the Order, founded by a papal bull in the twelfth century during the First Crusade, have traditionally been defenders and teachers of the Faith and enjoy the status of a sovereign state, but today primarily serve as humanitarian actors.

The controversy, which Parolin himself called an “unprecedented cri- sis,” was complex and primarily involved two conflicting factions within the Order: on the one side, professed religious of a more traditionalist and conservative disposition who wished to preserve the Order’s traditions as much as possible; on the other, the Order’s modernizing members who wished to bring the Order “up to date,” both in terms of some traditions and approach to Church teaching. To the latter, the traditional wing of the Order was a hindrance to such reform, whereas to the former, the modernists were dissenters whose designs on the Order would ultimately secularize and destroy it.

Many nevertheless agreed that the Order needed some kind of reform, and Pope Francis instructed the patron of the Order, Cardinal Raymond Burke, to help achieve this, including explicitly asking him to clear the Order of Freemasonry.

Parolin was friends with Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager, the Order’s Grand Chancellor and de facto leader of the modernist reformers. The two had struck up a rapport when, from 1989 to 2014, Boeselager was Grand Hospitaller, responsible for the Order’s international humanitarian work and often in contact with Parolin on the diplomatic circuit.

On December 6, 2016, the Order’s Grand Master, Fra’ Matthew Festing, dismissed Boeselager for insubordination after he resisted a disciplinary instruction taken against him for being ultimately responsible for distributing hundreds of thousands of contraceptives in the developing world when he served as Grand Hospitaller. Boeselager contested the accusation, which Festing made on the basis of an investigation carried out by a three-person commission the year before. Cardinal Burke, who was present at the December 6 meeting, helped exert pressure on Boeselager but always denied that Francis had asked him to demand Boeselager’s resignation (see more on this in the Cardinal Burke profile). Boeselager then appealed to Cardinal Parolin, who, believing that Cardinal Burke had conveyed the dismissal from Francis, wrote to Festing, stressing that the pope had asked for dialogue to resolve problems and not to expel anyone. Due to a “perceived irregularity” of the dismissal procedure, which had “deeply divided the Order,” Parolin decided to establish a five-person commission, all of its members generally supportive of liberal reforms, to investigate the distribution of contraceptives and the grounds for Boeselager’s dismissal. Three members of the commission, along with Boeselager, had some involvement in a mysterious $118 million bequest to the Order held in a Swiss trust whose true origins the Grand Master suspected. Parolin had reportedly been aware of the bequest since 2014.⁵The consultancy firm Promontory carried out a “due diligence” study of the trust in 2017 and found no wrongdoing, although the precise details of the funds and how they have been spent remains unknown.

Within one month of its formation, Parolin’s commission declared Boeselager innocent of all wrongdoing.⁶While Boeselager claimed that the findings of the commission established by Festing were inaccurate, when challenged by Burke at the December 6, 2016, meeting to explain why he, Boeselager, had not requested corrections to the document throughout 2016 or provided materials to disprove its investigative conclusions, Boeselager had no response. This, Burke is reported to have said, did not surprise him, for he had heard Boeselager himself vocalize a justification for precisely the dubious questions in practice — a justification that the commission also asserts was invoked by MI personnel in defense of the dubious practice. In January 2017, Festing was invited to a private audience with Pope Francis. According to reports, Francis asked Festing to resign on the spot, and together they formulated a resignation letter. The pope subsequently ordered Boeselager reinstated, stripped Cardinal Burke of all prerogatives and duties with respect to the Order, announced the appointment of a new papal delegate to the Order, and declared that the Holy See would oversee a review of the ancient sovereign entity and guide its reorientation. It remains unclear why, perhaps acting on instructions, Parolin became involved in the internal affairs of the autonomous Order, especially in setting up a commission to examine its internal affairs (something Festing denounced as “unacceptable”), thereby compromising the Order’s sovereign status. Although a 1953 ruling decreed that the Congregation for Religious had some jurisdiction over the Order, the Secretariat of State did not have such rights, leading to charges that Parolin had flouted that law.

In June 2020, Cardinal Parolin strenuously denied he was involved in any attempt to divert the multimillion-dollar Swiss-based fund from the Order of Malta to the Vatican – a reason some had suspected was behind his and the Vatican’s contentious involvement in the dispute between Festing and Boeselager.

Cardinal Parolin remains on good terms with the Order of Malta, and in June 2024 visited the Order’s charitable activities in Lebanon. Boeselager was dismissed as grand chancellor in September 2022 after the promulgation of a new constitution for the Order.

Sant’Egidio

Cardinal Parolin is close to the Sant’Egidio community, a worldwide Catholic lay group founded in Rome that helps the poor, the needy, and the vulnerable and is allied to Italy’s political left (see more detailed information on the organization under the profile of Cardinal Matteo Zuppi). Cardinal Parolin has attended a number of its events over the years. In 2018, he gave the homily at the organization’s fiftieth anniversary and again at its fifty-second anniversary in 2020. In 2022, he attended Sant’Egidio’s 40th annual Christmas luncheon for the poor in Rome and underlined the importance of closeness with those who suffer.

In 2019, Parolin wrote the preface to a book summarizing the value of the 2018 controversial provisional agreement between China and the Holy See (see more on Parolin’s diplomacy with China below). The book’s launch was moderated by Sant’Egidio president Marco Impagliazzo and attended by the community’s founder, Andrea Riccardi. Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, a longtime critic of the Vatican’s approach to China, criticized the Sant’Egidio community in 2012 for its history of submissiveness to the Chinese communist regime.

