| | | OFFLINE | | Post: 31.576
Post: 13.664 | Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009 | Administratore | Utente Gold | |
|
A ‘CHI’ spread in 2016 showed a photo of Bertone’s penthouse while it was under construction.
Cardinal Bertone has been the lumberingly embarrassing elephant in the room, unseen and ignored, in the recent Vatican trial of ranking officials of the Vatican showcase health facility in Rome, the Bambino Gesu Pediatric Center, considered the best pediatric hospital in Italy. As Secretary of State, he prided himself in his close association if not direct oversight of the institution, but it turns out he colluded (or perhaps initiated) a scheme to use hospital funds to finance renovation of a Vatican apartment, including the construction of a penthouse, for his post-retirement residence.
Technically and legally, he may claim he did nothing wrong, but if he had any modicum of delicadeza (propriety), how could he not have known that the very optics of his scheme can only appear improper to objective observers who cannot understand how he could even think of appropriating funds from the children’s hospital to indulge his personal lifestyle. From a children’s hospital! It now appears he has paid back some of those funds, but why not all of it since it was for his personal use?
The silly excuse – which is no excuse but a lame pretext - that taking those funds, to begin with, could be justified because the ‘new apartment’ (especially its penthouse which gives it exclusive access to an entire roof as a terrace) would be used as the setting for fund-raising events in behalf of the hospital. (Does it not call to mind the rooftop gathering of those champagne-drinking Friends of Bergoglio including Francesca Chaoqui, to watch unobstructed and in great comfort the canonization Mass for John XXIII and John Paul II, for which ‘privilege’, funds were raised from the attendees?)
The big mystery here – which no one seems to bother about – is why the Vatican has repeatedly confirmed since this scandal was first revealed two years ago that Bertone himself was never the subject of investigation for this offense (I will call it that since I find the entire episode extremely offensive, if not disgusting), even as it went ahead and charged hospital officials, one of whom was its former president, who faces conviction with imprisonment, as the story below tells us. Why has the Bergoglio Vatican shielded Bertone from any direct responsibility for this offense? If Bergoglio had no qualms about firing Cardinal Mueller without cause, why would he appear to be protecting Bertone?
I can imagine the rabid anti-Benedict bloggers hypothesizing that maybe Bergoglio is doing it as a favor to Benedict XVI who may have asked him to do so, thus reinforcing the widespread perception that somehow, Benedict XVI has bought into his successor’s pontificate or has been coopted by his successor. [Along with his (to me) inexplicable failure to say the Traditional Mass in public even just once after Summorum Pontificum, Benedict XVI’s seemingly blind loyalty to Bertone – overriding even the well-meaning advice of far older friends like the late Cardinal Meisner and others who saw the disservice, if not actual harm, that Bertone’s misadventures as Secretary of State had brought to his pontificate – are the two things I hold most strongly against Benedict XVI.]
But the Vatican’s ‘protection’ of Bertone cannot change the appearance and perception of corruption to the tune of $500,000 and of unconscionable personal indulgence on the part of Bertone. Of course, it blots the record of Benedict XVI’s Pontificate that his trusted friend, in whom he apparently can see no wrong, and Secretary of State, has turned out to be no better than civilian politicians corrupted by power. Which is why, even amid the major ecclesial chaos caused by Bergoglio, I don’t think we should overlook this scandal. Considering who is involved, this is a genuine scandal compared to everything alleged in Vatileaks-I combined. And I would think the same even if I had no personal biases against Bertone to make my opinion questionable.
Vatican trial finds ‘opaqueness’ and ‘disorder’
in handling of papal finances
by Claire Giangravè
October 10, 2017
ROME- A relatively dull criminal trial is shedding light into what has been called a profound “opaqueness” and “disorder” in the handling of papal finances.
The trial concerns two former officials of the papally-sponsored Bambino Gesù pediatric hospital, who stand accused of diverting roughly $500,000 of the hospital’s money to pay for the remodeling of a Vatican apartment currently occupied by Italian Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the former Secretary of State under Benedict XVI.
During the eight sessions of the trial on Oct. 9, the prosecution asked that Giuseppe Profiti, who served as both the president of the hospital and the president of its foundation from 2008 to 2017, be sentenced with three years imprisonment, a perpetual interdiction from public offices and a fine of roughly $5,000 dollars.
Profiti’s lawyers have so far worked hard to prove to the court that the massive transfer of funds from the hospital for the remodeling of the 4,500-square foot apartment was justified, because Bertone was going to allow fundraising events to take place in his home, which would more than recoup the costs. Profiti has always maintained the whole operation was entirely above board, and that he would make the same decision again.
Concerning the other accused, Massimo Spina, who served as treasurer of the hospital, the evidence was found insufficient to justify any charges, as they “did not pass reasonable doubt.”
The lawyer for the prosecution, Roberto Zanotti, concluded the session by pointing out that the entire affair “unfortunately sheds light on a case of surprising opaqueness, of silences and terrible mishandling of public money: An opaque picture that is not thrilling, but no matter how depressing, is not an aspect relevant to the trial.”
