9 months since Gotti Tedeschi was sacked,
the IOR still has no president
Meanwhile, the cardinals' oversight commission
under Bertone is due for an overhaul next month
by Andrea Tornielli
Translated from the Italian service of
Last June, the Vatican indicated that a new president for IOR would definitely be named in September 2012, "when the Pope returns from his apostolic trip to Lebanon".
The position has been vacant since Ettore Gotti Tedeschi was dismissed in a no-confidence vote by his own Executive Board in May, in a way that has been unprecedented in the annals of the Holy See.
Then the appointment was put off for the end of 2012. On December 10, Carl Anderson, Supreme Commander of the Knights of Columbus and member of IOR's lay Executive Board - also the author of the harsh statement of charges against Gotti Tedeschi in an internal memo released to the media after his dismissal - said that the choice was "up to Cardinal Bertone" whom he expected to announce a name in January.
[It may be "up to Cardinal Bertone" to announce a name, but isn't Anderson taking it for granted that Benedict XVI will necessarily approve the choice? - i.e., whoever will be named to IOR has to be approved by him, so it is really "up to Benedict XVI"!]
Now that January is almost over, they are saying that we will know next month. Whatever, it will probably be after a new term begins on February 23 for the five-man commission of cardinals that has oversight over the IOR.
Sources at the Secretariat of State point out that any changes in the composition of this commission would be 'routine', coming at the end of the five-year term for the previous members. But any changes could have a crucial relevance to the choice of a successor for Gotti Tedeschi.
In February 2008, Benedict XVI renewed the memberships of Cardinal Bertone, ex-officio president of the Commission as Secretary of State,and of Cardinal Atilio Nicora, at the time president of the APSA (Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See). He named three new members - Cardinals Jean-Louis Tauran (France), president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog; Telesphore Toppa, Archbishop of Ranchi (India), and Odilo Pedro Scherer, Archbishop of Sao Paolo (Brazil).
[/[No one has ever explained their specific qualifications for overseeing bank operations, but one must assume they do have such qualifications.]
In September 2009, the cardinal supervisors overhauled the lay membership of the IOR's Executive Board (responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations). The new Board elected Gotti Tedeschi as IOR president. Cardinal Bertone had personally hand-picked Gotti Tedeschi to implement transparency measures and IOR safeguards against money laundering activities in a way that would meet international standards, as Benedict XVI was determined to enforce.
But after only two years and eight months on the job, Gotti Tedeschi was 'thrown out the window' in a way that has been unprecedented for the Holy See in modern times. The internal memo prepared by Anderson and released to the media not only accused Gotti Tedeschi of 'incapacity' to continue with his duties and of "lack of prudence and precision", but he was also suspected of having participated in Vatileaks because "he was unable to explain the release of some documents that were in his possession".
[Just to put things in perspective, the documents were a couple of memoranda or letters from Gotti Tedeschi himself and from Cardinal Nicora opposing the changes made to the December 2010 law establishing the Vatican's Authority for Financial Information that made the AIF subject to the Secretariat of State. If these memoranda had been sent to Benedict XVI, was it not more likely that they were among the documents copied by Paolo Gabriele and provided to Nuzzi? And what business is it of the IOR Board, anyway, if Gotti Tedeschi expressed his objections, considering that he had a hand in having the first law on AIF drawn up for Benedict XVI - a task that was technically outside the purview of his task as president of IOR.}
Indeed, internal tensions over the Vatican's new financial transparency law 127 contributed to the deterioration of relations between Gotti Tedeschi and the Secretariat of State. The December 2010 law was rewritten hastily by persons appointed by Cardinal Bertone during the Christmas holidays in 2011, supposedly in compliance with Moneyval requirements, but the amended law limited the autonomy of the AIF under Cardinal Nicora. These changes have, in turn, been corrected in recent weeks in response to specific recommendations and criticisms by Moneyval.
Despite the ritual denials and the obvious attempt to make the lay Executive Board of IOR responsible for Gotti Tedeschi's sacking, the modality employed was questioned and debated within the five-man cardinals' oversight commission.
Inside sources said Cardinals Nicora and Tauran had expressed their objection to the way it was done. When reports about this first trickled out last June, Fr. Federico Lombardi, Vatican news director, denied there were any internal dissensions among the five cardinals, saying that the commission had merely 'taken note' of Gotti Tedeschi's dismissal.
That does not help explain why there is still no IOR president almost nine months now since Gotti Tedeschi was dismissed.
However, it is now said that the cardinals' oversight commission will soon include Cardinal Domenico Calcagno, a Bertone protege who has succeeded Cardinal Nicora as head of APSA, and Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for Oriental Churches.
Nicora will not be re-named to the Commission because he has turned 76, presumably to concentrate on the AIF, which has also acquired a lay executive director, Rene Bruehl. The Moneyval report last July said that there was a 'conflict of interests' in his being head of APSA, a Vatican financial-economic agency, and also heading the AIF, which was created to oversee the financial conduct of all Vatican organisms.
But an earlier Moneyval report (April 2012) had said that "there are no indications that Cardinal Nicora's double role compromises the independence of the AIF".