Corriere della Sera today has a story that it ought to have run one year ago but did not, because like all the rest of the media, it chose to ignore a very obvious lead. In January 2012, 2-3 days after the Vigano letters that started the Vatileaks episode (a better term is really Vati-spew as in Vatisputumj!] were disclosed on Italian media, Il Giornale ran the story as it substantially appears here, and I posted the summary of what they said on Page 281 of this thread on January 28, with the caveat that Il Giornale might be suspect because it was its editor that had run the false stories about Dino Boffo in 2010, etc.
To my knowledge, none of the major Italian media picked up Giornale's lead if only to investigate it independently - and again, I suspect that, just as they would totally ignore Andrea Tornielli's interview with Cardinal Bergoglio in February 2012, it is because the story does not fit into their narrative at all... Anyway, here first is the Corsera story....
Older brother says Mons. Vigano
lied to the Pope in his July 2011 letter
Disclosed by journalist Nuzzi in January 2012, the letter and an earlier one to Cardinal Bertone
were the first and most 'serious' documents disclosed in what went on to be Vatileaks
by Maria Antonietta Calabrò
Translated from
March 16, 2013
A Jesuit Biblicist may well help Pope Francis, the first Jesuit Pope, to disentangle the mess that was Vatileaks. And he is Lorenzo Viganò, older brother (by two years) of Mons. Carlo Maria Vigano, Apostolic Nuncio to Washingto.
It was the disclosure of Mons. Vigano's letters of protest in 2011 to Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone against his reassignment from the Vatican that opened the yearlong obsession about pilfered documents that came to be known as Vatileaks.
The disclosures of the letters made Mons. Vigano an instant 'hero of transparency'
[The reporter does not say it, but it was the media who made him that, ignoring the naked expression of his ambition in the published letters and the scurrilous nature of his accusations against individuals in the Vatican or connected to Cardinal Bertone!]
Behind the scenes of the scandal that flagellated the Vatican for more than a year
[Not that long - the Vigano letters first came out on January 25, and Benedict XVI's three-man cardinal commission to look into the problems of the Curia submitted its final report around the second week of December. But of course, the media obsession with it continues and dominated their coverage of the pre-conclave congregations[ is a story of a family with two sons who became priests, and a nephew who also became a priest.
Lorenzo, a scholar of Biblical sciences had taught Ugarit (an ancient Syrian language at the Istitutum Biblicum Franciscanum in Jerusalem, then Ugarit and another ancient Biblical language at the Istituto Biblico di Roman, and then became a researcher for the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago until 2008.
His younger brother, Carlo Maria, was the Secretary of the Vatican Governatorate from 2009 to early 2011.
Their nephew, Carlo Maria Polvani, is a monsignor who has been responsible for the Secretariat of State's relations with the media, and testified at the Vatican trial of one of his office aides, Claudio Sciarpelletti who was accused and convicted of aiding and abetting Paolo Gabriele's treasonous thievery of documents from Benedict VXI's private study.
The background to the Vigano story appears to have surfaced during the pre-Conclave meetings, especially since it is said to be part of the Relatio submitted by Cardinals Herranz, Tomko and Di Georgi to Benedict XVI, who has left the report for Pope Francis to act on.
It is a story about money - a lot of money, said to be more than 20 million euros, much of it in Swiss bank accounts. The money was inherited by the Vigano siblings (besides Lorenzo and Carlo Maria, there is sister Giovanna and three other living brothers) and the heirs of a fourth brother. The inheritance had always been managed 'pro indiviso' by Carlo Maria.
"My brother wanted me to make a will in favor of our nephew Mons. Polvani," says Lorenzo, "although at other times,
he had wanted to leave everything to a trust because, he said, 'If I become a cardinal, it is not good that people should know we have all this money". Up to this point, it remains just a private family affair.
Except that Carlo Maria brought Lorenzo into the picture when, in his letter to the Pope, the now Nuncio pled to be allowed to remain in the Vatican - presumably to continue his
cursus honorum (run for honors) in which he had expected to be named President of the Governatorate and therefore a cardinal sooner rather than later.
The letters strongly protested his reassignment to Washington that had been decided upon by Cardinal Bertone after an internal Vatican inquiry had shown that the accusations of corruption made by Mons. Vigano against certain individuals in his letter to Bertone were quite unfounded.
