CNA Staff, Jun 9, 2020 / 03:00 am (CNA).- Cardinal Angelo Becciu has said that the arrest of a businessman at the center of a Vatican property deal will have no wider repercussions and that business in the Vatican “will continue as before.”
Commenting on the June 5 arrest of Gianluigi Torzi, the former sostituto at the Secretariat of State said that he did not know the Italian businessman charged by Vatican prosecutors with fraud, extortion, money laundering and other crimes. Becciu also defended the investment of hundreds of millions of euros in the London property at 60 Sloane Avenue, and said it still represented good value for money.
“I don’t know Torzi, I was no longer sostituto when the facts that are attributed [Torzi] happened,” Becciu told Adnkronos after the announcement of Torzi’s arrest.
Before he was made a cardinal in June, 2018, Becciu was the second-ranking official at the Vatican Secretariat of State, which invested hundreds of millions of euros in the London property between 2014-2018. Torzi acted as a broker, a commission-earning middleman, for the Secretariat of State as it finalized the purchase in 2018 and 2019.
The Adnkronos report offers Becciu’s account of his role at the Vatican. Becciu insists that Torzi’s involvement in the project came after the cardinal had become head of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints in the summer of 2018, but that the original investment in the building was a sound decision.
“Are you sure that that building was a waste? But there has been no doubt that if sold now it would make double what it cost – 148 million euros when I was there, if there were other [additional expenses] then ask who made them, I was no longer there.”
On Saturday, the cardinal dismissed the idea that Torzi’s arrest would cause a broader “earthquake” in the curia, calling it “a journalistic fantasy.”
Becciu’s interview concluded with his declaration that “[Torzi] will have to answer for a specific crime for which he alone is responsible. And the Vatican will continue as before.”
CNA has reported that between 2014 and 2018, the Secretariat of State paid around $300 million for the building, bought from Italian businessman Raffaele Mincione. Mincione arranged the secretariat’s initial investment through an investment fund through which he managed hundreds of millions of euros for the Secretariat of State.
Completion of the sale was conducted through Gutt SA, a Luxembourg-registered holding company owned by Torzi.
According to a press statement from the Holy See, Torzi was arrested Friday in connection with “well-known events connected with the sale of the London property on Sloane Avenue, which involved a network of companies in which some officials of the Secretariat of State were present.”
In May, CNA reported that in November 2018, a lay official at the Secretariat of State was made a director of Gutt, for a period of one month. That official, Fabrizio Tirabassi, was suspended from his position in October, 2019, following a raid by Vatican investigators.
In his statements to Adnkronos over the weekend, Becciu repeated previous denials that the investment used funds from Peter’s Pence, a fund of donations sent to the Holy See by Catholics and dioceses around the world to support the ministry of the pope.
On Saturday, Vatican News reported that the investments made by the secretariat in Mincione’s Athena Global Opportunities Fund amounted to 200 million euros. It reports Mincione invested this money in the building, which he owned, and other ventures of Mincione’s, which it described to be a “conflict of interest.”
On Nov. 4, 2019, CNA reported that in 2015 Cardinal Becciu seems to have attempted to obscure on Vatican balance sheets nearly 200 million in loans connected to the transaction by cancelling them out against the value of the property in London, an accounting maneuver prohibited by financial policies approved by Pope Francis in 2014.
That apparent attempt to obscure the loans was detected by the Prefecture for the Economy, then led by Cardinal George Pell. Senior officials at the Prefecture for the Economy told CNA in 2019 that Becciu told Pell the cardinal was “interfering in sovereign business” by looking into the secretariat’s dealings with Swiss bank BSI.
BSI was closed by Swiss banking authorities in 2017, following an investigation which found systematic violations of anti-money laundering protections.
On Saturday, Becciu said that Torzi’s involvement in the London property deal came only after he had left the secretariat.
In May, CNA reported that Swiss authorities had frozen tens of millions of euros in several bank accounts as part of the Vatican’s investigation into the deal.
On June 6, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that among the funds frozen were several million under the control of Msgr. Alberto Perlasca.
Perlasca served under Becciu for nearly a decade as head of the administrative office of the secretariat’s First Section until July 2019, when he was transferred to the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Holy See’s supreme court. Perlasca worked as a prosecutor at the court, until his office and home were raided by investigators in February.
In an interview with the newspaper Il Giornale on Monday, Perlasca denied that he had any Swiss bank accounts and is “ready to sue anyone who claims otherwise.”
