Money spoils the character, says a proverb. This may also apply in the Vatican, the headquarters of the Roman Catholic world. The connection to the top obviously does not help much with pecuniary things. Maybe you can not handle money better there than down in Rome.
Anyway, it does not look good at all, if that's true, which the revelation journalist and Vatican expert Gianluigi Nuzzi presented this week in his book "Giudizio universale" (The Last Judgment). He has evaluated 3000 unpublished documents on the economic situation in the realm of Pope Francis. Result: The Vatican spends more than it takes.
For the first time in its history, the Papal States accounted for a minus in 2018, albeit a small one. This year, it will grow by 200 percent, according to Nuzzi, to then 26.6 million euros. In four years, the Vatican could be bankrupt.
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Gianluigi Nuzzi
Giudizio universale (Italian Edition)
Publishing company:
Chiarelettere
Pages:
336
9,99 Euro
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Nuzzi, who released the so-called "Vatileaks scandal" in 2011 with the publication of numerous confidential documents and has already written four investigative books about the Vatican, now reports in the fifth work about its disastrous financial situation and its causes. Thus, the huge real estate assets - more than 4,000 objects with a value of 2.7 billion euros - are badly used. 800 real estate stood empty, from the rest large parts were rented free of charge or far below market value.
Fraud, corruption, embezzlement and money laundering
The amount of donations shrinks drastically. For example, the so-called "Peterspfennig", which the Catholic faithful send each year directly to the Pope, for charitable acts above all, but also for the financing of the Curia in Rome. The shepherds donated 101 million euros to their shepherds in Rome in 2006, even though now only half. And of that, according to Nuzzi, only 10 to 15 percent would actually be spent on aid projects.
The remainder of the remainder will be revealed in a case of investigation, which the church now made public itself. The Vatican and Anti-Corruption Commission are accused of fraud, corruption, embezzlement, money laundering and abuse of office by five Curia workers. This was reported recently by the Italian news magazine "L'Espresso" and presented excerpts from documents of the Vatican prosecutor. According to the accused in recent years about 650 million euros - among other things from the "Peterspfennig" donations - have been misappropriated. For real estate speculation in London for example or the financing of an oil platform off the coast of Angola.
Tailored clothing and princely dwellings
Evandro Inetti / ZUMA Wire / dpa
Pope Francis in St. Peter's Square (Stock Image)
It is unimaginable, but many recent publications, if only in essence, prove that devastating conditions prevail in the Papal States. So have the Vatican
- "hundreds of thousands of euros for business class flights, tailor-made clothing, valuable furniture and 4600 euros for the lower cabinet of a washbasin" issued. ( Source: Emiliano Fittipaldi, Italian journalist and co-author of Nuzzi books );
- paid a lot of money for "luxury apartments in the heart of the Eternal City"; "Curonian cardinals live in princely dwellings of 400, 500, sometimes 600 square meters of usable space, and this alone, with at best two or three missionary sisters, preferably from developing countries who run their households, cook, clean or act as auxiliary staff." The cardinals lived in vain, paid neither rent nor additional costs.
- The former Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone has received 200,000 euros from the Foundation of the Vatican Children's Hospital "Bambino Gesu" for the renovation of his apartment; judicially confirmed, the hospital director was therefore convicted.
- In addition, there had been "questionable revenue in beatifications and canonizations".
And so it goes on for a long time.
Begging, praying or selling St. Peter's Basilica?
But it probably plays, in addition to the motives of the greedy and the scandals in the Vatican, politics also a role. The conservative front in the Catholic principality has not been able to make friends with the Third World Pope Francis to this day. Sometimes the Catholic Pontifex Maximus washes feet of Muslim women, sometimes he sits with the homeless. And anyway, he only talks about the poor and not the rich. At most, to accuse those that they are not poor.
That's why Franciscan friends, like Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, are also certain that the revelations are still backed by the still mighty ultra-conservative bloc. He took every opportunity to harm Francis because he loathed his ecological and social course. Part of the US church does not even know what that is, sustainable development and social justice, which Francis demands. The US church lords are more "interested in large donors and the policy of oil and coal companies," said Mariaga in an interview with the Roman newspaper "La Repubblica".
That is why the recent revelations were also launched precisely for the Amazon Synod in Rome - which dealt with the political and economic problems of the indigenous population in the Amazon Basin, but also possible posts for women and the consecration of married men.
These revelations are said to "destabilize" Francis, said Mariaga, who, as the Pope's South American chief of commission, reformed the Curia.
Only, even if he is right, that does not change the devastating financial situation of the Vatican. And convincing suggestions on what to do there are not yet known. In the end it may just remain: begging, praying, or selling St. Peter's Basilica.
