The Authority says efforts to help the Vatican comply with international norms for fighting money laundering and terrorist financing are paying off.

A report which the Authority released last Friday says 150 suspicious financial transactions were flagged in 2017, 57 fewer than in the previous year.

Only eight of those were judged possibly to be the result of criminal activity.

Sixteen fewer reports were sent to the Promoter of Justice in the Vatican City's tribunal for investigation in comparison to the 24 sent in 2016.

The report noted none of the suspicious transactions involved financing terrorism.

Furthermore, the report confirmed a "robust reporting system and an effective application of the regulatory framework of the Holy See and the Vatican City State."

The Financial Information Authority was set up by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010 as an anti-money laundering watchdog unit.

Its establishment followed decades of scandals involving the Vatican Bank.

Among the successful prosecutions of serious criminal offences the Vatican undertook in 2017 was that of Giuseppe Profiti.

Profiti was the former president of the Vatican-owned Bambino Gesù Hospital.

He was given a one-year suspended prison sentence for "abuse of power" for diverting €422,000 (£370,000/$500,000) of the hospital's funds to upgrade former Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone's Vatican apartment.

The Financial Intelligence Authority reported it is also continuing with a "pro-active approach to cooperate and exchange information with its foreign counterparts to fight illicit financial activities."

Source

• NZ Herald
• National Catholic Reporter
• Catholic Herald
• Crux Now
• Image: 123RF

Bertone is the Vatican's former secretary of state.

A Vatican court has convicted the former president of the Pope's children's hospital of diverting about NZ$676,000 in donations to renovate the cardinal's flat.

Although he was originally charged with embezzelment, Giuseppe Profiti was convicted of a lesser offence - abuse of office - after his defence argued the money was intended as an investment to benefit the hospital.

Profiti was given a one-year suspended sentence.

The hospital's treasurer, Massimo Spina was acquitted.

News sources have noticed neither the cardinal who benefited from the renovation, nor the contractor who was apparently paid twice for doing the work, was charged.

During the trial, the cardinal was shown to have personally invited Gianantonio Bandera, whom he knew, to do the renovation work.

The trial also showed that Bertone's project did not go through the normal external bidding process.

While Bertone paid about NZ$500,000 himself, the hospital also paid Bandera's firm.

News sources also noted the trial showed Bertone "bent rules to get his retirement apartment ready after Pope Francis was elected in 2013 and named a new secretary of state".

Bertone was removed from office in 2013, eight months after Francis was elected. The renovation on his apartment started a few weeks later.

Source

• Independent
• Religion News Service
• Reuters
• Image: Crux

He told the Vatican tribunal that arrangements for remodeling Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone's Vatican apartment were made by Bertone himself.

Bertone was the person who contacted his firm about the renovations, Bandera said.

Both Bertone and Bandera have been called to give evidence at the trial, which is investigating Giuseppe Profiti and Massimo Spina's misappropriation of US$500,000 from the Bambino de Jesu Children's Hospital. They used the money to fund the renovation work on Bertone's apartment.

Until their arrest, Profiti and Spina were senior officials at the hospital, which is sponsored by the Pope.

Part of the indictment is that Profiti and Spina diverted the money to help Bandera (who has not been charged in the case) because his companies were struggling financially.

Bandera told the tribunal the cardinal made the arrangements with him directly via a series of emails, without going through a bid process as would ordinarily be required.

He explained he and the cardinal had known each other since 1991 or 1992 when Bertone was the bishop of Vercelli in northern Italy.

Bandera also said he volunteered to build a discount into the costs.

He said the cardinal wanted a "very normal residence, with average accommodation" - although his private salon "is a bit larger than normal."

On 22 September the judges heard from an official of the Government of the Vatican City State which normally handles construction projects on Vatican territory. They said personal involvement by a cardinal in selecting a firm was "anomalous."

Bertone (who was Pope emeritus Benedict XVI's Secretary of State) has not been charged with any criminal activity. Nor has he ever been considered a suspect in this case.

At the request of defence lawyers, the Vatican tribunal has agreed to require testimony from two officials who had sought to avoid appearances: Mariella Enoc, the current head of the hospital foundation; and Tommasso Di Ruzza, the director of the Vatican's Financial Information Authority.

Source

• Catholic Culture
• Crux
• Image: chiesadicagliari.it

Giuseppe Profiti and the former treasurer of Bambino Gesu pediatric hospital have been charged with embezzlement and are on trial in the Vatican's criminal court.

