Father Belda, key figure in Zanchetta affair, is Pope’s delegate to Pope Francis Memorial Foundation
October 30, 2024
Desde la Fe, published by the Archdiocese of Mexico City, has announced the November 1 launch of the Pope Francis Memorial app under the auspices of the archdiocese and an eponymous foundation.
Father Javier Belda Iniesta, Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta’s canonical advocate, is the pontifical delegate to the foundation; he discussed the app’s launch at a press conference.
The app, according to the archdiocese, is “a global initiative that seeks to preserve the memory of the deceased and support the vulnerable elderly.” Users of the app can light virtual candles in honor of the dead.
“The cost of subscriptions is established according to two plans: the family plan, at 600 pesos ($30) per year and includes 15 memorials; and the solidarity one, at 1,200 pesos ($60), for those who wish to finance a subscription to those who do not have resources,” La Voz de Michoacan reported. Subscription funds, according to the archdiocese, will support elderly Mexicans, the Età Grande Foundation (which advocates for the elderly), and Peter’s Pence.
Father Belda, described in the archdiocesan announcement as pontifical delegate on the Pope Francis Memorial Foundation, said at the press conference that the memorial seeks “to create a space in which we could share and that we could enrich with any special memory we had of those who have preceded us and who are not here.”
Father Belda added:
His Holiness was clear from the beginning that there is no place in the world like Mexico capable, not only of remembering its own, but of celebrating its own, whether they are here or not. Mexico is an example for the whole world of how to keep in mind those who have preceded us, to celebrate even death as part of life.
Mexico is such a great example that this project could not be launched in a place other than Mexico, and from there we contacted the archdiocese.
The announcement comes six months after Pope Francis addressed members of the Pope Francis Memorial Foundation in an audience, during which the Pope was seated between Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes of Mexico City and Father Belda (image 1).
Father Belda—here shown next to the Pope in another photograph of a papal audience with the Pope Francis Memorial Foundation—has served as spokesman and canonical advocate for Argentine Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, who was convicted of sexually abusing seminarians. Bishop Zanchetta had governed the Diocese of Orán, a remote diocese in Salta Province in northern Argentina, from August 2013 until August 2017, when Pope Francis accepted his resignation, offered putatively for health reasons.
In December 2017, Pope Francis appointed Zanchetta the assessor of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), which manages the Holy See’s real estate and movable assets—even though Orán priests had previously accused Zanchetta, in complaints to the apostolic nunciature in Argentina, of sexual abuse and financial malfeasance.
A Spanish diocesan priest and a prolific scholar, Father Belda worked as Dean of the Faculty of Human, Canonical, and Religious Sciences at the Catholic University of Murcia (Spain), as well as the international coordinator and fourth-ranking official at the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences, following its refounding by Pope Francis.
In 2021, the Catholic University of Murcia fired Father Belda when university officials found they were unable to confirm he had earned two of the degrees listed on his résumé. Nonetheless, Father Belda remained Bishop Zanchetta’s canonical advocate and spokesman.
In June 2022—three months after Zanchetta’s conviction in a civil court—Father Belda conducted a preliminary investigation into alleged canonical offenses committed by persons who had testified against Zanchetta. Father Belda noted he was conducting the investigation by decree of the Holy See. Belda’s dual role as Zanchetta’s canonical advocate and as canonical investigator of those who testified against Zanchetta was seen by observers inside and outside Argentina as a blatant conflict of interest.
In the summer of 2022, Pope Francis named Father Belda his delegate to broker disputes between Archbishop Mario Cargnello of Salta, Argentina, and local Discalced Carmelite nuns, in part over the nuns’ support of an alleged visionary who claimed she was receiving apparitions of the Virgen del Cerro (Virgin of the Hill), whose shrine has attracted up to a million pilgrims a year. Father Belda’s appointment as the Pope’s delegate also raised questions of a conflict of interest, as Archbishop Cargnello had provided crucial assistance to Zanchetta’s accusers. Archbishop Cargnello was later convicted in civil court of gender violence against the nuns.
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