Vatican City, Oct 24, 2019 / 04:00 am (CNA).- The head of the Vatican’s central bank appeared to admit this week to a transaction that could be a violation of European regulatory commitments, namely a loan of 50 million euros to finance the purchase of a struggling Italian hospital.
Sources say a controversial grant from the U.S.-based Papal Foundation was requested in order to balance the central bank’s books after the hospital was unable to repay the money.
In a statement Tuesday, Bishop Nunzio Galantino, head of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), acknowledged that the Vatican’s central bank loaned 50 million euros to finance the purchase of the Italian hospital, the Istituto Dermopatico dell’Immacolata (IDI), even though APSA is prohibited from making loans that finance commercial transactions, by policies put in place to exempt it from external oversight.
The loan was made in 2015 to the non-profit Fondazione Luigi Maria Monti, a partnership between the Vatican Secretariat of State and the Congregation of the Sons of the Immaculate Conception, the hospital’s previous owners, under whose management the hospital was driven to bankruptcy following a series of embezzlement scandals that led to multiple prosecutions and debts of more than 800 million euros.
The hospital was purchased by the foundation while it was in state-administered insolvency. When it became clear that the APSA loan could not be repaid by hospital income, Vatican efforts were made to secure a $25 million grant from the U.S.-based Papal Foundation to the IDI, which would be used to cover the hospital’s debt to APSA.
Although the grant was requested to ease a short-term cash shortage at the hospital, multiple sources in Rome and the United States told CNA that the money was actually intended to help replace the funds loaned to finance the acquisition, removing the loan from the APSA balance sheet and avoiding more attention on the deal.
Lay members of the Papal Foundation had reportedly raised issues with the conferral of the grant, largely because details about the use and final destination of the funds were scant. Approval of the grant was ultimately pushed through the foundation’s board, over the objections of lay members, but dispersal of the funds was slowgoing as conflict enveloped the foundation’s board.
In April, a spokesman for the Papal Foundation told First Things magazine that “As The Papal Foundation Board responded to the grant request, a variety of interpretations of the true financial condition of the IDI and its sponsoring entities were presented.”
“Among the elements of the discussion was the still unclear relationship of the religious congregation that originally sponsored IDI, the recently formed Fondazione Luigi Maria Monti, that was now considered responsible for what have been the properties of the religious congregation, and the IDI itself. Sorting out who was responsible for what part if any of the bankruptcy assessment was also a part of the Papal Foundation’s discussion. All of this discussion was made more difficult by conflicting interpretations.”
“At the December 2017 Board meeting, Cardinal [Donald] Wuerl presented the information made available to the public and that provided by the Holy See. Other interpretations were also offered. The Board voted to make the requested grant,” the spokesman said.
When the grant money stalled, APSA was forced to write off 30 million of the 50 million euro loan, wiping out APSA’s profits for the 2018 financial year.
Galantino was compelled to acknowledge the loan and the write-off following the Oct. 21 publication of a book that alleged that the Vatican was nearly insolvent.
The book, “Universal Judgment,” published by Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, claims to be based on more than 3,000 pages of leaked Vatican documents. It alleged that in 2018 APSA had failed to make a profit from the Holy See’s property and investment portfolio for the first time in its history.
Galantino, who has been president of APSA since June 2018, said the book did not reflect the real situation.
“In fact,” he said, “the ordinary management of the APSA in 2018 closed with a profit of over 22 million euros.”
He attributed reported losses on “an extraordinary intervention aimed at saving the operation of a Catholic hospital and the jobs of its employees,” in an apparent reference to the IDI loan and purchase.
While Galantino defended the project as an effort to preserve the hospital and save jobs, APSA’s involvement to underwrite a commercial acquisition appears to violate a 2012 commitment to stop acting as a private or commercial financial institution.
That commitment was the result of an on-site inspection by Moneyval, the Council of Europe’s Committee for combating money laundering and terrorist financing.
After the inspection, APSA agreed to stop providing services to individuals or taking part in commercial transactions, with these functions being transferred to the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), often referred to as the Vatican Bank, which maintains accounts for Vatican employees, individuals and religious groups. APSA was to be limited to administering the sovereign assets of the Holy See, meeting payroll and operational costs, and functioning as the national reserve bank of the Vatican.
In exchange for agreeing to step back from commercial activity, APSA was exempted from annual inspections by the Vatican’s Financial Intelligence Authority (AIF), whose efforts are assessed by Moneyval.
Following the changes to APSA’s remit, only the IOR, and not APSA, has been listed as a financial institution under the oversight of the Vatican’s Financial Intelligence Authority (AIF), whose efforts are assessed by Moneyval.