[Andrea Tornielli reported on January 28, 2012 that an internal Vatican commission had looked into the various charges Vigano had made and determined that they were unfounded. No one else, to my knowledge, picked up or followed up Tornielli's story either - it didn't fit the media narrative at all, oh no! Vigano had to be seen as simon-pure, the better for the media to hammer on his accusations of 'corruption in the Vatican'.]
In his letter to the Pope, Vigano alleged that he needed to remain in Rome to continue the necessary, dutiful and direct assistance which he was rendering to his 'seriously ill' and 'virtually incapacitated' older brother.
This is what Mons. Vigano wrote the Pope on July 7, 2011:
I am also anguished by the fact that, unfortunately having to care personally for an older brother who is a priest, severely affected by a stroke which is gradually debilitating him mentally as well, I should be made to leave at this time, when I had expected to resolve in a few months this family problem that so greatly worries me.
In fact, investigation of the monsignor's claim and the direct testimony of Lorenzo, supported by documents of his academic activity, leases that he signed, utility bills he paid, etc. show a completely different situation.
Lorenzo says flatly that his brother "had written falsehoods to the Pope", since he has lived in Chicago for decades in absolute autonomy, and that in fact, at the time his younger brother wrote the Pope, they had not been in touch for more than two years since they broke off relations in January 2009.
"In 1996," he sats, "I suffered a stroke, but in a short time, I was able to be independent even with some physical difficulty
(he is paralyzed on the left side), I resumed the life I had chosen and my studies in Chicago".
"It is an absolute fact that when Carlo Maria wrote his letter to the Pope, not only was he
not taking care of me 'personally', but we broke contact in early 2009 as a consequence of acute tensions between us regarding our inheritance, after I filed a civil suit against him in a Milan court because there were many aspects of his management of the joint inheritance that I questioned.
"I find it very serious that Carlo Maria wrote falsehoods to the Pope, instrumentalizing me for his personal ends. I was never in Rome with him, exept for a period of three months back in 1998".
In short, the central document of Vatileaks contains, according to someone directly involved, a scandalous lie.
OK. Here now is the account of Il Giornale back in January 2012, as I posted it on Page 283 of this thread
i601.photobucket.com/albums/tt96/MARITER_7/CORSERA.jpg
At the time, no one bothered to check it out. Or so it seemed. Note that the Giornale story has far more details about the Vigano inheritance and the problems thereof than the Corsera story today. What's most obviously missing in Calabro's story above is any indication as to when did Lorenzo say the things he is quoted as saying. If he is only saying them now, why didn't he say so last year, when it was already clear from the known facts of his personal life that he had been a resident of Chicago since the 1980s? More importantly, why didn't anyone in the Italian media check it out with him at the time? Or did Corsera do it then but decided they should not use the story at the time because it would expose Vigano as a liar? If he could lie about this, what are we to make of his other allegations?
The following was my addendum to Andre Tornielli's story reporting on "Vigano's accusations and what the Vatican did to check them out".
![[SM=g7969]](https://im0.freeforumzone.it/up/0/69/3179631.gif)
January 28, 2012
Speaking of Il Giornale, I have no idea what its agenda is, but it had a story today about Mons. Vigano that has nothing to do with the above controversy, but with a legal battle over finances with a brother and sister in which Vigano was involved last year - around the same time he was carrying in his fight against being transferred from the Governatorate. It's something of a soap opera but the newspaper claims its sources are court documents (one hopes they are not just shoddy fliers like those the newspaper used to bring down Dino Boffo most unfairly.) It is also lengthy so I have reduced it to a bare minimum in the summary below.
Since however it is unlikely that a major newspaper would make the same egregious mistake twice, one must assume there is some basic truth to the story, which does make a fascinating counterpoint to the emerging hagiography of Mons. Vigano as the 'moral healer who has been punished for trying to clean house' at the Vatican Governatorate....
In brief: Mons. Vigano comes from a rich Milan family that made its fortune in the chemical industry. He is one of eight brothers and sisters, and the family fortune is said to be at least 30 million euros. Vigano, born 1941, and an older brother Lorenzo, born 1938, both became priests, and therefore agreed to keep their share of the family fortune in a joint account which was in the name alone of Carlo and controlled by him over the years. Unlike his younger brother, who has made a career in the Church, Lorenzo is a scholar and a Biblicist of some reputation. He moved to Chicago some time in the 1980s, and had always covered his expenses by using a credit card drawing on the joint account with his brother. However, he suffered a stroke in 1996, since when he has had to use a wheelchair.