Handling Church Division, Episcopal Governance

Immersed in the world of politics, Parolin has tried to apply his long-honed skills of arbitration to defusing internal Church tensions and healing divisions. He firmly believes, however, that the Church is unlike other institutions in which politics often takes center stage. “Enough with seeing the Vatican and the Catholic Church as a party divided by political currents, as a place of factions that confront and sometimes clash,” he said in 2020, adding that sin also exists in the Church and conversion is necessary, but “reducing the Church to these [political] categories seems to me to be deadly for the ecclesiastical world.” Such a reading for Parolin “does not account for what the Church is,” and he invites the faithful “to go a little beyond these criteria and these categories and see instead what is good and positive that is being done in the Church, despite the difficulties that exist in every human relationship.”

He has taken a different stance to Benedict XVI when it comes to bishops’ conferences. Whereas Benedict saw them merely as bureaucratic structures, Parolin insists they are “episcopal” in the full sense of the authority of a bishop, which includes the power to define doctrine. He is naturally a supporter of Pope Francis’ vision for greater decentralization and “synodality,” including on matters of doctrine, ostensibly to allow local churches to deal better pastorally with the complexities of their local circumstances.

Villa Nazareth

In February 2020, Cardinal Parolin was appointed president of Villa Nazareth, a small university college based in Rome, governed by a foundation under the supervision of the Secretariat of State. Parolin was once also a director of the institution. Founded in 1946 by Cardinal Domenico Tardini, secretary of state under Pope St. John XXIII, to welcome poor and orphaned children, for many years Villa Nazareth was run by Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, who turned it into an elite training school largely managed by Holy See diplomats. According to Il Foglio, Silvestrini was the “powerful leader” of the “left wing of the Catholic Church” during the John Paul II era who helped turn the institution into a kind of headquarters for progressivism.⁷This was reportedly witnessed during the election of Benedict XVI in 2005, when a group of cardinals, including Godfried Danneels, Carlo Maria Martini, and Cormac Murphy- O’Connor, met with Silvestrini to try to prevent Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from being elected. Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, a papal diplomat who has had many dealings with China and Vietnam and played a significant role in current Holy See–China relations, is a former head of the university and remains a member of the institution’s board. Among Villa Nazareth’s alumni is Giuseppe Conte, the current prime minister of Italy. It has also had other close connections with prominent figures in Italian politics.

Clergy Sexual Abuse, Theodore McCarrick

Cardinal Parolin has said relatively little publicly about clergy sexual abuse. He believes it is “devastating” and that the Church’s “first duty” is to take care of the victims, then recognize and repent for the crimes, and find ways to prevent them in the future. He expressed deep sorrow for the wounds caused by the events detailed in the McCarrick Report, and underscored that the Church must learn from such failures to improve its processes and ensure better protection for the faithful.

Coronavirus

Parolin played an active role in addressing the global crisis and promoting the Church’s response. He called for global solidarity and common efforts through multilateralism, as well as proper medical care and effective vaccines to be made affordable and available, including to developing countries. He also highlighted the pandemic’s exacerbation of pre-existing social issues, particularly affecting vulnerable populations, and advocated a new economic model that prioritizes human dignity over profits.

The cardinal was especially enthusiastic about the Covid vaccines, despite concerns regarding their safety and ethical basis, and appeared unable to understand the depth of opposition and resistance to them. He enforced one of the world’s most stringent vaccine mandates in the Vatican, signing a general decree extending existing anti-COVID measures within the small city state.

Early on during the outbreak, Cardinal Parolin said it “would be nice,” in order to counter the loneliness of the lockdowns, “if all churches rang their bells for a minute,” calling everyone to “pray together, even if physically apart.”

TEACHING OFFICE

On Priestly Celibacy

On September 8, 2013, Parolin said that priestly celibacy is “not a church dogma and it can be discussed because it is a church tradition. We can talk, reflect, and deepen on these subjects that are not definite, and we can think of some modifications, but always with consideration of unity, and all according to the will of God as well as to the opening to the spirit of the times.” In 2016, in prepared remarks, Parolin recalled that the requirement of celibacy is a disciplinary one that has never been imposed on all clerics:

“If the problematic [“vocations crisis”] does not appear irrelevant, it is nevertheless necessary not to take rushed decisions, or decisions based solely on the basis of present need. It remains true now as ever that the exigencies of evangelization, together with the history and multiform tradition of the Church, leave open the possibility for legitimate debate, if these are motivated by the [imperative of] Gospel proclamation and conducted in a constructive way, [and] safeguarding the beauty and high dignity of the choice for celibate life.”

He noted a “sacramental emergency” in some areas suffering from priest shortages, but pointed out that celibacy was not required by the “very nature of the priesthood” but had special advantages, such as the “freedom to serve” and the ability for priests to “travel light.”

Female Cardinals

Speaking about the role of women in the hierarchy of the Church, Parolin said, “A woman could become Secretary of State, in the sense that the role of the Secretary of State is evidently not bound to the sacraments or the priesthood. In any case, I repeat, let’s look at the path that has been travelled, and the Lord will tell us how far we can go.” Canon law stipulates that although the pope may choose to elevate to the College of Cardinals a man who has not yet been ordained a bishop, that candidate must already have received Holy Orders and must then immediately be ordained a bishop in order to become a cardinal. Only males, therefore, may be made cardinals. Parolin seems to be arguing that the Vatican secretary of state need not be a cardinal or one who has received Holy Orders. The secretary of state has been a cardinal at least since the middle of the seventeenth century.