In 2014, Pope Francis issued new norms, transferring oversight and control of APSA’s remaining investment functions to the Prefecture for the Economy, then headed by Cardinal George Pell.
The AIF’s 2015 annual report concluded that since it is no longer an “entity that carries out financial activities on a professional basis,” “APSA stopped being a part of AIF’s jurisdiction at the end of 2015” – but in the same year APSA made the loan to purchase the IDI out of insolvency.
The 2015 AIF report which exempted APSA from further scrutiny said that “If APSA were to carry out financial activities on a professional basis, it would fall again under the jurisdiction of AIF which… must publish and update the list of subjects who must comply with the requirements set forth in [relevant law].”
The acknowledgement by Galantino that APSA was in 2015 engaged in prohibited lending activity casts doubt over reported progress in combating financial corruption in the Vatican, and suggests that it has been operating out of sight of Vatican and European financial watchdogs.
In 2016, Pope Francis partially reversed some of the 2014 reforms, returning control of its investment activity to APSA from the Prefecture for the Economy.
In his book released Monday, Nuzzi also claimed that, despite the 2012 commitment to Moneyval, APSA still has private numbered accounts for individuals on deposit. Such accounts at APSA have been linked to previous money laundering accusations and scandals in the Vatican, and their elimination was crucial to its exemption from AIF oversight.
Galantino denied these claims, saying that no funds were held, managed or invested for anyone or any body except Vatican departments and the Vatican City State.
“APSA has no secret or encrypted accounts” Galantino insisted on Tuesday, “anyone is welcome to prove the contrary.”
Definitive proof is unlikely to emerge, barring a decision by the AIF to reapply Moneyval’s anti-money laundering regulations and inspections to APSA – something which is itself highly unlikely in the current climate.
Three weeks ago, Tomasso Di Ruzza, head of the AIF, was himself suspended following raids carried out by Vatican police. On Oct. 23, the AIF issued a statement announcing his return to duty and insisting that an internal investigation had been conducted following the raid and that no wrongdoing had been discovered.
“Neither the Director nor any other employee of AIF improperly exercised his authority or engaged in any other wrongdoing,” the statement said.
“Accordingly, the Board of Directors reaffirms its full faith and trust in the professional competence and honorability of its Director and, moreover, commends him for the institutional work carried out in the handling of this particular case.”
The statement concluded by saying the AIF hoped any “potential misapprehensions” to the contrary would “soon be clarified.”
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With all due respect,
Why does Pope Francis continue to grant interviews to Eugenio Scalfari, the atheist journalist at “La Repubblica,” when every time Scalfari supposedly either misconstrues the conversation or flatly lies?
Wouldn’t the Cardinal Virtue of Prudence and common sense dictate to Pope Francis that he should avoid such traps?
And why doesn’t the Pope himself make a statement denying Scalfari’s allegations?
To me a certain pattern has become clear that Pope Francis never directly answers those who put words in his mouth, his accusers or those who question him even if they do so in all sincerity and with the utmost respect and charity.
After all, the “Dubia” Cardinals are still waiting for their response!
And what does an orthodox Catholic make of the clearly “pagan ceremony” at which Pope Francis presided in the Vatican Gardens on October 4, 2019 in the the lead up to the Amazon Synod?
Is there any Trinitarian or Christological justification for such a “pagan ceremony”?
The Fathers of the Church and missionary greats like Saint Bonaface would have condemned such an act as idolatrous, a clear violation of the First Commandment of the Dialogue.
Recall that St. Boniface himself chopped down the oak tree worshipped by the pagan Germans; and he didn’t dig holes in order to plant new ones!
If a baptized believer cannot obey the First Commandment, then can he or she cannot be a true Catholic-Christian.
There is no clause in the Decalogue exempting Popes!
This is clear from the teachings of Sacred Scripture and from Paragraphs 2084-2141 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
I think the Pope’s actions on October 4, 2019 should be judged in light of CCC 2110-2117.
Just as the words and deeds of Christ go together, so too must the words and deeds of His Vicar on Earth be treated as integral.
Surely, no one can stand in judgment of the Pope but God alone.
But this means that only God alone can judge the Pope’s soul.
This doesn’t mean that Catholics let alone Cardinals, Bishops, Priests and Theologians cannot criticize and/or condemn errant words and misdeeds of any given Pope at any given time.
We recall that St. Paul adamantly rebuked St. Peter face, accusing him of hypocrisy.
And St. Paul was right!
