Merchants in the Temple (9 page)

Sciorelli Borelli wanted to know why the annual deposit made by the Holy Father to the
Osservatore Romano
(5.3 million in 2011, and 5.6 in 2012) does “not appear under the item ‘to cover the deficit,' although it falls under the deficits of the Curia?” And, “To what does the item Peter's Pence c/allocations of 7.3 million in 2012 and 2.1 in 2011 correspond?” Finally, when you look at the actual deposits in the various banks of the 371.6 million indicated as the Peter's Pence reserve fund (2011), only 353.4 is accounted for, “a discrepancy of 18.2 million euros. How do you explain this negative difference?”
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The answers were not forthcoming. The thirteen questions never became official. They never even left “Area 10,” which holds the most important secrets of the Commission's work. So COSEA had to make do with partial and often misleading reports. It's difficult to say the exact reason why. Some in the Apostolic Palaces believe that both in the leadership of the Commission and within the Secretariat of State, the usual practice was to nip in the bud any question whose results might be unpredictable.

The same dilemma had beset Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the former President of IOR, when he wanted to avail himself of the top consultants on the issue of money laundering, originating from the Banca d'Italia, to get the Vatican on the “white list” of the countries in compliance with the rules of financial propriety. On this project, Benedict XVI was subject to the influence of Bertone's men, who discredited Gotti Tedeschi and altered his proposals claiming that he would expose the Vatican to dangerous interference by the central bank of a foreign state. Tradition dictates that in the Curia the influence, weight, and power of a layperson is always inferior to that of a cleric, regardless of whether he is a cardinal or a simple priest, and regardless of whether he knows how to manage bookkeeping and financial reports or is completely inadequate to the task.

The Secret Bank Accounts of the Pope

The financial situation of the Secretariat of State was a web of confusion and major losses. The tangle of accounts opened at different banks was evidence enough. Fifteen years after the fact, four accounts for the 2000 Jubilee were still open. Of these, two were at APSA, where the Secretariat of State manages eight accounts altogether. One of them is listed as “Vatican Radio, Slovak newsroom,” with an ending balance of $134,000.

Does the Pontiff have his own bank account? Decades have gone by without ever finding the truth. Various improbable theories have circulated, followed by halfhearted denials or even more imaginative reconstructions. It was not until the confidential papers photocopied by Paolo Gabriele, the butler of Benedict XVI, and published in my book
His Holiness
, that it emerged that Ratzinger, on October 10, 2007, had ordered the opening of account number 39887 at the IOR to receive from a company fifty percent of his royalties from more than 130 publications.
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Large sums of money poured in the account, like the 2.4 million euros deposited in March 2010 by the Joseph Ratzinger Benedict XVI Fund.

From the unpublished documents sent in early 2014 by the Secretariat of State for the bookkeeping audits, a truth emerged that no one had ever been able to verify. Each pope has his own personal bank account. In many cases, it has remained open for years after his death. The most mysterious accounts are in fact held by deceased pontiffs, with currency converted into euros, of course. In particular, the account of Pope John Paul I (Albino Luciani), who died in 1978, is still open. The account number is 26400-018, and it is held by “His Holiness John Paul I.” It has a balance of 110,864 euros. Who manages it?

Thirty-seven years after his death, there are still two accounts in the name of Pope Luciani's predecessor, Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini), who was recently beatified. From the documents that we were able to read, there is one account, number 26400-042, titled “Personal Account of Paul VI,” with a balance of 125,310 euros, and another account, 26400-035, with a balance of 298,151 dollars. Evidently, Montini preferred to diversify his accounts into different currencies, to avoid the need for damage control in the event of devaluations or financial crises.

