“ We’re victims of an operation orchestrated to strike our confreres in Moscow“: that’s the comment of the procurator general of the Franciscan Order of the Friars Minor Conventual, Father Carlo Vecchiato, in a statement released to SirEurope. He was commenting on the episode that has involved the Franciscan community in Moscow in recent days, provoking also the intervention of the Holy See. The Franciscan friars, “unknown to them”, have found an apartment that belongs to them, and that they rented to a private person on the understanding that he wanted to use it for charitable work, transformed into a house of ill repute. The Moscow press and television reported news of the discovery, “falsely fabricated”, even transmitting bogus images of persons dressed up in religious habits and caught in compromising positions. The Holy See also intervened on the episode: through its spokesman Navarro-Valls it associates itself with the “legitimate protests” of the papal representative in Moscow and of the superiors of the Franciscan Order. The community in Moscow itself has vigorously reaffirmed its innocence, declaring that “the Franciscans not only did not organize the brothel but have become the victims of a frame-up”.