Parolin was personally present at the redesign launch of a monthly women’s publication published under the auspices of L’Osservatore Romano. The publication is edited and produced by an all-female staff The editor of the magazine described Parolin’s presence at the launch event as “more than beautiful, [it] is auspicious.” Parolin spoke on that occasion of the need to cultivate a habit within the Church of “listening to women, looking at the many things they have to say and to the many initiatives they undertake, implementing the male and female synergy that so often has been invoked in official documents but not always put into practice.” Later that day, Parolin said although women could not be ordained priests, since “the Church has taken its stance on this matter,” they could assume many other leadership roles within the Church. “I believe that women don’t want the ‘pink quota,’ but they want to move forward through their merit and their capabilities, without having institutionally reserved spaces,” he said.

Populism, Migration

Parolin has said the Holy See is “concerned” about the emergence of populism around the world and regards the “inability to welcome and integrate” as “dangerous.” He believes history “teaches us this, and we hope that in this sense it will not be repeated.”

In 2020 he warned against a drift toward nationalism and isolationism, which he said are “fundamentally infantile reactions to a globalised world that seems invasive” while Romanità (Roman ethos) means “true universality, fraternity, openness to others and peace.” His comments, made to the Sant’Egidio lay community, were reported as implicit criticism of a Rome conference on national conservatism on the theme “God, Honor, Country” that had taken place just days before, and whose speakers included Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán.

In December 2018, world leaders met in Morocco to sign and announce an accord informally known as the Global Compact on Migration. The compact outlined best practices regarding immigration, refugee, and asylum policies — in short, “migration governance.” The compact was not binding, but fifteen nations pulled out of the meeting, including Italy and the United States, mainly on the grounds that it could potentially compromise national sovereignty.

Parolin pressed ahead for the Holy See to take part, saying the Church was “convinced that the enormous challenges” posed by migration are “better addressed through multilateral processes” than “isolationist” ones. He also hoped better migration governance would “stem the wave of racism and xenophobia.”

He argued that “a dignified response to migration must be reasonable, with governments prudently determining their actual capacity for meaningful integration.” But he also spoke of Holy See “reservations” to the compact concerning “ideological interpretations of human rights” that do not “recognize the inherent value and dignity of human life at every stage of its beginning, development, and end.”

In further remarks, Parolin stated that nations must respect the “fundamental right” for a person to practice his religion “freely, without fear of persecution or discrimination.” Religious freedom, he said, is a “necessary prerogative,” one that states should respect and support and that the Secretariat of State takes into account when discussing potential concordats with states.

A few days after telling the delegates in Morocco that it was “essential to adopt an inclusive approach in addressing migrants’ needs,” Parolin came under fire for saying the Vatican would not be helping Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Catholic woman who had been on death row for many years on account of blasphemy charges, to obtain asylum. “It’s an issue inside Pakistan,” he said. “I hope it can be resolved in the best way.”

Islam, Interreligious Dialogue

Parolin is a supporter of Pope Francis’ prioritization of dialogue with the Islamic world and sees it as a vital means of achieving peace in the face of Islamism. On the eve of Pope Francis’ historic 2019 visit to Abu Dhabi, he told Vatican News that people of different religions are “all brothers, we all have the same dignity, we share the same rights and the same duties, we are children of the same Father in heaven.” He said it was therefore important to “rediscover the root of our fraternity, which is belonging to a shared humanity.”

He later praised the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, signed in Abu Dhabi by Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tayyeb of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, as “a significant text that deserves to be counted among the creative efforts to safeguard peace.”

Parolin sees the document as part of a “journey” that began with Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s declaration that taught that all religions have elements of truth in them.

Observers praised the Human Fraternity document as an effort to push back against a drift toward a “clash of civilizations,” but some scholars have argued that the document contains heresy because it states that the “diversity of religions” is “willed by God.” Parolin has not addressed this controversy, but has instead praised the document for its “common language and perspective” which he believes allow “Christians, Jews, and Muslims to seek a common understanding of problems.”

Parolin rarely speaks explicitly of Christ as essential to peace and as the solution to violent religious extremism, but rather promotes more general Gospel values and sociopolitical remedies such as “fraternity,” a sense of “humanity,” and equal “citizenship.”

Second Vatican Council

Cardinal Parolin believes the Second Vatican Council, when rightly understood, “can be, and become more and more, a great force for the ever-necessary renewal of the Church.” He welcomes particular “consequences” of the Council, such as use of the vernacular in the liturgy, and the “emergence of a ‘local’ Church” — something he believes is creating a “‘new’ Church consciousness.” He also sees as a permanent and important aspect of the Council the irreversible introduction of the Church as a “world Church.” The Council, he believes, introduced a “new style” that grew from “new seeds, drawn from the source of Tradition, especially biblical and patristic.” He criticizes those who blame Vatican II for “all the calamities of the Church.”

