Another controversy has broken out in Italy over one of Pope Francis’s appointments — this time laywoman Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, a member of the new papal reform commission to study the Vatican’s economic and administrative structures.
The 30-year-old Catholic, of Italian-Egyptian parentage, is a communications expert employed as a management consultant by multinational Ernst & Young in Rome.
After her appointment, journalists checked her very active Twitter account and found several indiscreet tweets. For example:
- Back in February, she tweeted that Pope Benedict XVI had leukemia, although the Vatican has repeatedly denied that any specific health concern led to his decision to resign the papacy.
- She also sent out several seemingly friendly tweets about Gianluigi Nuzzi, the journalist who received stolen documents from the Pope’s butler and gave rise to the Vatican leaks affair. At one stage, Chaouqui told Nuzzi he was “bleeding right”.
- At another point, Chaouqui tweeted: “Syrian children are dying, and the Church is fighting against the butler. How can a Catholic stay Christian like this?”
- She also made a critical comment about the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. On February 11, the day Benedict announced his resignation, she tweeted: “Bertone has won … as a believer, I’m depressed.”
National Catholic Reporter correspondent John Allen — who suggests Chaouqui might become the first papal nominee in history to lose a job because of use of social media — says “that last tweet suggests Chaouqui may have something to learn about the Vatican. If anything was clear about Benedict’s resignation, it was that it also meant the imminent end of Bertone’s run”.
Allen says Chaouqui also sent a tweet on the evening that Pope Francis was elected, saying “they tell me he’s French” — apparently because she got confused between “Francesco” and francese (the Italian word for “French”).
However, Allen believes the Pope will probably retain Chaouqui, otherwise he would create the precedent “that anyone who wants to stop his reform can do so by digging up dirt on the people he tasks with carrying it out”.
Sources:
Image: ManagerOnline