Mariella Enoc, who is the current president of Bambino Gesù, was the last witness called to testify during on Oct. 9. What the prosecution tried to get at was why the president, upon learning of the hospital’s large deficit, had been so quiet for many months before addressing the issue.
While on the stand, Enoc said that she first learned of the apartment remodeling on February 12, 2016, when she was told by Spina that the hospital was going to have to ask Bandera’s English companies for about $200,000 in reimbursement. [The writer is tagged by Crux as an ‘editorial assistant’. That does not justify the editor’s failure to provide an antecedent for ‘Bandera’ that the writer does not give and whose role is only mentioned several paragraphs afterwards.] To justify her lack of initiative in solving the problem for nearly eight months, Enoc said that she was not interested in the matter and “had to think of the future” of the hospital.
What also emerged from her testimony was a picture of confusion and disorder within the hospital management. Enoc stated that there was no official handover between herself and Profiti when she took his place in 2015, and that crucial documents for the trial - including letters between Bertone and Profiti - had not been logged, raising the issue of their veracity.
Enoc also recounted that Spina met with her at the beginning of her mandate with the documents concerning the apartment remodeling and offered to resign from his post as treasurer. “He led me to understand that he was a stranger to the affair and was even willing to hand me all that I needed, but I did not push the question further because it was not my concern,” Enoc said, adding that she never read those documents. [And who named this woman president of the hospital?]
Despite the fact that the case is rather straightforward, several elements of the trial raise other, serious questions. Mainly the fact that two major players who have principally benefited from the operation have been excluded from the story.
The work on the apartment was led by Gianantonio Bandera, who owned a now-bankrupt construction company, which did not complete the remodeling of the apartment, and who the court proved was paid twice for the work, first by the Bambino Gesù hospital and then by the Government of the Vatican City State. [But why on earth did the Vatican pay for the remodeling of a private apartment? Unless it is common practice there to pay the costs for residences assigned to retired cardinals like Bertone and Sodano before him who choose to live on the Vatican grounds. One assumes the Vatican did pay to remodel Mater Ecclesiae into a residence for Benedict XVI.]
Not only were no charges brought against Bandera, but he also appeared as a witness for the prosecution [Curiouser and curiouser!],which decided that “there is no proof of collusion [involving Bandera],” but it suggested that “someone should knock on the door of his companies to get restitution” of the money.
The other elephant in the room is Bertone, who currently lives in the remodeled Vatican apartment and was a friend to Bandera and Profiti from the time he was Archbishop of Genoa from 2002 to 2006.
“I found a letter where Cardinal Bertone was said to agree with the use of the apartment [for fund-raising events], but I always thought those were documents that did not concern me,” Enoc said while on the stand, referring to letters between the cardinal and Profiti. . [This woman is something else! How can she be so nonchalant about her nonchalance over the entire fishy affair?]
During a meeting between November and December 2015, Enoc brought the issue up to Bertone who, according to her testimony, insisted that he knew nothing of the matter and did not agree to the remodeling. [And she bought that – against obvious physical evidence that the remodeling had taken place???] No charges were brought against the cardinal by the prosecution, nor was Bertone called to the court in order to testify.
The news of the lavish remodeling of the cardinal’s apartment broke November 4, 2015 in an article by Italian journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi, on the same day the Bambin Gesù was setting out to approve its balance sheet. As a result, the board of directors insisted that an outside company, Deloitte, check the balance sheet for 2014 before its approval.
Enoc testified that she eventually wrote to Bertone asking him or the Secretariat of State to return the funds to the hospital. The cardinal’s lawyer, Michele Gentiloni-Silverj - brother to Italy’s prime minister - initially refused but later relented, and Bertone signed a $118,000 check in 2015 followed by a $59,000 check in early 2016.
The amount provided directly by Bertone was not enough to cover the whole expense and in the 2014 balance sheet Enoc listed a $455,000 loss. [So the total disbursement from Bambino Gesu for Bertone’s apartment was $455,000+$118,000+$59,000=$632,000! Plus whatever the Vatican paid Bandera. The numbers speak for themselves! Does Bertone not feel any shame at all for this personal profligacy at the expense of others (especially of a children's hospital!)? And all the more one wonders why no one at the Bergoglio Vatican, especially the pope himself, has not gone after Bertone for this. Apparently, yet another illustration of the Bergoglian ethos that whatever seems to be a crime or a sin is not really crime or sin at all, but 'a state of grace', which seems to be Bergoglian code to indicate his favorite sinners-who-are-not-sinners-at all!]
The hospital has so far apparently not obtained any benefit from the remodeling of the apartment. Enoc dismissed the position held by Profiti and his lawyers that the apartment could serve as a fundraising tool for the hospital. “I didn’t know anything about it, and in any case, dinners at a cardinal’s house or another personality are not the fundraising style that I have in mind,” Enoc told the court.
The prosecution charged Profiti with misappropriation of funds and questioned whether the former president had the authority to disburse such a substantial amount of money without consulting the board of directors. “There are limits” to the position that Profiti held, the prosecution stated, adding that such limits were exceeded by “a vice that is the misuse of power.” For this reason, Profiti was accused of dismissing the principles of good management and illicitly using public funds.
Since all of the witnesses have been heard, the next and final session of the trial will take place Oct. 14.
|