IOR: Francis activates his 'alertometer'

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican Insider
July 10, 2013

“I am very naive about some things but there are certain other things that set my “alertometer” in action,” Jorge Mario Bergoglio once said back in the days when he was still Archbishop of Buenos Aires. His comment was in reference to cases of corruption involving clerics.

Francis’ “alertometer” has certainly been activated now. Various sources have said that last 4 July, the Vatican apparently issued a regulation which prohibits anyone from destroying or tampering with documents relating to the Vatican Bank (IOR). The decision to issue said regulation was taken independently, without prior approval from the Secretariat of State. This is indicative of a new willingness to deal with more thorny issues, without settling for comfortable cover-up operations.

Readers will recall that the director general of the IOR, Paolo Cipriani and his deputy, Massimo Tulli, both handed in their resignations on Monday 1 July. The decision came after the embarrassing revelation of an inquiry into APSA prelare Mgr Nunzio Scarano’s illicit use of his Vatican bank accounts to carry out risky financial operations, all of which were approved by the IOR’s directors.

But in the days following the resignation, the two former managers under investigation were still to be found wandering through the bank’s corridors. Then a third person was added to the list of people under investigation: the lawyer Michele Briamonte. The presence of the two managers and the lawyer made the situation even more problematic. Briamonte, who is both the IOR and Cipriani’s lawyer, is being investigated for inside trading in the case involving Italian bank Monte dei Paschi. He was also involved in an accident which took place in recent months at Rome’s Ciampino airport, when the Guardia di Finanza, one of Italy’s law enforcement agencies, decided to search Briamonte’s luggage, just as he was getting out of his private jet, alongside one of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone’s secretaries. The check was not carried out in the end as Briamonte produced a Vatican diplomatic passport, claiming immunity from inspection.

The IOR’s new president, Ernst von Freyberg, gave a series of interviews, giving repeated reassurance that Briamonte was no longer the IOR’s lawyer and that he no longer had anything to do with the bank. So why did he return several times according t some sources? And why did he return on the very day outgoing managers Cipriani and Tulli and even President Von Freyberg himself were present in the building? In light of these events, the Vatican judiciary ordered that no IOR document in any format was to be destroyed, tampered with or moved. It was a new dramatic turn of events but not the last in the recent IOR saga.

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All one needed to do was to listen to the new Pope describe his dream of “a poor Church for the poor” to realise that he intended to carry Benedict XVI’s transparency work through to the end. Some cardinals were dissatisfied by the explanations Cardinal Bertone gave to them about the workings of the Vatican bank, during the pre-Conclave general congregations. It was clear to everyone that reforms needed to be made in the Vatican bank as well. In recent months it became apparent that the monitoring system put in place to keep a check on the activities of the IOR was and is not working, despite the reassurances from Von Freyberg and Financial Information Authority director René Brülhart. So on 15 June, Francis appointed the director of St. Martha’s House, Battista Ricca as temporary Prefect of the IOR. As administrator of the residence that is currently Bergoglio’s home and given that the two often eat at the same table, Ricca is someone Francis trusts and he has authorised access to all documents relating to the Vatican bank.

After Ricca’s arrival at the IOR, a number of controversial incidents ensued. The prelate, who still enjoys the Pope’s trust, has a strong attitude and does not sweeten the pill with diplomatic niceties. The delays in the screening of account holders at the Vatican bank and conforming to anti-money laundering regulations and the Italian judiciary’s inquiries into the way the bank has been managed, have made it necessary for Francis to go one step further: he personally decided to issue a papal chirograph, ordering the creation of a commission of inquiry, headed by Cardinal Raffaele Farina. The commission is to dig deep into the activities of the Vatican bank and report its findings directly to the Pope. At the end of the investigation the commission is to hand all documentation gathered, over to Francis.

Before he begins reforming, Bergoglio wants to get a clear idea of the IOR’s situation and above all he wants to get to eradicate the current system as well as get to the bottom of who is responsible for the bank’s woes.

See full article at the Vatican Insider