Phil Lawler at Catholic Culture gives good reasons to suspect that what we know about the Vatican financial scandals is only the tip of the iceberg:
This week’s headlines come not from the Holy See but from the United Kingdom, where a judge announced that a Vatican request to freeze a suspect’s assets was riddled with “non-disclosures and misrepresentations so appalling” that he lifted the freeze, released the assets—and, rejecting another Vatican request for secrecy, made his ruling very public, in an unmistakable slap at the Vatican’s criminal-justice system.
Ed Condon of Pillar, who has consistently set the journalistic pace in reporting on the Vatican financial hijinks, has an excellent summary of the latest news and what it implies. It’s a complicated story, but to summarize just a few key points:
- The Vatican has charged Gianluigi Torzi with embezzlement of funds—leaving unanswered the question of why the Vatican ever did business with Torzi, who has a record of questionable dealings.
- Torzi has fired back, presenting the British court with documented evidence that the transactions he made were explicitly authorized by leading Vatican officials, including the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin; and his deputy, Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra.
- Cardinal Parolin and Archbishop Pena Parra had explicitly denied authorizing the deals.
- Torzi claimed that Fabrizio Tirabassi, a lay Vatican employee who was apparently suspended last October, boasted about blackmailing senior Vatican officials.
Should we assume that Torzi’s claims are accurate? Certainly not. But signatures on documents do not lie. And by the say, if it is true that Tirabassi was trying to blackmail leading prelates, how did he do so? If senior officials of the Roman Curia are subject to blackmail, isn’t that a story worth pursuing? In any case, at this point, whose claims can we take seriously?
The shadow of suspicion that hangs over the Vatican’s secretive investigation is darkened by the fact that while Torzi faces criminal charges before a Vatican tribunal, Tirabassi—to the best of our knowledge—does not. In January, Vatican prosecutors took another setback when a court in Rome ruled that they had seized property illegally from Tirabassi’s home. Also in January, the Vatican dropped a request for extradition of Cecilia Marogna, a Slovenian woman who was facing charges in the real-estate scandal. The courts outside Vatican City have not been impressed by the Vatican prosecutors’ case.
Just a few weeks ago, in February, Pope Francis issued a motu proprio to update the Vatican’s criminal code, among other things clarifying the rights of defendants. This week’s blistering ruling by British Judge Tony Baumgartner makes it clear that the reform is too little, too late. Reflecting on the Vatican’s plea to keep the matter confidential, the judge remarked that while the Vatican, as a sovereign state, has the right to conduct its own criminal investigations in secrecy, “such a blanket claim does not sit well with the principle of open justice.”
Go here to read the rest. Clergy are drawn from the laity of course. Is it too much to ask however that high ranking clerics not be drawn, as too often they appear to be, from the worst of the laity?