They are accused of diverting 422,000 euros from the hospital foundation to renovate Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone's apartment. (Bertone was the Vatican Secretary of State from 2006 to 2013.)

Profiti is defending the use of funds to renovate the apartment, saying that doing so would have brought new donations. The cardinal could host intimate dinners half a dozen times a year for eight to ten wealthy potential donors at a time.

He said he expected fundraisers would have more than repaid the investment within four to five years.

"The more restricted the numbers, the more money raised since there is an element of exclusivity," Profiti told the court on Tuesday.

Apparently no fundraisers were ever held.

Bertone, who is not under investigation, had approved the concept but "the idea was mine alone," Profiti said.

He acknowledged that financial controls surrounding the spending had been lax. He could not recall if any contracts had been drawn up.

The work was carried out shortly after Bertone had stepped down as the Vatican's Secretary of State.

It has been widely suggested in the Italian media as reflecting Bertone's desire to retire in maximum comfort and elegance.

Source

• The Local
• US News
• Image: Crux

The court is currently hearing conflicting reports about Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone's role in the fraud investigation. Bertone is the former Secretary of State under Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Read more

This is the first time the Vatican has publically announced a prosecution using measures introduced in 2009 to fight money-laundering and financial crime.

The two accused, Giuseppe Profiti and Massimo Spina, are said to have diverted 422,000 euros (about NZ$660,000) from the hospital's fundraising foundation to pay for renovations on Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone's apartment.

It is said the money transfers from the hospital (often called 'the pope's hospital') began in 2013 after Bertone retired from office as Vatican secretary of state.

Profiti has admitted to transferring the money. He says it was an investment so the foundation could use the apartment for fundraising events.

Profiti and Spina's trial is set to begin before a Vatican tribunal this week. They could face prison sentences of three to five years if convicted.

As they are Italian citizens and not clergy, they could dispute the tribunal's jurisdiction.

When the Vatican confirmed last year that Profiti and Spina were under investigation, Bertone's lawyer said the 82-year old cardinal had "never asked for, nor authorized payment for the restoration work from hospital funds".

No charges have been laid against Bertone.

However, he is said to have made a contribution of over NZ$230,000 to the hospital after a book was published in late 2015 detailing how much was spent on his apartment.

Source

• CathNewsUSA
• Reuters
• Crux
• Image:Agenpress

Greg Burke, assistant director of the Vatican press office, said two executives from Rome's Bambino Gesu Children's Hospital - former chairman Giuseppe Profiti and former treasurer Massimo Spina - are being investigated.

Profiti and Spina allegedly misappropriated hospital funds to pay for the restoration of Bertone's apartment.

Burke said Cardinal Bertone, who was secretary of state from 2006 to 2013 and briefly in charge of the Holy See and its administration when Pope Benedict XVI resigned in 2013, was not under investigation.

In his book "Greed," journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi alleged that the cost of renovation was funneled through a London-based holding company run by Bertone's personal friend.

"The money destined for sick children was in actuality used for the renovations and then sent on to London," Fittipaldi wrote. "Bertone's name is not cited in the magistrates' document but the Holy See will find it hard to overlook his direct involvement in the scandal."

Bertone says he can prove he paid around $340,000 for the work out of his own pocket, but the foundation that raises money for the Vatican-owned Bambino Gesu children's hospital apparently also paid $455,000.

The massive-for-Rome apartment is being floored with 2,400 square feet of expensive herringbone oak parquet which cost the cardinal and the hospital $28,000.

A smaller 750-square-foot area is being covered with luxury white Carrara marble at a price tag of $11,000. The double-glaze energy efficient windows cost $80,000 and the front security door is priced at $6,000.

Sources

The Daily Beast
Catholic News Service
Religion News Service
Image: The Daily Beast

Two years ago, the Vatican's then-Secretary of State, Cardinal Bertone, ordered the investment in Lux Vide SpA, for "evangelisation".

The company makes family movies, including films about popes and a series about a bike-riding country priest who helps police solve crimes.

Cardinal Bertone pushed the deal through despite objections from the bank's director and board members.

They thought the expense was too big and not justifiable, according to current and former bank executives.

The latter said Cardinal Bertone backed a proposal for the Vatican bank to buy up to 25 percent of Lux Vide in 2010 and, again in 2012.

Both times, the bank's directors tried to reject the deal, saying it was not in the bank's interest to invest in television companies and that the price was high.

But the deal was eventually approved. "The board said 'this is not a good idea' but could not block the deal," said a current bank official.