Perlasca said that “there was considerable confusion, I hope not knowingly, between personal accounts and accounts of the Secretariat of State, on which, however, I had no signature power since only the superiors had it. I only had the power to sign in conjunction with another superior. I don’t remember ever having to use it, because there never was a need. In other words: I couldn’t move a single cent.”
Perlasca said he personally lodged a complaint against Torzi in 2018, alleging fraud by the businessman.
Corriere also reported that accounts belonging to Mincione have been seized by Swiss authorities as part of the investigation, as well as those under the control of Enrico Crasso, who has also managed Holy See investments through the Centurion Global Fund.
Crasso told Corriere that the accounts relevant to him were only under his management and not personal accounts. Previously, CNA reported on Centurion’s connections to several institutions subject to allegations of money laundering.
On Saturday, Mincione denied any relationship to Torzi beyond working with him as the secretariat’s chosen intermediary for the completion of the property purchase.
In an interview with Adnkronos, Mincione said that apart from knowing Torzi slightly as a social acquaintance, his contact with him was limited to Torzi’s mandate to act on behalf of the secretariat, given by Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, who replaced Becciu as sostituto in 2018.
Mincione insisted in the interview that his dealings with the secretariat were all legitimate, and that the Holy See could still realize a profit on the London property.
Mincione also appeared to imply that responsibility for Torzi’s involvement could ultimately lay with Pope Francis, saying “there is a picture of Torzi with the pope, which I have. [Torzi] was given this job by Peña Parra, [who was himself] appointed by the pope.” It is unclear why or how Mincione would have a photo of Torzi with the pope, especially if the two businessmen were not close.
CNA has previously reported that Torzi, along with his family, were received in a private audience with Pope Francis on December 26, 2018. Repeated requests, over several months, to the Holy See asking how the meeting was arranged have gone unanswered.
On the same day as Mincione’s interview with Adnkronos, a picture apparently showing Torzi and his wife with Pope Francis began circulating online.
Perlasca told Il Giornale that “It seems very bad to call the Holy Father directly into this matter.”
“I know that, at the end of December 2018, there was a meeting with him, to which however no representative of the Administrative Office was invited,” Perlasca said.
[…]
Peace is precious. Non-violence is a time tested value. Democracy is a continuous process. In a democracy, each one is invited to contribute to the peace process. Long live democracy.
I am glad that the US is not a democracy, but a republic, since all democracies end in tyranny. Donald Trump was elected on Nov. 3, but morning came and it was stolen with tens of thousands of illegal ballots. They told us beforehand what they were going to do and they did it. If Biden is installed on Jan. 20 we will then be a banana republic. And one other thing, most of the protesters were let in by the police and were antifa. President Trump’s voters are peaceful protesters unlike the demoncrats.
Yes, this must be condemned, this movement (Pope Francis). Francis correctly calls for healing the violence. Condemn the movement? The movement is at least 72 million Americans who voted for Trump, many who faithfully hold to Catholicism. Who are against abortion. Who risk defending the unborn. Who reject homosexuality and its threat to the traditional family. Who are willing to stand up for religious liberty. What keeps us together as a Nation is exactly this sense of revolutionary Liberty of the founders, a belief in God given freedom, the inherent rights to live without immoderate restriction, to believe in a saving God, corrupted by a Catholic Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy in his opinion defining liberty sans principals Planned Parenthood E PA v Casey. Likely the intellectual catalyst that divided more conservative Christians and Mid Westerners from urban hardened hostile Marxist socialists. Result of the election ignited the spark, the volatility of the speech, yes even Trump’s admittedly narcissistic but not wholly untrue speech, march, the attack on the Capital that is perceived as betraying that most valued premise of God given freedom. We’re in for a fight, or the cowardly decision to lay down and enjoy the remaining moments of just peace until that is wrenched away from us. Our challenge is in response to the question, where does justice lie? In keeping up political decorum? Certainly not in violence. Rather it’s in the determined quest for the true and the good. Our failure as a Nation with the election of a moral turncoat will end in the suffering, and hopefully to find in disaster the redemption of those of us who have failed themselves and country. And many of us God.
When the Pope speaks of condemning ¨this¨ movement, it is a stretch to interpret it as his condemning all who voted for Trump. He is referring to any movement that involves violence.
The Holy Father is quite likely not knowing the ground situation and is unaware of the nuances – the mainstream media tar everyone with the same brush and he probably naively believed that narrative.
It is obvious that those who entered the Capitol also included Antifa / paid actors. Plus some of the events were cleverly staged and raise a lot of questions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0AM9xPFNFc
That said, re the ´many who faithfully hold to Catholicism´ bit – well the ´many´ bit is debatable. How many among that ´many´ adhere to the teaching of Humanae Vitae?
