Pope Francis comforts sister of French priest slain last year

Pope Francis at the general audience in Paul VI Hall on March 2, 2022. / Vatican Media.

Vatican City, Mar 2, 2022 / 05:45 am (CNA).
Pope Francis said on Ash Wednesday that the Lenten season provides an opportunity for conversion and interior re… […]

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 2, 2020 / 08:00 pm (CNA).-  

The Vatican Secretariat of State’s holding company, through which it controls a London property at 60 Sloane Avenue, has only one registered director, an Italian-British architect.

As the London property remains in the headlines, it is not clear how he was appointed to that role, but the architect has business connections to Gianluigi Torzi, who acted as a broker in the Holy See’s purchase of the property.

The purchase of the London building is at the center of unfolding financial scandals surrounding the Vatican’s Secretariat of State. It was purchased over a period of years from the Vatican’s investment manager Raffaele Mincione for a reported 350 million pounds; Torzi brokered the final stage of the sale. 

The building is now controlled by the secretariat through a U.K. registered company, London 60 SA Ltd.

Since November 2019, the company has had only one listed director: Luciano Capaldo, an architect and property developer with connections to businesses linked to Torzi.

Four directors have been appointed to the London 60 Sa Ltd since it was registered in early 2019; three were removed between August and November 2019. Two of those removed are former staff members at the Vatican secretariat, who were removed from their posts after raids at the secretariat in October, 2019.
 
In June, Vatican prosecutors arrested Torzi, who has been charged with extortion, self-laundering, aggravated fraud, and embezzlement.

Although Torzi was meant to be acting on behalf of the Vatican’s interests in its dealing with Mincione, CNA has reported on the potential conflicts of interest in the deal:

That Mincione owed millions of euros to one of Torzi’s companies at the time of the transaction. And that Mincione had invested 10 million euros of Vatican funds in Sierra One, a bond of securitized debt, including some debt from mafia-linked companies, which was packaged and sold by Sunset Enterprise Ltd., a company controlled at that time by Torzi.

Sierra One’s administrator was Giacomo Capizzi, a business associate of Torzi. Capizzi is the CEO of Meti Capital, a company of which Capaldo owns personally almost 3%, and in which Torzi’s company, Sunset Enterprises, is also a shareholder.

Capizzi is also CEO of Imvest, a property development company listed in Rome. Imvest’s largest shareholder is Meti Capital.

Luciano Capaldo was chairman of Imvest from 2017 to 2018. He stepped down for “personal and family reasons,” on Nov. 26, 2018, during the same week the Vatican finalized its purchase of the London property.

Another stakeholder in Imvest is FEG International Assets SA, an anonymously incorporated company in Luxembourg that, in 2016, was run by Torzi.

In 2019, FEG and Torzi were named in a commercial fraud suit in London’s High Court. Also named as respondent was Torzi’s former company Odikon Services PLC, a company of which Capaldo was secretary from May to November 2018, and an investor in Meti as of December 2017.

Capaldo stepped down as the secretary of Odikon in November 2018, the same month he ceased being chairman of Imvest and the Vatican’s London property deal was finalized by Torzi.

Capaldo’s attorneys have said that the businessman has no knowledge of the lawsuit against Odikon.

Torzi, and his companies Odikon Services and Sunset Enterprise, are currently being investigated by Italian authorities for an alleged multi-million euro fraud involving securitization of debt owed to Fatebenefratelli, a Catholic hospital in Rome. The alleged fraud dates back to 2018, when Capaldo was secretary of Odikon.

The Fatebenefratelli debt was at one point part of the Sierra One bond, in which Mincione invested Vatican money in June 2018.

Capaldo has also served as a director of two other companies at which Gianluigi Torzi was a director, or in which Torzi and his companies had a financial interest: Sunset Credit Yield Ltd. and Virtualbricks Ltd.

The Vatican has not explained how the businessman was chosen by the Secretariat of State to serve as a director of London 60 SA, or why he is now the sole remaining director of the company. Nor has Capaldo responded to questions CNA sent to his attorney regarding his relationship with Torzi.
 

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Vatican City, Mar 18, 2020 / 04:40 am (CNA).- While many are stuck at home during the coronavirus pandemic, Pope Francis says that there are many small acts of love and kindness one can do for others without leaving the house.

“We must rediscover the concreteness of little things, small gestures of attention we can offer those close to us, our family, our friends. We must understand that in small things lies our treasure,” Pope Francis said in an interview in an Italian newspaper published on March 18.

“For example, a hot meal, a caress, a hug, a phone call… They are familiar gestures of attention to the details of everyday life that make life meaningful and that create communion and communication among us,” the pope said.

Pope Francis said that the quarantine many people are living through right now provides a particular opportunity to grow in personal relationships at home, but this requires disconnecting from technology to spend quality time together.

“In their homes, families often eat together in great silence, but not as a result of listening to each other, rather because the parents watch television while they eat, and children are on their mobile phones,” he said. “Here there is no communication, whereas listening to each other is important because that’s how we can understand the needs, efforts, desires of the other.”

The pope also asked everyone to reach out to those who are alone or who have lost loved ones. “Consolation must not be everyone’s commitment,” he added.

In the interview with Italian journalist Paolo Rodari published in La Repubblica, Pope Francis explained what was on his mind when he made a short walking pilgrimage through the empty streets of Rome on Sunday to pray in front of a Marian icon in the Basilica of St. Mary Major and a crucifix in another church that had been used in prayer processions during the plagues in Rome’s history.

“I asked the Lord to stop the epidemic: ‘Lord, stop it with your hand.’ That’s what I prayed for,” he said.

Nearly 200,000 people have been infected by COVID-19, a respiratory illness that has been linked to the deaths of 7,954 people worldwide as of March 18, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Italy has been the hardest hit country outside of China with over 31,500 documented coronavirus cases, and 2,941 deaths, mostly in the north of the country.

Francis urged people to remember that one’s personal choices and actions have consequences for the lives of others.

The pope cited an article written by Italian journalist, Fabio Fazio, who said that people’s failure to pay their taxes in Italy has hurt the country’s ability to provide for all those who are sick.

“He [Fazio] is right, for example, when he says: ‘It has become evident that those who do not pay taxes do not only commit a felony but also a crime: if there are not enough hospital beds and artificial respirators, it is also their fault’. I was very impressed by this,’” Pope Francis said quoting the journalist.

Pope Francis also said that people can find strength in their families and in the love of the people around them, even if they do not yet have the gift of faith.

“They are all God’s children and are looked upon by Him. Even those who have not yet met God, those who do not have the gift of faith, can find their way through this, in the good things they believe in: they can find strength in love for their children, for their family, for their brothers and sisters,” he said.

“During these difficult days we can find small, concrete gestures expressing closeness and concreteness towards the people closest to us, a caress for our grandparents, a kiss for our children, for the people we love. These are important, decisive gestures. If we live these days like this, they won’t be wasted,” Pope Francis said.

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