"The message was: the boss (Bertone) wants this."

Last month, the Vatican booked a loss for the entire amount spent, as part of a wider review of Vatican finances that has also led to the closure of hundreds of accounts at the Institute for Religious Works, as the Vatican bank is officially known.

Cardinal Bertone, who still stands by the decision to invest in the television company, said that when the bank approved the deal it did so with the board's unanimous consent.

Bertone had a virtual free reign to run the Vatican's administration under Pope Benedict XVI.

The zeroing of the Lux Vide investment is emblematic of Pope Francis's effort to loosen ties between the Holy See and Italy's business and political world.

Francis considers such relationships improper to the Church's religious mission.

He has instigated an overhaul of the way the Vatican operates, including its finances.

Under the new structure created by Pope Francis, Cardinal Bertone's successor as Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, has no direct power over any of the financial affairs of the Holy See, including the IOR and APSA, the Vatican's asset management and investment arm.

Source

• UCA News
• Image: CathNewsUSA

According to German tabloid Bild Zeitung, approval was given for 15 million euros to be transferred from the Vatican bank to an Italian television production company, later identified as Lux Vide.

The company is owned by Cardinal Bertone's friend Ettore Bernabei, a former director general of Italian state broadcaster Rai.

A Vatican official, who asked not to be named, confirmed that the senior prelate was instrumental in approving what the Financial Times called a "convertible loan".

The transfer was approved when Cardinal Bertone headed an oversight committee overseeing the Vatican bank, formally known as the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR).

The funds were moved in a December 2012, despite resistance from the Vatican bank, Bild reported.

The head of the Vatican's Financial Information Authority(AIF), Renè Bruelhart, told Bild he could "neither confirm nor deny" reports about a Bertone investigation.

The Vatican press office issued a statement countering the Bild report.

"There is currently no investigation of a criminal nature" involving Cardinal Bertone, the statement said.

Cardinal Bertone has denied the Bild report.

The cardinal told the ADNKronos agency that the transfer was approved by a board that supervises the Vatican bank.

He added that the minutes of the board's meetings would confirm this and that the transaction had been carried out "regularly".

In January, Pope Francis shook up the administration of the scandal-plagued bank, replacing four members of the five-cardinal oversight committee.

Cardinal Bertone was among those ousted after less than a year of his five-year term.

Meanwhile, the AIF has reported a steep rise in suspicious transaction reports, which grew from six in 2012 to 202 last year.

Mr Bruelhart said this means reporting systems at the Vatican are working.

Most of the suspicious activities reported involved transactions carried out through the IOR.

Five have been deemed worthy of further investigation and possible criminal charges, and have been handed over to the judicial offices of the Vatican City State.

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Catholic World News
• Catholic Herald
• Financial Times
• Image: Bishop Accountability

On April 20, Italian daily La Repubblica reported that the cardinal was moving into a lavish 6500 square foot apartment in the Vatican's San Carlo Palace.

This was while Pope Francis was urging clerics to adopt a modest lifestyle.

But in an open letter in Italian magazines, Cardinal Bertone wrote that he had been contacted by the Pope, who had expressed his personal support.

The cardinal wrote that the apartment is of a typical size for Vatican palaces and that media doubled the size of the apartment he is going to live in.

He renovated it at his own expense, he added.

The restructuring combines two separate apartments.

Three nuns who worked with Cardinal Bertone when he was secretary of state will live with him in his new residence.

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Some 30 people attended the meeting, which included the heads of the Vatican's eight congregations and 12 councils, as well as top officials from the Church's tribunals and from the administration of Vatican state.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's outgoing secretary of state, was also present in the meeting.

Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican's spokesman, said in a statement that the pope had the opportunity to listen to the "considerations and advice" of his closest collaborators in Rome.

Lombardi said Pope Francis had already met all the Vatican's department heads personally in recent months.

The reform process, according to Lombardi, will have another "important moment" when a group of eight cardinals summoned by the pope to oversee reforms for the Curia meets for the first time in Rome on Oct. 1-3.

The group includes Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston and is chaired by Honduran Cardinal Oscar Maradiaga.

Allegations of widespread mismanagement and corruption in the Curia overshadowed the final years of Pope Benedict XVI's papacy, including the so-called Vatileaks affair.

Many of the scandals were at least partly blamed on inefficiency and lack of collaboration among Vatican bureaucrats, who are mostly Italian churchmen.