The tide will turn within a fortnight, and then of course, it remains to be seen what the ¨many…who reject homosexuality and its threat to the traditional family¨ are going to do when the ¨most pro-gay President¨ – https://twitter.com/LogCabinGOP/status/1296039209891819520 – continues his ´campaign to decriminalize homosexuality in 71 countries´ >> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7092519/Trump-Republican-president-promote-LGBT-Pride-Month.html
What will they do when Trump ´accommodates´ the demand from some ¨Republican conservatives¨ such as https://logcabin.org/adoption/ (or those among them who will move to any new party that may be formed) to continue to allow ¨LGBT couples¨ to adopt or foster children?
Do those ¨who faithfully hold to Catholicism¨ have the numbers as well as the political will, courage, stomach and determination to overturn the ¨anthropological regression¨ of ´…laws “assimilating” homosexual relationships to marriage´? – https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-francis-calls-for-civil-union-law-for-same-sex-couples-in-shift-from-vatican-stance-12462
´…(The Pope) expressed concern that if same-sex couples “are given adoption rights, there could be affected children. Every person needs a male father and a female mother that can help them shape their identity.”…´
This non-Catholic expressed one aspect of the problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWpvf-tZWIY
The system is broken. We are broken.
Kyrie eleison!
Yes, all isn’t black and white. We, nevertheless, mustn’t adopt your presumed omniscience and disparaging response. We hold fast to Christ and as priests we witness fearlessly to his truth. He will not abandon us as long as we hold firm. That’s what I convey to the faithful and to you.
Unsure what led to the ´omniscience´ label. [As an aside, I was reminded of ¨The aims of leftist labeling and censoring of conservatives as extremists¨ – https://www.debatez.com/forums/topic/the-aims-of-leftist-labeling-and-censoring-of-conservatives-as-extremists/ – so is this a case of the shoe being on the other foot?!] 🙂
In any case, if it is because of the confidence (based on multiple reports from various sources) that some things will happen in the coming days including the reversal of the tide, – that does not mean I know everything, nor do I claim to be ´omniscient´.
´disparaging response´?
Again, another (wrong) perception / interpretation.
I was simply pointing out the truth as borne witness through the content in the cited web pages – the intent being to point out stuff that needs to be highlighted for the benefit of those who may not quite be aware of those things. That is to say, it was merely to indicate areas where there are inconsistencies and work to do – which that non-Catholic woman has also rightly flagged in some respect.
If I intended to be disparaging, I would not have included myself in saying WE are broken.
I’m not convinced that Pope Francis has a clue what he’s talking about when he wades into U.S. politics.
“But we have to understand well that it does not repeat, learning from history.”
Shouldn’t we do the same for McCarrick? The report published by Vatican didn’t seem to impress most people I follow. I haven’t read it myself, but have been hearing it’s essentially just a report of blaming here and there, instead of admitting what’s going wrong in the Church / Vatican and how it could be solved. As a Catholic, I’m really sad I have to write something like this as a public comment, but I think we Catholics deserve to know what’s really going wrong so we can work together to prevent the same thing. Unfortunately, our dear pope seems to prefer silence when people tried to clarify controversial / ambiguous topics.
I’m astonished that he is astonished. Did he not say to “make a mess” and that “chaos is good” and he would be” seen as the Pope who divided the Church?” Does he not know what the earthly result of that is?
And silence about the violence against Christians in China? Selective astonishment.
Well, yes.
Good point. Truthfully ,I was pretty astonished at the mayhem in DC but compare the state of affairs here to what’s going on in communist China.
I think of everything going on in the world that’s disturbing and our betrayal of Christians in China has to be one of the worst offenses. Imagine what the early missionaries would think of us.
I am astonished that the Pope, to by my knowledge, has issued no statement in response to the legalization of abortion in his native land. I am astonished that such a man is the Vicar of Christ.
The Pope is astonished and condemns the violence?? Where was he when the BLM and antifa crowd set a church on fire across the street from the White House last summer and Donald Trump stepped out alone to present a picture of calm and authority? For which he was, as always , attacked by the Democrats,who complained the rioters were roughly treated, and who seemed to have no trouble letting the country burn all summer in Blue states. In fact the DEMs took the trouble to kneel in solidarity with the rioters!!! But now they are shocked!! Shocked they say, that a few protesters trashed Congressional offices. I do not support anyone rioting. But even less do I support smug self-serving politicians such as those on the left. Rules/Laws are supposed to apply to ALL or they should apply to NONE. For more than 2 centuries Americans have grown used to being the objects of hate. We do not care what non-Americans think of us.