St. Peter, the First Pope, however, had the humility through God’s grace to accept the correction and to shepherd the Church forward in the right path.
Pope Francis says that he welcomes open criticism, but then ignores it and in some cases punishes those who out of charity and love of the truth proffer it to him (see the cases of Cardinals Burke and Müller).
In 1968, the embattled Pontiff, Paul VI, recognizing and lamenting the sad state of affairs in the Church, made a solemn profession of faith, the so-called “Credo of the People of God.”
I, for one, lament that this “Credo,” is not an appendix to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or at least included in the Compendium of the Catechism.
In any case, given the worse upheaval and confusion being generated in the contemporary Catholic Church, much of which is emanates from the Vatican now engulfed by the heretical and apostate Amazon Synod, is not perhaps incumbent on Pope Francis to make a similar Profession of Faith for the common good of the universal Church?
But logic suggests that we, orthodox Catholics, cannot have a reasonable hope in this happening since Pope Francis has not deigned to answer even the simple and straightforward “Dubia” (five questions) of the four Cardinals, two of whom are now deceased.
One must recall that according to Dogmatic Constitution of the Word of God (Dei Verbum) of the Second Vatican Council that the Magisterium is not the Master of the Divine Word but its servant.
And, even more fundamentally, we must recall that Our Blessed Lord told St. Peter that once he had turned (i.e. repented of his predicted three-fold denial) that he would strengthen (confirm) his brethren (fellow Apostles).
Is not the primary role of the Pope to confirm his brethren in the Faith?
If the Pope refuses to confirm us, his brothers and sisters in Christ through Baptism in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Faith, then does not the Sacred College of Cardinals have a fiduciary role according to Canon Law to depose such a Pope — electing in his place a suitable replacement as happened in the Acts of the Apostles when the Eleven Disciples who remained faithful to their Lord and Master elected St. Matthias to take the place of Judas Iscariot, who had betrayed Him?
Doctors of the Church, like St. Robert Bellarmine and St. Alphonus Marie de Liguori, not to mention great theologians like Cajetan, concur that a Pope who falls into “manifest heresy” automatically (“ipso facto”) ceases to be the legitimate Pope for one cannot be the head of the Mystical Body of Christ when one has ceased to be a member thereof.
Given that the sin of apostasy is far graver than the sin of heresy, should not the Sacred College of Cardinals convene to discuss whether or not Pope Francis has indeed fallen not only into “manifest heresy” but into apostasy, and therefore has “ipso facto” ceased to be the legitimate Pope, and this irrespective of whether his canonical election was valid or not?
In conclusion, in a recent interview, Robert Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, remarked to the effect that those “who oppose the Pope [Francis]” are “automatically excommunicated.”
On the other hand, the respected theologian, Fr. Thomas Weinandy, wrote an article for “Crisis” in which he posits the surreal notion that Pope Francis may be in “schism” with himself.
Which one is it?
One can’t have his cake and eat too.
Furthermore, is there not a serious risk here of turning into Pharisees who strained out gnats and swallowed camels unto their own condemnation and the demise of Chosen People, Israel?
Don’t Catholics deserve better than all this confusion twice confounded?
Is not the Supreme Law (“Suprema Lex”) of the Church the Salvation of Souls (“Salus Animarum”)?
It seems this has been totally forgotten.
And what about the immortal soul of Pope Francis?
Does anyone have any concern for his salvation?
Or have we somehow convinced ourselves that Popes when they die receive an automatic get out jail for free card or an automatic ticket to ride to the pearly gates?
As Archbishop Viganò reflected there exists a true and undeniable crisis in the contemporary Church, a serious deficiency of “supernatural faith” among many who hold the highest positions of power and authority in the Church’s hierarchy.
From my perspective, this truth is eminently evident at the present Amazon Synod which isn’t even a week old yet and has kicked up quite a storm for all the world, including non-believers and non-Catholic Christians, to behold in horror.
Have not enough good and faithful Catholics, with eyes to see and ears to hear, been scandalized enough?
For the love of God, do not orthodox Catholics, laity and clergy alike, deserve clarity from the See of Peter let alone from the Princes of the Church and the Successors of the Apostles?
Or, should faithful, orthodox Catholics be content to bury their heads in the sand, act like “Chinese Monkeys,” wallowing in the murky mud of Modernism until the Immaculate Heart of Mary finally triumphs and Our Lord returns in glory to judge us all including His creature, Jorge Mario Bergoglio?
P.S. Please excuse any grammatical errors and/or typos.