There is still no answer today to the delicate questions raised by the existence of these and many other similar bank accounts. If they are really held by deceased persons, the accounts should be closed. Yet they remain open, and in some cases quite a few years have gone by. How is this possible? Is someone moving money through them? An heir, perhaps? If so, what right did he or she have to keep an account at the IOR, where laypeople are not allowed to bank. These are all questions that for unclear reasons would not be conveyed to Monsignor Peter Wells, the Assessor for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State, or even to his superior, Monsignor Angelo Becciu, Substitute for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State, the last bastion of the old guard.

 

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Handcuffs in the Vatican

Cardinal Rambo Embarrasses the Curia

The Peter's Pence was not the only black hole in the Vatican finances. There were others whose measure was difficult to take because of the limited, even patchy data returned to the Commission for Reference on the Administrative-Economic Structure of the Holy See. What little documentation did come in was tainted or hard to interpret. The Commission had hit a wall. Even its most astute and swift moves were immediately obstructed by an equally intelligent and unexpected countermove.

At the secret July 3, 2013, meeting, Cardinal Agostino Vallini had begged for the Holy Father's indulgence, arguing that the irregularities in the Vatican finances were the result of ignorance rather than a deliberate cooking of the books. But there was nothing innocent about the misconduct of the men in charge of the Vatican finances. They suddenly turned into razor-sharp officials when it came to outwitting the Pope's auditors. As a result, after more than six months since its inception the Commission was still unable to give the Pope a full and accurate picture of the Vatican's financial health. There was no way he could know which funds he could earmark for charity, the missions, and all the actions to aid the poor that were the heart and soul of his pontificate. Paradoxical but true: in a theocracy like the Vatican, the Pope could not get his hands on basic information.

The Pontiff is often the last one to know and to be briefed, especially on money matters. It was still hard for him to know with any precision how much money was coming in and how much was going out. This made it almost impossible for Francis to bring the work of renewal that he was promoting tirelessly every day, inspiring Catholics around the world and filling them with hope. Everything was anesthetized, paralyzed. The smoke screen was obviously not accidental. It was meant to conceal superficiality, inertia, personal interests, and more. Without knowing the financial situation of the Vatican in detail, it was impossible to identify the problems and critical areas, and thus to propose solutions. And the idea of imposing the reforms was unthinkable.

But the Commission did not give up. Its investigation expanded from the Peter's Pence and Congregation for Saints to new areas that often harbored surprises. One of its main targets was the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, APSA, the administrative body that manages assets, stocks, and real estate, in addition to minting metal coins, headed by an Italian cardinal and Bertone loyalist: Domenico Calcagno.

Calcagno had been appointed President of APSA by Benedict XVI in July 2011. He made headlines after an investigative report for the popular Italian TV show
Le Iene
. The reporter Paolo Trincia found that between 2002 and 2003, Calcagno, as the Bishop of Savona, had ignored repeated instances of sexual violence against minors by a pedophile priest. The diocese of Savona had reportedly been aware of the priest's strange behavior since 1980, when he was removed from a school in Valleggia, in the province of Savona, after fondling a boy. He was sent to Spotorno (only ten kilometers away), but he was still allowed to supervise a Boy Scout troop at the local Catholic youth center. Following new complaints, the new bishop of the diocese, Monsignor Dante Lanfranconi (currently the Bishop of Cremona) moved the priest to another parish. Once again he was sent to a place only a few kilometers away, in the town of Feglino, where he was allowed to open a community center for troubled youths.

Calcagno became the Bishop of Savona in 2002. Before dying, Father Carlo Rebagliati, former treasurer of the diocese, revealed that he had warned Calcagno about the pedophile priest and the danger to the minors with whom he was in daily contact. The Bishop's response, according to Rebagliati, was evasive: “They might just be rumors,” he said. The Bishop had also been contacted by one of the victims of abuse, who testified that, “Calcagno … told me not to go to court, because the priest was a very fragile person who might commit suicide and then I would have that on my conscience.”