Because of new expenses demanded by his ailment, he told his brother it was time to divide their common account, with 50% as his share. Carlo apparently refused the request but instead, after lengthy discussions, in October 2008, Carlo deposited a million euros to Lorenzo's exclusive account. But it seems that not long after, through the complicity of the bank and another Vigano brother, Lorenzo lost his account. Lorenzo then sought an accounting of his part of the joint fund.
In testimony he gave to a Milan prosecutor last year, Lorenzo said, "Carlo Maria never bothered to furnish any clarification, and the only contact from him in recent years were attempts to scare me with sneaky threats while asking me to agree to a completely inequitable division. Meanwhile, all my inquiries about the account were unanswered".
Meanwhile, Carlo also went to court to denounce a sister whom he said had exploited Lorenzo's sickness and alleged mental incapacity to get from him part of the million euros that had been in Lorenzo's name. A Milan prosecutor investigated all these allegations. The sister claimed Lorenzo had lent her the money to buy a drugstore, and that he was far from mentally incapacitated, presenting recent books written by him in proof.
Last June 22, Lorenzo himself arrived in Milan from Chicago to testify before the prosecutor. Who then concluded: "One must rule out that Lprenzo Vigano is in a state of infirmity or mental deficiency, not even in the form of any diminution in his faculty of discernment, expression of his will, not capacity for judgment. He confirms that he voluntarily granted a loan to his sister He also clarified the origins and causes of his existing dispute with his brother Carlo Maria" On December 12, 2011, the case was archived (i.e., not prosecutable).
But Lorenzo is pursuing his claim against his brother to get his 50% share in their joint account, saying "It is no longer possible to endure the tyranny of someone in lamb's clothing who is really a wolf".
Now, it would take unimaginable chutzpah for Il Giornale to create the above story out of whole cloth. But if the bare facts of the story are true, it only goes to show that there is much going on in the private lives of public figures that we do not always get to know, but which, I believe, are germane to character issues... It is worse, of course, if the subject of questionable character is a priest.
And if Il Giornale's story is nothing but character assassination of Mons. Vigano, then I apologize for passing it on. And none of it detracts from the good he did at the Governatorate. I just wish he would speak up finally about this whole episode. Otherwise, he must resign because his failure to say anything leaves a cloud of doubt over Benedict XVI's credibility as someone who advocates transparency and housecleaning in the Church, and also makes him. Vigano, a doubtful personal representative of the Pope to the United States and to the bishops of the United States.
I must add more material to this post. I thought I had posted the following in the Bulletin Board this morning, but it turns out I did not - I think I changed my mind, in order to do an omnibus Vigano post instead, after I saw Tornielli's article and the Giornale story.
The following is from the May 8 letter of Mons. Vigano to Cardinal Bertone. I am translating the initial paragraphs from the transcript published by Il Fatto Quotidiano yesterday, in which there are ellipses, but since the newspaper also published a PDF version of the letter itself, I have verified that the transcript omissions are not substantive - merely protocolar formulations of esteem, respect, and other diplomatic formalities which often sound so hypocritical anyway (besides there is more than enough left of that in what is not omitted), and in one paragraph, a reference to the personal life of one Marco Simeon is omitted (from what I read in other reports, Vigano accused him of being a practising homosexual):
"In the private letter that I addressed to you on March 27, 2011, which I personally entrusted to the Holy Father in view of the sensitive matters it contained, I stated that I thought the very radical change in your opinion about my person that Your Eminence showed me at our meeting on March 22 could only be the result of grave calumnies against me and my work [at the Governatorate]...
"And now, after various items of information that have come to my possession, and in sincere and faithful support of the work of Your Eminence, who has been given a responsibility that is very onerous and exposed to pressure by persons who are not necessarily well-meaning... in a spirit of loyalty and faithfulness I think it is my duty to refer to Your Eminence facts and initiatives about which I am completely sure, that have emerged in recent weeks designed expressly with the end of leading Your Eminence to radically change your opinion on my account, with the intention of preventing that the undersigned will succeed Cardinal Lajolo as President of the Governatorate, something that has been well-known in the Curia for some time. Reliable persons have spontaneously offered to me and to Mons Corbellini, vice Secretary-General of the Governatorate, proofs and testimonials of the following:....