Sources

RNS/The Washington Post

Catholic News Service

Image: KomoNews

Archbishop Parolin, 58, is currently the Vatican envoy to Venezuela and served as the Vatican's deputy foreign minister from 2002 to 2009. He has led various Vatican diplomatic delegations in thorny geopolitical negotiations, including talks to improve relations with Vietnam, and has been a prominent voice at numerous international conferences on human trafficking, the climate and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Vatican noted that Bertone, 78, was retiring under a church law that requires cardinals who hold top curia posts to offer their resignations when they turn 75. Pope Benedict XVI had kept him in place, reportedly to the irritation of a rival faction of Vatican bureaucrats loyal to Bertone's predecessor, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, a former longtime secretary of state

Archbishop Parolin said he was ready to tackle "a difficult and challenging mission" and pledged to work for "the good of the holy church, and the progress and peace of humanity, that humanity might find reasons to live and to hope."

The secretary of state, the most senior Vatican official after the pope, oversees internal church affairs and guides foreign policy so the pope's choice for the post directly affects the overall management of the Curia, the Vatican's central administration.

But Francis' appointment of various commissions to help him govern suggests that he will be less dependent on a single voice or department when it comes to making decisions. In April, the pope appointed a council of eight cardinals from around the world as an advisory board to help govern the church, and he has set up commissions to advise him as he considers changes to the operation of the Vatican Bank and the management of economic affairs.

Sources

The New York Times

AP/ABC News

Reuters/Huffington Post

Image: AFP/The Guardian

The journalist said Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, administrator of the Holy See until the new pope was elected, criticised Brazilian Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz for previously complaining about the management of the Vatican Bank — and more generally the Roman Curia — and for the fact that his comments had been made public.

Cardinal Bertone implied that Cardinal Braz de Aviz had leaked the content of his speech — something the Brazilian curtly denied. Instead, Cardinal Braz de Aviz responded, the information may have been leaked by the "organisation" — a suggestion that several cardinals applauded.

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The main ingredients are the leaked confidential papers of Pope Benedict XVI in an incident that has led to interpretations of such battles for influence inside the Curia that Der Spiegel claims that the "mood at the Vatican is apocalyptic."

Turmoil has followed the arrest and imprisonment of papal valet, Paolo Gabriele, in a 377-square-foot cell, one window, no TV, that most people did not know lies deep in the Vatican maze, with the explanation that the butler did it, or, rather, the butler is taking the fall in a plot, code-named, honest to God, Maria, engineered by high-ranking officials to circulate papers damaging two close papal aides, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, and Benedict's secretary from the old country, Monsignor Georg Ganswein. Despite deep-sixing the butler, the Dreyfuss of this comic opera, new documents have surfaced with the threat of more to come if Bertone and Ganswein are not forced out of their jobs. Read more

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: The Telegraph

The hospital, which has links to the Vatican, and whose founder is the priest, Don Luigi Verzè, has a shortfall of €1.5bn.

Though the San Raffaele is highly regarded for its medical care and research its administration seems to have suffered from extravagant spending and bad investments.

Mr Cal's stress as administrator of a hospital on the verge of collapse no doubt brought about his despairing act.

Milan's chief prosecutor, Edmonodo Bruti Leberati announced last week that the hospital was under investigation for fraudulent bankruptcy.

Last month, the Vatican proposed a €250m rescue package, but the authorities were cool on the offer which means that the Holy See has until October 10 before the insititution is declared bankrupt two days later.

Many questions remain as to how the hospital was allowed to build up such huge debts, and the actual circumstances around Mr Cal's death, such as who moved his gun away from his body.

Mr Liberati's "preliminary analysis" has revealed "evidence of criminality" in the hospital's accounts. Besides this controversy, commentators are also surprised by the determination shown by the Vatican to save San Raffaele.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Pope Benedict's Secretary of State, joined Don Verzè in an attempt to save the hospital by perhaps merging the San Raffele with other hospitals.

The reason for the Vatican's interest may be about saving jobs, but some observers feel that there are other motives. James Walston, a professor at the American University of Rome suggests that medical care is profitable, as "nuns do much of the work…and the church doesn't pay tax".

However, for Mr D'Arcais the Vatican's interest revolves around the exercise of power. "You have to understand the Vatican is not just about religion," he says. "It seeks to have greater power and influence, and what could be more important than having a pivotal influence on education, medical care and bioethics?"

According to commentator, should the Vatican have budgetary control, it would be able to deter activities such as embryonic stem cell research that it considers immoral.

Full Story: Belfast Telegraph