His views on the Council were best summarized in a 2017 talk to the Catholic University of America. His talk focused on the enduring legacy of the Council and its ongoing influence under Pope Francis. Parolin said it was a transformative event in the Catholic Church, emphasizing spiritual renewal and unity among Christians, and marked a shift towards a more global and dialogical Church. He welcomed how Pope Francis emphasizes the need to implement its teachings fully, and his push for a more synodal and collegial Church, where decision-making is more decentralized and involves listening to the faithful. This approach, he said, aims to reduce the centralization of authority in the papacy and empower local bishops and laypeople. Parolin agrees with Francis that the faithful collectively possess an infallibility in believing, which should guide the Church’s actions and teachings. In summary, the talk underscored the lasting impact of Vatican II on the Catholic Church and highlighted Pope Francis’ efforts to realize its vision through greater inclusivity, decentralization, and a focus on serving the poor.

Other Teachings

In 2022, the Vatican’s Secretary of State said the truth must be “fearlessly upheld” with a merciful and listening style. He told the Catholic media network EWTN: “You cannot go to heaven hating someone. Forgive now. Be compassionate now. Be patient and grateful now.” And he added that the Catholic media should not spread hate, but “promote a non-hostile communication.”

He has also stressed that ethics and morals are required in economics, especially in light of a “new climate economy.”

The Natural Law and Human Rights

In remarks delivered in May 2018, Parolin said the following, indicating his affirmation of the existence of moral norms proscribing certain kinds of actions:

“The proliferation of ever more extreme images of violence and pornography profoundly affects the psychology and even the neurological functioning of children. Cyberbullying, sexting and sextortion corrupt interpersonal and social relationships. Forms of sexual grooming on the internet, the live viewing of acts of rape and violence, organized prostitution online, human trafficking and incitement to violence and terrorism: all these are clear examples of horrendous crimes that can in no way be tolerated.”

Parolin has also stressed the universal character of human rights grounded in natural law and knowable by natural reason. In remarks delivered in Rome in 2018, he said that firm and unwavering respect for human rights, knowable by reason and by revelation, is the cornerstone of humane societies, noting that “the Church approaches human rights from their universality, rationality, and objectivity.”

But he has also warned against “the modern temptation” to “accentuate the word ‘rights’ and leave aside the most important one: ‘human.’” He believes that “every human being is linked to a social context, in which his rights and duties are connected to those of others and to the common good of society itself.”

Euthanasia

Parolin contributed remarks to a February 2018 international congress on palliative care sponsored by the Pontifical Academy for Life. While endorsing the distinction drawn by Pius XII between intentional end-of-life killing and the acceptance of a shortening of life resulting from a choice to administer drugs to relieve pain, Parolin praised palliative care but added that, as medicine and medical research have an enduring commitment to discovering new cures and defeating illness, palliative care shows an awareness that, when everything medical has been attempted, limits must be “recognized and accepted.”

Fiducia Supplicans and Homosexuality

Cardinal Parolin was guarded in his reaction to Fiducia Supplicans, saying Pope Francis’ declaration allowing “non-liturgical” same-sex blessings had “aroused very strong reactions” showing that a deeper reflection was needed. Asked if he thought it was a mistake, Parolin gave a characteristically diplomatic response: “I do not enter into these considerations; the reactions tell us that it has touched a very sensitive point.” He said the Church is “open to the signs of the times” and that if upheaval “helps us walk according to the Gospel,” then it is “welcome,” but he stressed that such change must also be “faithful” to the Church’s tradition and heritage and proceed according to “progress in continuity.”

When Ireland voted to legalize same-sex “marriage” in 2015, Parolin said: “I was deeply saddened by the result. Of course, as the Archbishop of Dublin has said, the Church must take account of this reality, but it should” serve to “strengthen all” in their commitment to “make an effort to evangelize our culture.” He added that the ballot result was not just “a defeat for Christian principles, but of a defeat for humanity.”

In April 2019, Parolin received in the Vatican a group of about fifty activists, lawyers, and other professionals working on behalf of efforts to decriminalize consenting homosexual conduct. According to a Vatican press release, Parolin listened to those gathered, accepted a compilation of their research concerning criminalization of such conduct, stated the Catholic Church’s teachings on the dignity of all human persons, and assured those gathered that he would inform Pope Francis of their concerns and perspectives.

Synods on the Family and Amoris Laetitia

On October 16, 2014, Parolin supported Cardinal George Pell and others in requesting that the contents of the Extraordinary Synod be made public after the general secretary, alongside the pope, gave notice that the reports of the ten groups would not be publicized.In 2015, during the Ordinary Synod on the Family, Parolin characterized the divisions among the bishops over the pastoral and sacramental-disciplinary implications of the indissolubility of marriage this way: “It is true that Pastors can sometimes have differing opinions on single pastoral issues, but this really shows that the Church is a living institution.” He said it would be good for the Church to try to “tend to the wounds of those who have made mistakes and are suffering.”

Parolin has given an enthusiastic endorsement of Amoris Laetitia and in general gives the sense that his own theology is directed largely by diplomatic exigencies.

Following the 2014 and 2015 synods, he said that we must “look at Amoris Laetitia as a great gift.” The new pastoral approach, according to Parolin, must “also take into consideration the present conditions in which [a] family is living: a family marked by the original sin as is all humankind.” He continued, “Amoris Laetitia has given great impulse to the pastoral ministry of the family and has produced fruits of renewal, hope, and accompaniment for those in fragile family situations.” On criticism of Amoris Laetitia, he said: “There have always been critical voices in the Church! It is not the first time it happens. I believe that, as the Pope himself says, they [should] be ‘sincere and constructive, and willing to find a way to make progress together and a better way of putting God’s will to work!’” Parolin has also said of Amoris Laetitia that it “arose from a new paradigm” of accompanying and listening, a paradigm that Pope Francis is trying to embody and proliferate. He said that the document was “a change in paradigm” embodying a “new spirit” and a “new approach” but he has been unclear precisely what that new spirit and approach are.