@NICHOLAS GREGORIS, Judging by your comments you seem to be a Pharisee residing within the Catholic Church. You seem to be in love with the politics and legal structure of the Catholic Church and have forgotten the original message of Father God and His Son Christ Jesus. I don’t remember Christ in His 3 years of ministry covering any of the topics you raise? Was it in His Sermon on the Mount? I think not. Did St Paul cover any of the issues you raise in His Epistles?
Why the continual reference to the Catechism. The Catechism is not inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, its just at its best, a summary of Faith. The Catechism is a collection of the rules, regulations of the Church, to make it more than that is an affront to God, who left His guiding instructions and His plan for Man’s Salvation, in the Written Word of God, the Bible.
You totally ignore, the Written Word of God, and how the conversations of the two men fit within its framework. In my short lifetime, I have seen major changes in the contents of the Catechism, but the written word of God never changes.
I am dishearten by your response, at a time when the Church is on its knees, its leaderless, the Faithful have left in droves, Churches are now empty, Priests, are leaving, being defrocked, placed in jail, the Church is paying mega settlements to victims of predator priests. Your focus about Canon law, heresy and apostasy, within the Church seems to be a waste of time and meaningless even on a good day, but totally misguided in light of the severe problems facing the Church.
How about getting back to the simple message of the Father that Christ taught in His 3 year ministry on Earth and be focused on God’s salvation plan for Man. Its 2000 years after Christ death, resurrection and ascension, its about time Catholics discover the Written Word of God and His Plan for mankind.
Pretty good and accurate comment. Praise the Lord. One thing jumped out at me. It is stated that St. Peter responded with humility to criticism from St. Paul. Pope Francis should do likewise but he won’t.
If, as the Vatican has officially acknowledged Scalfari’s papal utterances ” . . . As already stated on other occasions . . .cannot be considered a faithful account of what was said . . ” by the Holy Father, . . then why, . . why. . . does he agree to these interviews by this man ? Is Pope Francis not know , or care about the constant accusations of spreading confusion ???
Well, look. The reason people find Scalfari’s claims credible is because they’re exactly the kind of thing they suspect this pope might say in private. All the increasingly desperate diversions about Scalfari’s purported “unreliability” or (even more improbably) his ignorance of Catholic teaching are just wind, unless and until the pope himself makes a clear statement disavowing the explicit propositions attributed to him.
Is Jesus Christ the Second Person of the Triune Oneness truly incarnate (not merely “another existent, but the very appearance of Being itself,” von Balathasar) or only one of several existent manifestations possibly to be aggregated under a common heading, say, “fraternity”?
Clarifying the unfortunate and levelized “pluralism” of religions at the head of the Abu Dhabi Declaration, February 14, 2019 (barely two or three words), we find the following from Cardinal Raniero Contalamessa, preacher of the papal household, in his recent “Good Friday Homily for 2021.” He affirms and repeats Christ as the wellspring, by quoting Pope Francis:
“Others drink from other sources. For us, the wellspring of human dignity and fraternity is in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. From it, there arises, ‘for Christian thought and for the action of the Church, the primacy given to relationship, to the encounter with the sacred mystery of the other, to universal communion with the entire human family, as a vocation of all’” (Fratelli tutti, October 3, 2020, n. 277, the internal quote is from Lectio Divina meditations of March 26, 2019).
The burden of the Second Vatican Council, as again explained in Peter Seewald’s new biography of Benedict XVI and his influence, was/is to better engage the world (aggiornamento) by returning to sources (ressourcement) in such a way that evangelization is focused on the actual event in human history of the Incarnation as “the appearance of Being itself” (above), at the center of even Scripture or Tradition understood more as secondary words about the actual “Word made flesh.”
Did Pope Francis say…
The Vatican says…
There would be a simple, obvious way out: Pope Francis himself clarifies the point… but he never clarifies anything.
“Chi tace acconsente” we say in Italy, “if one doesn’t reply, he agrees”.
I pray for the Holy Father. He is my Pope and I love the Church. Looking back now on these multiple interviews he has done with Scalfari it’s clear they had a purpose. Ross Douthat(writer) believes he used these interviews to test the reaction to issues in the Church. I think it’s more serious than that. It’s just my opinion, but I believe Scalfari wasn’t mistaken about Pope Francis’s views. They are friends and have been for years. Pope Francis continued to allow him access despite these “misunderstandings”. When someone is telling you who they are believe them. Pope Francis is telling us who he is. If he doesn’t believe these statements then stop giving Scalfari continuous access. The reason The Holy Father didn’t stop the access is he wanted those statements released. He believes them.