Pope Francis gave top Vatican finance officials three months to transfer their financial holdings to another office fee.
Pope Francis has given the state Vatican Secretariat three months to transfer all other Vatican office fees following a three-month bundled management of millions of euros in donations and investments, which is now the subject of a corruption probe.
Francis summoned the secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, his deputy, as well as top Vatican finance officials for a meeting on Wednesday and gave them a three-month deadline to complete the transfer, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said.
The Vatican released a letter from Francis to Paroline on August 25 in which he announced that he was depriving the State Secretariat of its ability to manage money independently.
Francis cited the “prestigious risks” made by the department’s previous investments in speculative operations, which have cost the sacred tens of millions of euros, some of which have been donated by trustees from Peter’s Pence.
Francis’ decision was a shameful blow to the state secretariat for standing as the most powerful Holy See office fee, necessarily reduced to another department that must suggest a budget and be approved and monitored by others.
Francis wrote that its financial holdings are now to be held by the Vatican’s Treasury office fees, known as the APSA, and have been included in the Holy See’s consolidated budget. The Ministry of Economy will oversee spending.
The result is inevitably what was sought years ago by Cardinal George Pell, Francis’s first economy minister, who clashed with the state secretariat over his financial reforms and efforts to control the department’s book funding. He famously boasted in 2014 that he had “discovered” millions of euros that had been “laundered into special departmental accounts and not shown on the balance sheet” – a reference to the secretariat of the state-owned asset portfolio.
Pel had to abandon that reform effort in 2017 to face a sexual abuse case in his native Australia, but he was acquitted and returned to Rome with a victory last month, where he was approved by a well-publicized audience with Francis.
Francis went on a rampage against his own state secretariat during a year-long investigation by Vatican lawyers into the રોકાણ 350 million (m 413 million) investment of office fees in a London real estate venture.
Prosecutors have accused several department officials of abusing their powers to get involved in the deal, with some Italian intermediaries accusing the Vatican of imposing a કરોડ 100 million fine.
The scandal has exposed the Vatican monsters’ inability to manage money as they sign voting shares in the deal and agree to pay unnecessarily high fees to Italians known in business circles for their questionable dealings.
In a letter to Paroline, Francis referred to the London Venture and the State Secretariat to the Malta-based investment vehicle Centurion Global Fund, headed by the Vatican’s longtime external money manager.
According to the Italian daily Crie Rier della Sera, Saturian has invested in ventures such as the “Rocketman” film on Elton John, as well as a holding company headed by Lapo Elcon, one of the most influential members of the Agnelli clan in Italy.
.