Cardinal Parolin played a significant role in formalizing Pope Francis’ private endorsement of the Buenos Aires bishops’ interpretation of Amoris Laetitia regarding communion for divorced and remarried Catholics. Specifically, he issued an accompanying note stating that Pope Francis wished for the Argentine bishops’ document on this matter to have “magisterial authority.” This note was published alongside Pope Francis’ letter to the Argentine bishops in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. The Argentine bishops’ document in question provided guidelines for implementing Amoris Laetitia, particularly concerning the possibility of communion for divorced and remarried Catholics in certain circumstances. By issuing this formal note and including it in the official Vatican records, Cardinal Parolin effectively elevated the status of both the Pope’s letter and the Argentine bishops’ document, giving them greater weight in terms of Church teaching and practice. This action helped to clarify Pope Francis’ position on the controversial issue of communion for divorced and remarried Catholics, and was read by some as an answer to the dubia issued by four cardinals in 2016 seeking clarity on the issue.

German Synodal Way

Cardinal Parolin has taken a leading role in dialogue with the Church in Germany over the Synodal Way, taking a firm line against certain heterodox innovations while at the same time ensuring relations remain open and cordial. In October 2023, he sent an official letter to the German bishops stating that the ordination of women to the priesthood and Church’s teaching on homosexuality and homosexual acts were not up for discussion. He also emphasized the need to respect the universal Church’s synodal path and avoid “parallel initiatives” that diverge from it. The letter generated mixed reactions from German Catholic leaders, with some seeing it as an important clarification and others viewing it as an attempt to stifle reform efforts. A further letter in February 2024 threatened sanctions if the German bishops went ahead with plans to create a permanent “synodal council.” As of writing, discussions are continuing over the matter.

Views on Contraception

Parolin’s stated views on contraception are unclear and largely noncommittal, although in a 2014 meeting, Parolin and Secretary of State John Kerry discussed — alongside geopolitical issues — the Obama administration’s mandate requiring nearly all religious organizations to include contraceptives (some inducing early-stage abortion) in their insurance coverage. By bringing up the issue at such a meeting, he left little doubt about the Vatican’s support for U.S. bishops’ opposition to the mandate.

In an October 2018 conference organized by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, Parolin spoke on a book drawing on classified Secretariat of State documents relating to the commission that Paul VI consulted in advance of promulgating his Encyclical Humanae Vitae. The book, La nascita di un’enciclica (The birth of an encyclical) by Fr. Gilfredo Marengo, attempted to situate Humanae Vitae in the context not only of the commission’s work and advice but also in contemporary culture and society. Catholics opposed to Humanae Vitae’s central teaching hailed Marengo’s work as a “milestone” that relativizes the encyclical; other Catholic scholars called Marengo a “bitter critic” of the encyclical’s doctrinal core.

In his prepared remarks, Parolin emphasized that Paul VI had no doubt about the relevant doctrinal propositions — a statement observers believe Marengo would disagree with. Parolin said what could be seen as the “delay” in the encyclical’s publication was due to the fact that Paul VI had wanted to study the issues patiently and consult experts. But Parolin’s comments on the occasion of the book launch were not a ringing endorsement of the encyclical’s position on contraception. Rather his support for the book, by way of his presence, together with the absence of any critical comments about the book’s problematic reconstruction of the history behind the encyclical, and the book’s problematic presentation of Paul VI’s moral teaching, permits a plurality of interpretations.

During the 2016-2017 Order of Malta affair, Parolin made no comment in support of Fra’ Matthew Festing or Cardinal Raymond Burke and their strong positions against the distribution of large numbers of contraceptives by the Order’s humanitarian branch in parts of Asia.

Religious Freedom

Cardinal Parolin embraces religious pluralism. He has asserted that the state should promote religious conduct and practice in general: “I would like also to stress the importance of the religions. Religions cannot be left only on the private ground; it is not only the expression of the personal feelings of the person, but religions have something to say also in a public arena.” For Parolin, liberal democratic regimes need not provide any privilege or special recognition for the Catholic Church: “Of course in dialogue with all the faiths, we are not asking nor requesting any privilege for the Catholic Church. We know that now we live in a pluralistic society where there are so many expressions of religious belief and religious faith; but I think that it is important that the authorities, the government, recognize the public role that religions could give to the public life.”

Speaking on the fiftieth anniversary of Nostra Aetate about religious pluralism, Parolin cited John Paul II’s 1986 address to the Curia, saying: “The differences [among religions] are a less important element in relation to unity that, on the contrary, is radical, fundamental and determinant.” Parolin also said, “The acceptance of diversity is fundamental in education to mutual respect and in the freedom to express one’s ideas and one’s religious convictions. This constructive attitude finds its natural humus in selfless dialogue (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, n. 42), which in the common search for peace and justice becomes ‘an ethical commitment that creates new social conditions’ (ibid., n. 250).” For Parolin, the interreligious gatherings at Assisi, in 1986 and subsequently, allowed “men and women to witness an authentic experience of God in the heart of their religions.”