The Bishop did not address the problem until the following year. He wrote a letter to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was then the Prefect to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, asking for “advice on what approach to take.” Calcagno attached a file to the letter. It was an internal document of the Savona diocese, compiled by the Vicar General, Monsignor Andrea Giusto: a chart that summarized the behavior of the priest, going through every instance, from the first episode in 1980 until the most recent complaints twenty-two years later, by social workers from the area. The chart was a blatant admission, in black and white, in which the diocese revealed that it had moved the priest from one parish to another for almost a quarter of a century. But it concluded with a reassuring sentence: “Nothing has come out in the newspapers and no investigations are under way.”

Ratzinger's reply has never been found. The only thing we know for certain is that after the letter, the priest was moved to Portio Magnone (twelve kilometers away from Feglino), reappearing magically at another Boy Scout camp in the area. And once again, a youth at the camp reported him for sexual molestation. The man continued to be a priest until 2010, when, thirty years after the first reports of abuse, he wrote in his own hand a letter requesting his dismissal from the priesthood.

The television report, which included the testimony of five boys describing incidents of abuse they had suffered between 1980 and 2005, cast a shadow over Calcagno but did not interrupt his brilliant career. Only four days before becoming Pope, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio—hounded by journalists about Calcagno's participation in the Conclave—preferred not to take any questions.

Calcagno had also appeared in the news recently because of a rather unique extravagance for a prelate: his passion for firearms. The journalist Mario Molinari of
Savonanews
reported on the cardinal's rich private collection of revolvers, Smith & Wesson .357 caliber magnums, an Escort pump rifle, and many more, all duly registered and declared. There was a small arsenal of collector's items and more modern pieces that the Cardinal used at the firing range, where he had been a member since 2003. When he was asked for an explanation, Calcagno is said to have replied with the comforting tones of a good country priest: “They are all kept safe in a vault under lock and key.”

Relations between Calcagno and Francis were only good on a formal level. The Argentine Pope distrusted the old guard and its shadowy management of the Curia's books.

Few people realize that there are actually two active banks at the Vatican. In addition to the IOR, there is APSA, a little-known entity at the heart of the Vatican financial web that is recognized throughout the world as a full-fledged central bank. One of its two sections, the special section, performs a sensitive function: it handles investments in stocks and bonds, and manages bank accounts and deposits. In practice, it manages the cash flow of the Holy See. Until November 2013, the head of the special section of APSA was Paolo Mennini, the son of Luigi Mennini, the historic right-hand man of Monsignor Paul Marcinkus, the most controversial figure in Church history because of his role in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal culminating in the death of “God's banker,” Roberto Calvi.
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APSA would be yet another source of serious problems for the pontificate of Francis.

The Incredible Case of Monsignor Scarano

In March 2013, before the election of the new Pontiff, the prosecutors' offices in Salerno and in Rome had begun an investigation into the financial activities of Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, the chief accountant of the special section of APSA. According to the indictment, the evidence gathered, and various wiretaps—even during the tense, frenzied days of Benedict's resignation and the preparations for the Conclave—instances emerged of money laundering and attempts to import large amounts of capital from abroad through illegal channels. In practice, according to the indictment, Scarano provided a simple system of laundering money through his account at the IOR: he offered cashier's checks for hundreds of thousands of euros in exchange for suitcases stuffed with 500-euro bills, which earned him the nickname, “Monsieur 500.”

Scarano, originally from Salerno, had worked in a bank before becoming a priest at the age of twenty-six. A lover of luxury, he had always enjoyed rubbing shoulders with celebrities, and could count among his friends jet setters from the world of cinema and television. He befriended some of Italy's most popular showgirls, like Michelle Hunziker. But his true passions had always been real estate and money. In Salerno he bought and remodeled a 700-square-meter house and started up various real estate companies. In Rome he lived in an apartment owned by APSA: 110 square meters, on Via Sant' Agostino, a few blocks away from Piazza Navona and the Italian Senate. Unlike other illustrious cardinals over the age of eighty living in princely residences, Scarano had to pay the rent: 740 euros a month. Similar apartments in the same neighborhood were commanding rents as much as three times greater.