He goes on to enumerate all the various accusations against Marco Simeon, the RAI executive he accuses of planting false stories about him with Il Giornale; Mons. Paolo Nicolini, the Vatican Museums director whom he accuses of various financial malfeasances in a previous job (not at the Vatican) and of being associated with a company that supposedly defaulted or defrauded the Governatorate and two other Vatican agencies for a total of 2,500,000 euros, as well as of character flaws in treating his subordinates; and Saverio Petrillo, director of the Pontifical Villas in Castel Gandolfo, for having calumniated him (he does not say how) because the Vatican Police investigated a robbery in Castel Gandolfo that Petrillo had failed to report to his superiors. He ends by saying:
"Therefore, it should not come as a surprise to anyone if some other official at the Governatorate would present criticisms against me - although I do not yet have proof of such criticisms - given the incisive acts of restructuring, and waste and cost containment that I have carried out according to the criteria of good administration, instructions given to me by Cardinal Lajolo, and advice from management experts...
"I consider that what I have exposed above will be sufficient to dissipate the lies of those who have tried to reverse your good opinion of my person and on the qualifications I have to continue working in the Governatorate..."
Does any of the above sound like it was written by a high-ranking prelate of the Church? As reported earlier, these charges were investigated by a commission led by a former judge of the Roman Rota and declared 'unfounded'. The good bishop complains of being calumniated but does not hesitate to calumniate others himself. He also sounds very paranoid, not to mention querulous and whining. And it is clear from his opening paragraph that his overriding concern is that he continue to be considered as the next President of the Governatorate.
In the end, the corruption denounced by Mons. Vigano and exposed on the TV program consisted of this:
1) Favoritism in granting Vatican service contracts
2) Failure to open such contracts for bidding
3) Payment to these favorites for highly overcharged services - e.g., a Nativity scene that cost 500,000 euro which Vigano cut down to 300,000 the next year.
No other concrete examples were given, and he has not accused any Vatican official of having received kickbacks or other material gain for their cronyism, which is not corruption unless they did it for material consideration. Of course, cronyism is wrong, as is allowing the cronies to overcharge and get paid for it, which appears to be the biggest crime that can be cited in Governatorate-gate. In the above letter, Vigano cites no cronyism, no corruption, just personal attacks on those he considers to be his enemies, including someone who does not even work at the Vatican.
He accuses his main target, Nicolini, of financial hanky-panky when he was working for the Lateran University, not at the Vatican Museums, which has been registering its best revenues ever; and of being associated with a company that supposedly owes the Governatorate and has defrauded two other Vatican agencies (unless Nicolini is on the company's Board of Directors, how is he responsible for those alleged crimes?)
In all this, I am hoping to give a correct perspective on a story that MSM has been quick to call corruption, something not supported by an examination of the accusations made by Vigano himself. Flagrant irregularities, yes, and we pray that Mons. Sciacca who has taken over will continue to be vigilant about any recurrence or prolongation of these irregularities.
And now, I must say that, even allowing for the Pope's charity towards a brother bishop, I cannot understand how a man who could write the letter he did on May 8 to Cardinal Bertone could still be given his prime diplomatic assignment. Especially, as Tornielli pointed out, since his accusations were judged to be unfounded! Where is the justice?
And yet, this story gives all those who oppose the Church a new pretext to slime and demonize her anew. All this, because of the careerism and ambition of one man! It's not fair to the Church and not fair to the Pope.
One day later, I come across the full text of Vigano's letter to the Pope and was horrified to see that paragraph about his brother, in the light of what Il Giornale had reported.
P.S. Omigod! I just re-read Vigano's July 11 letter to the Pope and realized that he actually used his crippled brother as the family problem he needed to attend to which made it inconvenient for him to have been named Nuncio to the US!... The court records cited by Il Giornale in its story yesterday show that 1) his brother lives in Chicago and only came to Milan in June 2011 to contest Mons. Vigano's claim to prosecutors that he was mentally incompetent; 2) from the brother's account, the bishop had nothing to do at all with his care since he had his stroke in 1996; and 3) if the bishop had to look after his brother - who lives in Chicago - wasn't the assignment to Washington a convenience for him? But leave aside all of that - how could he use a lie in an attempt to make his situation more 'pitiable', in a letter to the Pope no less? Especially since it was an irrelevant 'Woe-is-me' argument. Another character issue, besides naked ambition at all costs (including slandering others and telling the Pope an outright lie in writing!
But will the Corsera story change any perceptions at all about Vatileaks and Vigano? I doubt it most strongly. Right now, the media are finding 10,000 and one things to enchant them about Pope Francis - rightly so, they are enchanting stories, and the enchantment grows with every new detail reported (if this were a Pope Francis Forum, I would be posting every story and commentary about him) - that they will not spoil their current glowing reality with anything as stark, dark and shocking as the Vigano back story is.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/03/2013 18:11]