On the Right to Life

During his September 22, 2016, address in New York at the General Debate of the seventy-first session of the UN General Assembly, Parolin said: “As Pope Francis said here last year, ‘The pillars of integral human development have a common foundation, which is the ‘right to life,’ which presumes that ‘we recognize a moral law written into human nature itself, one that includes the natural difference between man and woman (cf. Laudato Si’, 155), and absolute respect for life in all its stages and dimensions.’” Parolin has praised Mother Teresa for her opposition to abortion: “This led her to identify the children not yet born and threatened in their existence as ‘the poorest among the poor.’ In fact each one depends, more than any other human being, on the love and care of a mother and on society’s protection. Therefore, she defended courageously nascent life, with that frankness of word and line of action that is the most luminous sign of the presence of the Prophets and of the Saints, who do not bow to anyone except to the Almighty.”In a similar vein, Parolin said the teaching of Pope St. Pius X — with his insistence on the “sanctity of life,” as “an indispensable condition for the credibility of the sacred ministry” — is of “utmost urgency for the Church today.”

Additionally, at the U.S. bishops’ meeting in Baltimore in 2018 on the occasion of the conference’s hundredth anniversary, he praised the ordinaries for their defense of the unborn. He has also asserted that the right to life is the foundation of all human rights.

Israel-Hamas Conflict

In February 2024, Parolin made controversial remarks about Israel’s military response to Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, stating that Israel’s right to self-defense should be “proportionate” and that with 30,000 deaths, the response was not proportionate. His comments drew criticism from the Israeli Embassy to the Holy See.

Climate Change Advocacy

Parolin’s personal views on climate change do not appear to diverge from those of Francis and he has consistently represented the Vatican’s position. In December 2023, he delivered Pope Francis’ message to the UN climate summit in Dubai (COP28), urging “clear,” “tangible,” and “decisive” progress on climate action. In 2017, he called on the United States to uphold its responsibilities on “new climate challenges” after President Donald Trump announced the US would be withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement.⁸ Parolin said at the time that “time is needed to judge” the Trump administration.

DIPLOMACY WITH CHINA

Pietro Parolin has been a leading figure in Vatican diplomacy with the People’s Republic of China, which has had troubled relations with Rome since it broke diplomatic ties with the Holy See in the early 1950s.

For decades, two separate Catholic communities have existed in China, the first being an “underground” Church led by about thirty bishops recognized by Rome and comprising Catholics unwilling to submit their religious practice to the approval of the communist state. The second is a state-run “official” Catholic Church, the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), led by seventy bishops, several of whom had not, until late 2018, been recognized by Rome and a few of whom were publicly excommunicated by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 for receiving episcopal ordination without a pontifical mandate.

Initiating Contact

In 2005, with Parolin’s crucial assistance, the Holy See made direct diplomatic contact with China. That contact later bore fruit in a historic 2007 letter sent by Benedict XVI to the Catholics in China, encouraging them to endure in faith amid state-imposed religious persecution. Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, bishop of Hong Kong from 2002 to 2009, participated in the letter’s drafting.

Under Pope Francis, Parolin has made overtures to China’s communist government aimed at uniting the Catholic community in the country, but they have been severely criticized by Cardinal Zen for selling out the underground Church. In 2015, Zen wrote that Parolin had called those who refused to accede to the control of the government “systematic opponents” of the government and “gladiators” who enjoy displaying themselves in the public square. Such an attitude, Zen said, “does little to allay the fears” and help the confidence of persecuted Catholics who want to remain faithful to the Holy See and who support the Church’s independence from state control.

Cardinal Zen’s Warnings

Cardinal Zen and others in the Chinese underground have persistently warned that an arrangement between the Vatican and the Communist Party without proper safeguards would be a betrayal of faithful persecuted Catholics. Cardinal Parolin, on the other hand, has stated that the claim that “two different Churches” exist in China “does not correspond to historical reality or to the life of faith of Chinese Catholics.” He has also stated that good relations between the Holy See and China are not merely a political ambition but are something “of the Church, which belongs to God.”

In 2017, Parolin’s designs on the Church in China began to come into focus when it was reported that he had likely authorized a Vatican delegation of diplomats to travel to China in order to encourage underground bishops to yield their sees to CPCA-recognized bishops who had been illicitly ordained.

But as far back as May 2005, his aspirations for the Church in China and his stance on the vexed question of episcopal appointments became known through a Vatican communiqué that was later leaked: Parolin was confident that if Beijing had the will, the two sides could work something out. “It’s not a major problem,” he said, noting that the Holy See had reached a modus vivendi with Vietnam regarding bishops. The Vatican simply presents its episcopal candidates to the government of Vietnam, and Hanoi says yes or no. “It’s not ideal,” Parolin admitted, “but it’s a way to take a step forward and increase our engagement.”

Cardinal Zen, writing in AsiaNews in 2018, noted that from 1989 to 1996, while he was teaching in seminaries run by the CPCA, he had had “direct experience of the slavery and humiliation to which those our brother bishops are subjected.” He also pointed out that the government had, as of early 2018, begun ratcheting up religious persecution, including enforcing laws that had hitherto been inert — for example, attendance by the faithful at “underground” Masses would no longer be tolerated.

“So, do I think that the Vatican is selling out the Catholic Church in China?” Zen wrote. “Yes, definitely.”

