Vatican City — More and more often, St. Peter’s Basilica, the beating heart of Christianity, seems to be turning into a vast museum-tourist hub rather than a living church. This isn’t a fleeting impression: under Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the basilica’s archpriest, choices and rhetoric are raising eyebrows. Silere non possum has been pointing out these critical issues for years, and the Franciscan friar’s management leaves little doubt.
At yet another press conference today, Gambetti appeared again in jacket and trousers, more like a business managerthan a pastor. He did not speak of prayer, liturgy, or spiritual care. He spoke instead of foundations, sponsors, money, “cultural projects,” and media strategy—a vocabulary closer to corporations than to the Church. And if his family kept him away from the family business, there may have been a reason: the heart of Christendom is no place to play at being a manager.
Fraternity reduced to a slogan (Masonic overtones)
Here is the most delicate point: Gambetti has turned fraternity into an empty slogan, repeated at every turn without ever tying it to the name of Jesus Christ. It is no accident that today, in the press room, even a reporter noted this absence, recalling the words of Pope Leo XIV. The Catholic understanding of fraternity is clear: it springs from baptism and our shared divine sonship. It is not a human pact but a theological reality—Christians are brothers and sisters because they are children of the same Father, called to recognize Christ in every face, even that of an enemy.
Freemasonry, by contrast, conceives brotherhood as a horizontal, exclusive, voluntary bond based on belonging to a lodge. It is inward solidarity, not universal openness; a social-political project, not a divine vocation. When Gambetti declares, “We want to offer the world the horizon of fraternity as the keystone for a possible new political, economic, and social order of human existence,” his words sound more like a Masonic manifesto than the voice of a cardinal. The Church does not propose a “new political order,” but the proclamation of the Gospel. Christian fraternity is not social engineering; it is a gift that flows from the Eucharist and the Cross.
Drones, images, and money
There is more. Gambetti also announced that the Cupola of St. Peter’s will display the face of Pope Francis by means of a drone light show. But is this truly the task of the basilica’s archpriest? To spend significant sums on light shows and spectacle when the Church’s mission is to lead people to Christ? One cannot miss the bitterness of many faithful who see the basilica becoming a stage rather than a house of prayer.
La corte degli esclusi
At Gambetti’s side today was the Jesuit Francesco Ochetta, secretary-general of the Fratelli Tutti Foundation, who in recent days at the Meeting di Rimini delivered interventions that raised more perplexity than enthusiasm. He touted projects supposedly involving “brilliant and highly prepared young people.” (A video is presented here to give a sense of the cast.)
Ochetta, long in the shadows within the Society of Jesus, has for years tried to mimic Antonio Spadaro—a contest that looks more like a race between lame horses than an ecclesial mission.
It is now evident that Gambetti has turned the Fabbrica di San Pietro and its related bodies into a refuge for figures sidelined elsewhere. Consider Enzo Fortunato, recently demoted and now a prisoner of platitudes borrowed from his friend Angelo Chiorazzo. His statements recall those of a politician fresh from defeat, trying to project confidence while everyone sees the collapse. With one key difference: Fortunato cannot count, as Chiorazzo can, on the political recyclingmechanism that so often rehabilitates the defeated. For now, he is left to lick his wounds. Then there is Orazio Pepe, removed from various Dicasteries and now starring in scenes inside the basilica, shouting like an hysteric and playing ticket-punch inspector; Calogero La Piana, ousted from Messina; and so on.
If there was room for the others, why not also make space for Francesco Ochetta’s ambitions? In doing so, beyond guaranteeing him visibility, a convenient container for funds is provided: the “Fratelli Tutti” Foundation, which increasingly resembles a lodge rather than a Vatican entity (and thus one tied to the Pope’s image).
A dark cloud over St. Peter’s
At the press conference, Cardinal Gambetti was asked what he had discussed with Pope Leo XIV. He did not answer—and could not: the audience took place only after the meeting with journalists. Many reporters, besides ignoring the timing of papal audiences, also don’t know that the meeting was not requested by Gambetti; it was the Pope himself who summoned the Conventual friar.
After all, the complaints about his management of the basilica—chronic delays to Mass, an obsession with foundations, sponsors, and lavish spending, coupled with scant care for prayer and liturgy—are well known to Leo XIV. If in the past Gambetti managed to string along the reigning pontiff with his projects, the mood has changed. And if the friar does not change course soon, the Pope will not hesitate to send him far from Rome—where the would-be manager did not hesitate, upon arrival, to mistreat the Augustinians in the basilica.
The question many have asked for years is simple: what image of Church is being built under Gambetti’s leadership? A basilica that speaks the language of marketing, reduces fraternity to political—even Masonic—slogans, and turns St. Peter’s into a theater of lights and sponsors? True Christian fraternity does not arise from a press office or from a projection on the Cupola, but from the Gospel. And perhaps this is what is most lacking today in the Pope’s basilica: prayer and Jesus Christ.
d.F.C.
Silere non possum