Sanctions against Father Stefano Manelli, 85, the founder of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, are imminent, writes Marco Tosatti (July 21). Manelli’s order languishes under a Vatican commissioner since July 2013.
The reasons for this crack down, never explained by the Vatican, are evident: for the present Vatican nomenclature, the Friars are “too Catholic”.
According to Tosatti, a document containing sanctions against Manelli, authored by the Congregation for the Religious, is currently on Francis' table.
After the sanctions are imposed, the Vatican will push for a General Chapter. The plan is to change the Friars' constitutions and to abolish the vow of consecration to the Immaculate and the vow of poverty. The latter has created a situation in which all material goods of the friars belong to lay-people. The Vatican has tried in vain to get hold of this patrimony but lost all juridical battles in Italian courts.
Therefore, the Vatican tried to use Father Manelli in order to put pressure on the assets' owners. After this failed, it seems, Francis wants to punish Manelli which reveals Francis’ strange sense of justice.
One of the leading Vatican bureaucrates who fights against the Friars is Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo OFM, the secretariy of the Congregation for the Religious, a Francis intimate, who was one of the main portagonists of the huge financial scandal hitting the Franciscans (OFM) in December 2014. The scandal was quickly hushed up.
Because Carballo is a radical-liberal, nobody touched him, on the contrary, Francis promoted him to become an archbishop.