Provisional Agreement

Tensions between Cardinal Parolin and Cardinal Zen further increased when on September 22, 2018, the Vatican and Beijing jointly announced a landmark provisional accord, signed by diplomatic officials from both Beijing and the Vatican, concerning the appointment of bishops in China.

The specific content of the accord has never been made public and is subject to “periodic review,” but it is thought to stipulate that the power to appoint new bishops rests no longer only with the Holy See but with the Chinese authorities. The pope, however, can veto their choices, though not unlimitedly.

Also part of the accord was the lifting of the excommunications of eight CPCA bishops (one deceased) who had not been in full communion with Rome principally because the official, state-backed church had appointed them without papal permission. The Vatican said Pope Francis hoped that “with these decisions, a new process may begin that will allow the wounds of the past to be overcome, leading to the full communion of all Chinese Catholics.”

Parolin said that through the agreement, “for the first time all the Bishops in China are in communion with the Bishop of Rome, with the Successor of Peter.” In an in-flight press conference three days after the signing, Pope Francis singled out Parolin for praise along with others who had helped with the agreement, saying:

“Cardinal Parolin, who is a very devoted man [has] a particular attachment to the magnifying glass: he studies every document down to the period, comma, accent mark. And this gives me a great deal of certitude.”

Francis also said episcopates of the world, the Patriotic church, and the “traditional Chinese Catholic Church” had written to him to say the agreement bore the signature of the faithful of both churches and this was therefore a “sign of God” He then insisted it is “a dialogue about eventual candidates. The matter is carried out through dialogue But the appointment is by Rome; the appointment is by the Pope.”

One of the main reasons for the Agreement, Vatican sources said, was to ensure dioceses, many of which had been without a bishop for years, could now have one appointed.

Reaction to Agreement

Supporters of the provisional accord believe it favors rapprochement, including the possible reestablishment of Sino-Vatican diplomatic ties after a break of over half a century.⁹“Gianni Valente, a journalist close to Pope Francis, believed an orchestrated ‘global media campaign’ had sought to sabotage the agreement, portraying it in a false and poor light.”

And yet state repression of Catholics, and other religious followers, considerably worsened in the months and years that followed the agreement, including the bulldozing of churches and Marian shrines.

In an October 2018 New York Times op-ed, Cardinal Zen blasted the accord as “a major step toward the annihilation of the real Church in China.” “I was among those who applauded Francis’ decision to appoint Pietro Parolin as secretary of state in 2013,” Zen wrote. “But I now think that Cardinal Parolin cares less about the Church than about diplomatic success. His ultimate goal is the restoration of formal relations between the Vatican and Beijing.”

Others, too, have roundly criticized the Vatican for the agreement, including the last governor of Hong Kong, Christopher Patten, who said the Vatican had “got it very badly wrong about China,” given its human-rights record.¹⁰Lord Patten, a well-known British Catholic who usually takes liberal positions and who spent many years negotiating with Beijing before handing Hong Kong over to the Chinese in 1999, said in February 2020 that he felt it was an “extraordinary time” to be dealing with China in this way, which has “gone back on human rights.” In November 2022, Patten said the Vatican was guilty of “self-delusion” and should make public the agreement.

Stephen Mosher, China expert and president of the Population Research Institute, said the deal was a “terrible mistake” and that the increase in religious persecution should come as “no surprise” to the Vatican, as Mosher said he had “warned Cardinal Parolin” of the dangers in March 2018. He said he passed on these warnings because the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Department had just “ominously assumed” direct control of religious affairs, meaning that Vatican officials would be dealing with “atheistic” party officials “determined to stamp out Catholicism.” A group of thirty-one British Catholics wrote a letter to the Catholic Herald in March 2020 calling for the provisional agreement to be “torn up” on the grounds that China is continuing to commit human-rights violations, including organ harvesting and the persecution of Catholics.

Fr. Bernardo Cervellera, director of AsiaNews, said in March 2020 that the underground Catholic community now feels “abandoned by the Vatican because the Vatican doesn’t stress at all the freedom of religion.” He urged Parolin and Zen to meet and talk. Parolin expressed his closeness to Zen after he was arrested in Hong Kong in 2022 on charges of “collusion with foreign forces” for which he was fined, along with pro-democracy activists.

Pastoral Guidelines

Cardinal Zen believes that even worse than the still-secret accord and the lifting of the excommunications are pastoral guidelines the Vatican issued in 2019 encouraging Chinese clergy to join the country’s state-run church. In comments to the National Catholic Register in March 2020, he said the guidelines were part of a move to “push everybody” into joining the independent official church and that he and others believed it would force clergy into apostasy. “It’s terrible,” he said, “the most evil thing.” Zen also believes it was chiefly Parolin who had Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re write a letter to all the Church’s cardinals, criticizing Zen in February 2020 for his position on China relations, and alleging that he, Re, had seen a document proving that Benedict XVI had approved a draft of the provisional agreement. “It seems incredible,” Zen said. “I’m 100% sure they can’t prove it to me. It doesn’t fit.”

Cardinal Zen believes that Vatican officials are ignorant of the issues in China but reserves most of his ire for Cardinal Parolin. In 2018, just before the announcement of the agreement, he issued further broadsides, accusing Parolin of despising heroes of faith and calling on him to resign. He said in 2020 that he believed Parolin had let himself be cheated. Asked if he or Cardinal Parolin had tried to dialogue with each other, Zen replied: “No, no, absolutely no.”

