Economy: A never-before-seen scandal caused a major storm in the Vatican

The whole affair started with a one-line statement in late September: Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu resigned from all his posts at the Vatican. Although the church did not comment on the decision, it was made shortly before the Italian L‘VoicedAn article appeared in which the cardinal repeatedly referred to strange places with money from the religious state, including support for his brother’s charity.

Becciu was not your average cardinal: until 2018, he was the Vatican’s undersecretary of state, one of the most influential positions, essentially equivalent to a deputy prime minister. In addition, he was a member of the papal election enclave, so his resignation caught the attention of many.

According to Vatican investigators, it can be shown that the cardinal, in his own jurisdiction, transferred at least 100,000 euros to an aid organization that helps refugees in Sardinia, which was run by his own brother. THE L’Espresso wrote about suspicious allusions of four hundred to five hundred thousand euros, although not all emigrated to the brother.

After that, a woman named Cecilia Marogna appeared in front of the press last week, admitting that she had received 500,000 euros from the Vatican during the Becciu government, but denied that the money had been embezzled. “I did not steal an orphan euro either,” he stressed, adding that he even received a letter from the cardinal in which he confirmed that he had helped the church in disadvantaged countries, such as Africa and the Middle East: he had also spent on humanitarian programs and the release of hostages. . money received.

On the accusation that his company, Logsic, had spent € 200,000 on luxury products, such as € 8,000 at Chanel or € 12,000 on an armchair at Frau, among other things, after paying the subsidy, Marogna said: an armchair! “However, he admitted that he had taken a bag of money from” the wife of a friend from Nigeria “, who, according to him, helped a lot when he worked in the country for the Vatican. de Becciu, apostrophizing himself as a political analyst and intelligence expert, but all this did not affect the authorities, who decided to arrest him on Wednesday.

“It’s totally surreal to be accused of favoring my brother when it comes to distributing money. I hope the Pope soon realizes that he has been wrongly accused, ”Becciu said after the case came to light. The Guardian according to his report, adding that he is willing to prove the truth even in court. He claimed to have accepted his resignation only out of obedience, or because he had a great love for the Pope and the Catholic Church.

It all started with London

This was not the only controversial case for Becciu, since with his approval he bought a luxury property in London for 300 million dollars from the Italian businessman Raffaele Mincione, who managed the investment of the Vatican secretariat of hundreds of millions of euros during this period. The building was eventually bought by the papal state in several steps between 2014 and 2018, and the right to manage the parent company that owned it remained in Mincione at all times.

It was then that a figure named Gianluigi Torzi, who according to Italian newspapers has strong ties to the mafia, entered the scene and, as a mediator, helped the Vatican, so to speak, to gain the necessary control. Apparently, the papal state eventually gained rather exaggerated access to management rights to the property, and Torzi made € 10 million from the deal. Presumably, it is no coincidence that Fabrizio Tirabassi, who oversees the entire project from the Vatican side, was appointed director of a Torzi-owned company before the full sale was closed.

Following Vatican police proceedings, five government employees were finally suspended from their post in October 2019, including Tirabassi, who has been unable to return to work since. Additionally, the Vatican’s chief of police and the chief of financial oversight have also left, and Torzi was arrested this summer after being charged with extortion, embezzlement, gross fraud and money laundering.

Becciu, for his part, defended the investment and said it was carried out in accordance with standard practice. He also emphasized that since the property sold at a good price, the Vatican even won the deal. It is true that the accusations were the opposite: the Vatican lost, the participants in the deal won. Although Pope Francis, according to Italian accounts, resigned from the cardinal mainly due to subsidies given to his brother, presumably the London agreement did not help him stay.

A The cross According to Robert Mickens, Roman editor of the English edition of the Catholic newspaper, the biggest problem is that it provides almost no transparency to outsiders in the Vatican. “An official has been fired and only euphemisms and silly puns are used to ‘present his resignation’. However, no one voluntarily renounces their cardinal title, which is essentially the culmination of a career in the church, ”said the expert.

But what does an Australian cardinal accused of sexual harassment have to do with all this?

To understand the whole thing, we need to go back a bit more in time. Becciu has held the position of Under Secretary of State since 2011, through which he has played a very important role in the distribution of millions of Catholic donations and investment management. (Incidentally, this position was reportedly lost in 2018 due to the London property scandal, and since then, until his recent resignation, he has been head of the consecrations control office.)

The Vatican’s suspicions may have aroused Becciu earlier, as one of his top officials, Cardinal Pell, ordered in 2016 an outside accounting firm to review the finances of the papal state. However, this plan soon failed in the face of resistance from Becciu, who, as CFO, stopped the investigation. Furthermore, a year later, he was allegedly behind the firing of the Vatican’s chief accountant, Libero Milone, accused of Milone spying on top executives. Yes, but according to Vatican sources, the former chief accountant was Pell’s man who would have helped him detect the abuses.

Meanwhile, Pell returned to his home country of Australia, where he went to court because he was suspected of sexually abusing ministerial children in the early 1990s. According to the allegations that have now come to light, that the The Republic and the Corriere della Sera wrote – Becciu reprimanded Pell so much that at the time of trial he transferred 700,000 euros to Australia to confirm the charges against his fellow cardinal. He used this money to bribe witnesses to get a favorable judgment. In fact, Pell was convicted, he also spent 13 months behind bars, but after his appeal, he was finally acquitted in April of this year.

Becciu, of course, denies having interfered in any way with the cardinal’s demand. The latter has since returned to the Vatican and reportedly also attended a meeting with the Pope. What was said here was a secret for the time being, after the meeting they said that “everything went very well.” Although Pope Francis did not speak much here, he had time to say earlier that the pandemic had defeated capitalism. Maybe not just in the Vatican.