The bigger headline from Sandro Magister's June 11, 2020 blog post comes in his P.S., in effect, "Zanchetta back at his post in the Vatican", which underscores yet again the continuing
shameless hypocrisy of Jorge Bergoglio about most of the things he periodically pays lip service to - in the case of the PS, his supposed commitment to dealing with sexual abuses (including
perceptions of sexual abuse), all the while being overtly lax and permissive if the persons accused are those for whom he appears to have intractable loyalty (e.g.,Maradiaga, Parra Pena, and
in this case, the infamous Bishop Zanchetta who keeps turning up at the Vatican and Casa Santa Marta like a bad dime). And in the case of the main story on the Vatican's always problematic
finances, an apparent new attempt at 'reform' along the lines Cardinal Pell had started, but it remains to be seen what will actually change, other than some cosmetic touch-ups.
Does new Vatican law tightening control
of Vatican finances mean belated payback
for Cardinal Pell against the Secretariat
of State which had neutralized him?
June 11, 2020
There was a stir on June 5 over the arrest and jailing, at the Vatican, of Gianluigi Torzi, the financier accused of extorting 15 million euros from the Secretariat of State, in the tawdry dénouement of the purchase of a pricey building in London, backed in 2014 by the Secretariat with money taken mostly from Peter's Pence
[the donations given directly by Catholic faithful around the world and intended for use by the Pope in his various charitable undertakings].
The investigations are in the preliminary phase and the trial has not yet been set. But at the top of the Vatican Curia the war is already on. Deputy Secretary of State (Sostituto) Edgar Peña Parra [in effect, the #2 man at State], is in the sights of one of the suspects, Mauro Carlino, who in turn was the secretary of the previous Sostituto, Giovanni Angelo Becciu, now cardinal prefect of the congregation for the Causes of Saints.
And Becciu, who gave the go-ahead for the London transaction in 2014, has become a target of criticisms by his direct superior at the time, Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, even as Alberto Perlasca, another top-ranking suspect, accuses Parolin of having approved the operation as well.
Everything suggests that the trial will spare no one. And likely in order to prevent other such disasters in the future, produced by out-of-control operations and by incompetent and unreliable executors, a severe tightening of financial rules became law on June 1, regarding, among other things, public contracts made by any Vatican agency, including those involving “real estate,” a clear reference to the London operation.
The cornerstones of this new reform of the Vatican codes are the centralization of contracts, which will henceforth be under the sole jurisdiction of the APSA, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, or of the governorate of Vatican City, and restricting access to such contracts by a single register of professionals whose absolute correctness must be certified. All under the supervision of the Secretariat for the Economy and the
Auditor General.
This reorganization and centralization of powers, in the face of an administrative disorder whose wreckage has long been plain for all to see, was welcomed at the Vatican with a general chorus of approval, although it is not known how sincere this was.
Considering that the announced 'reforms' appear to be nothing but the implementation of reforms courageously initiated at the beginning of the current pontificate by Cardinal George Pell, appointed in 2014 by Pope Francis asPprefect of the newly created Secretariat for the Economy. Reforms which had been opposed immediately and then completely reversed, with Bergoglio's approval, by the Secretariat of State and by its leaders and officials. some of whom are now under investigation.
Pell left Rome in 2017 for his home country of Australia, where he was hammered with allegations of sexual abuse that led to a six-year prison sentence, confirmed on appeal, but finally overturned completely by the Australian Supreme Court, which last April 7, Tuesday of Holy Week, set the innocent cardinal free.
But in that year of 2017, the reforms initiated by Pell at the Vatican had already been mostly demolished. Not only that. In June of that same year, Auditor General Libero Milone
[first person named to a position newly created at the time] was also driven out with brutal methods.
Three months after his summary dismissal, Milone, in a joint interview with Corriere della Sera, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and Sky TV - singled out none other than Becciu as the executive at the Secretariat of State who had most of all wanted his expulsion.
But Milone did not fail to complain about the silence of the pope, who already as of the spring of the previous year was refusing to receive him and even to respond to any request of his for a meeting.
In effect, it was no secret that Francis had made an about-face shortly after calling Pell to put the Vatican’s finances in order.
The pope had initially entrusted the Australian cardinal with the centralization of the assets of all the offices of the curia, including the large sums, never shown on the public balance sheets of the Holy See, administered by an almighty office in the Secretariat of State that was even obeyed by the APSA, the strongbox of the Vatican's major assets and real estate.
Pell hadn't pulled any punches. Right away he publicly disclosed that the Secretariat of State and other Vatican offices had unaccounted (never reported) funds totalling $1.2 billion and claiming control of these funds. He also indicated that the all-powerful APSA would soon be absorbed into the Secretariat for the Economy.
He never got that far. Quietly, the power centers targeted by Pell circled the wagons and then counterattacked. With the pope listening to and siding with them more and more, instead of the Australian cardinal. And with Cardinal Parolin, whom Francis had in the meantime added to his eight cardinal advisers for the government of the curia and of the Church, pulling the strings of the counter-offensive.
Now, however, the fortunes appear to have reversed. Cardinal Pell, restored to freedom in Australia during the days of Easter, has also had his Pentecost, with the publication on the eve of this holiday of the new Vatican codes on contracts, all finally in line with his much-opposed reforms.
And the Secretariat of State is now in the vortex of an investigation that has already toppled a few midranking officials but that tomorrow could also hit its top executives of today and yesterday, already tarnished by involvement in the investigations.
As for Francis, it appears he has gotten into step with Pell reforms he stopped in 2016, even voluntarily anticipating - during his news conference on the return flight from Japan - that the State secretariat officials embroiled int he purchase of the London building could be convicted for corruption.
[So he enables them - or at least their enablers, Parlin and Becciu - and then, when push comes to shove, throws them under the bus. What a holy example!]
But if one just goes back to December 26, 2018, at the height of Christmas celebrations, one discovers that the pope's guest at Santa Marta, along with his family, was none other than that Gianluigi Torzi who is now behind bars in a cell of the papal gendarmerie.
POST SCRIPTUM –
From
Corriere della Sera of June 11, 2020, in an item by Massimo Franco:
Meanwhile, at APSA, with the end of the quarantine imposed by Covid-19, employees were greted with a surprise: The reappearance of Mons. Gustavo Zanchetta, friend of Bergoglio, against whom an Argentine magistrate had issued a warrant of arrest last November for investigation into alleged sexual abuses attributed to him. Zanchetta, whom Bergoglio named a 'consultant' to APSA in 2017, has apparently resumed his work. One other Vatican mystery at this point.
One has to wonder what's really behind Bergoglio's intractable and unswerving loyalty and support for Zanchetta. Even assuming charitably that perhaps he considers him the son he never had, what does it say of a father who indulges his son in wrongdoing, especially of offenses unworthy of a priest who is supposed to be alter Christus?
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/06/2020 00:30]