Cardinal Parolin Responds

In unpublished comments to the National Catholic Register in March 2020, Cardinal Parolin said he did not wish to “release interviews on this matter, since any statement about it can cause intense controversy, which is of benefit to nobody.” He added: “We have seen this occur recently, not only in relation to opinions, but also to facts,” and said he had already “addressed the questions” being put to him.

In April 2019, Cardinal Parolin urged patience over Sino-Vatican relations and advised not to judge rashly the provisional agreement that is meant to protect religious freedom.

“History was not built in one day; history is a long process,” he said. “I think we have to put ourselves in this perspective.” Parolin insists that the Holy See “deeply understands” the sufferings of the Church in China and its “heroic witnesses” but believes his accord with Beijing requires “an act of faith.” It is about “the art of the possible,” he has said.

Up until 2024, the agreement was showing little good fruit. Not only was the government still imposing restrictions on religious freedom, but relations between the Holy See and Beijing had been deteriorating after the Chinese Communist government had been clearly violating the terms of the agreement. Beijing had made a series of unilateral episcopal appointments and erected or suppressed dioceses in the country all without consulting the Vatican.

Cardinal Parolin acknowledged the problems in 2023, reiterating that “all episcopal appointments in China, including transfers, be made by consensus, as agreed.” He also called on Beijing to “prevent disharmonious situations that create disagreements and misunderstandings,” and to create a canonically legitimate episcopal conference for China.

Relations marginally improved in January 2024 when the Vatican and China agreed on the creation of a new diocese and the consecration of its first bishop, as well as the appointment of a bishop in another diocese.

They appeared to improve still further in August 2024 when a 95-year-old underground bishop was recognized by the Chinese government as the legitimate leader of Tianjin diocese without formally joining the state-sponsored Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA). However, skeptics viewed the development as a potential PR stunt or a way for the CPCA to bring Tianjin’s nearly 60,000 underground Catholics under state oversight.

As of Sept. 2, 2024, 11 bishops had been appointed in China since the provisional agreement was signed in 2018: six in the initial two years, three in January 2023, one in June 2024, and one in August 2024.

Many of those appointments, however, were made in flagrant disregard of the Vatican-China provisional agreement, leaving its true fruitfulness and usefulness questionable. For their part, Cardinal Parolin and the Vatican have been quick to put a spin on the few instances of seeming good news and bury the more frequent times when Beijing has trampled on the accords.

The agreement has been renewed three times, in 2020, 2022, and 2024, with the most recent renewal extending the agreement for four years instead of the usual two.

• 1
  Cardinal Parolin is widely reported to have said at one of the sessions dealing with a survey that formed the basis of the motu proprio that “We must put an end to this Mass for all time!” although this has not independently verified. He also reportedly lamented at a January 2020 meeting at the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that the Vetus Ordo was popular with young people, and complained that ex-Ecclesia Dei institutes refused to accept change and were unwilling to concelebrate. Parolin therefore recommended that the CDF require traditional priestly groups to provide a concrete sign of communion that would acknowledge the validity of the Novus Ordo and demonstrate clearly that they are “in the Church.”
• 2
  Pope Benedict XVI and Peter Seewald, Last Testament: In His Own Words (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), 170.
• 3
  Vaticanist Marco Tosatti wrote that Parolin is a “progressive nuncio with ties to Silvestrini’s faction,” a reference to the late liberal cardinal Achille Silvestrini and the so-called Saint Gallen Group of diplomats and Vatican insiders who banded together to promote the cause of a progressive pope originally for the conclave following the death of John Paul II and then again in 2013. Significantly, shortly before the 2013 conclave, Bergoglio began meeting with diplomats from the Spanish section of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, which included Parolin.
• 4
  Marcantonio Colonna (Henry Sire), The Dictator Pope: The Inside Story of the Francis Papacy (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2018).
• 5
  The consultancy firm Promontory carried out a “due diligence” study of the trust in 2017 and found no wrongdoing, although the precise details of the funds and how they have been spent remains unknown.
• 6
  While Boeselager claimed that the findings of the commission established by Festing were inaccurate, when challenged by Burke at the December 6, 2016, meeting to explain why he, Boeselager, had not requested corrections to the document throughout 2016 or provided materials to disprove its investigative conclusions, Boeselager had no response. This, Burke is reported to have said, did not surprise him, for he had heard Boeselager himself vocalize a justification for precisely the dubious questions in practice — a justification that the commission also asserts was invoked by MI personnel in defense of the dubious practice.
• 7
  This was reportedly witnessed during the election of Benedict XVI in 2005, when a group of cardinals, including Godfried Danneels, Carlo Maria Martini, and Cormac Murphy- O’Connor, met with Silvestrini to try to prevent Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from being elected.
• 8
  Parolin said at the time that “time is needed to judge” the Trump administration.
• 9
  “Gianni Valente, a journalist close to Pope Francis, believed an orchestrated ‘global media campaign’ had sought to sabotage the agreement, portraying it in a false and poor light.”
• 10
  Lord Patten, a well-known British Catholic who usually takes liberal positions and who spent many years negotiating with Beijing before handing Hong Kong over to the Chinese in 1999, said in February 2020 that he felt it was an “extraordinary time” to be dealing with China in this way, which has “gone back on human rights.”