According to a story, the Pope allegedly gave the go-ahead for investigators to bug the phone of a financial broker based in London who is accused of robbing the Holy See.
According to documents that have been released from the Vatican, Pope Francis authorised detectives to tap phones, intercept emails, and even make arrests without first seeking permission from British judges.
The Vatican’s Office of the Promoter of Justice allegedly targeted wealthy Raffaele Mincione, an Italian fund manager and consultant at the centre of a Vatican corruption prosecution, according to The Sunday Times, which claims to have seen the documents.
One of ten defendants who the Vatican accuses of participating in numerous crimes such embezzlement, fraud, money laundering, and corruption is Mincione, along with other wealthy London businessmen and church workers.
The most well-known defendant in what has been nicknamed “the trial of the century” is Angelo Becci, formerly the pope’s right-hand man.
All of the trial’s defendants have asserted their innocence of all charges.
A spokeswoman for the Vatican responded to The Sunday Times by saying: “Various foreign courts have recognised the legitimacy of the investigations and the conformity of the Vatican judiciary system to the standards of fair trial.”
Francis has promised to fix the Church’s finances, which have been plagued by controversy for decades, ever since he was elected pope in 2013.
Following a 2019 raid on the Secretariat’s offices, the Vatican’s most significant division in charge of general affairs and diplomacy,
Francis relieved the body of control over its own finances and transferred that duty to others.
A 487-page indictment made public in July of last year revealed large bank transfers, texts exchanged between participants on confiscated phones, sacks of cash changing hands, and covert meetings held in five-star hotels.
Prosecutors’ complex case alleges shady, hazardous deals involving millions of dollars in Vatican funds, little to no oversight, and double dealing by insiders and outside experts trusted with the Secretariat’s financial interests.
Prosecutors have previously stated that the main defendants are “actors in a rotten predatory and lucrative system, sometimes made possible thanks to limited but extremely incisive participation and internal connivance.”
The scandal is particularly embarrassing because funds from the Peter’s Pence, an annual fund for the pope’s charities, were used for risky investments, including a disastrous investment of 350 million euros (£300 million) in a 17,000 square metre London property in the affluent Chelsea neighbourhood.
The current situation began in 2013, when the Secretariat borrowed more than $200 million (£145 million), primarily from Credit Suisse, to make an investment in a Luxembourg fund run by Mincione.
A portion of the London building was to be funded with the remaining half going toward stock market transactions.
Prosecutors claim that Mincione invested the funds in risky business endeavours outside the Church’s purview.
The Secretariat attempted to exit the agreement in 2018 after suffering millions in losses.
Gianluigi Torzi, a different banker with ties to London who was hired to handle the sale of the remaining portion of the building, allegedly severed his relations with Mincione and teamed up with the latter.
Torzi allegedly placed a provision into the agreement that gave himself ownership of the building through voting rights.
Torzi arranged for the Holy See to give Mincione £40 million to buy out the financier’s stake in the London property.
Torzi is charged with seeking 15 million euros in exchange for giving over the reins.
Prosecutors assert that Enrico Crasso, a former Secretariat financial adviser, and employee Fabrizio Tirabassi—both of whom are accused of fraud—aided Mincione and Torzi.
Two former top members of the Vatican’s financial watchdog, including its former president, Swiss lawyer Rene Bruelhart, are also accused of failing to do enough to safeguard the Secretariat’s interests.
Mincione claimed that this was “the first time I find myself in this kind of circumstance” during the course of the seven hours of questioning.
In his 35-year tenure, he claimed, “the banks who govern our industry” have never issued a fine or filed a complaint against him.
The Sunday Times discoveries come ahead of Pope Francis’ Monday visit to a former residential school in Canada, where he is anticipated to offer a historic personal apology to Indigenous survivors of abuse committed over many years at the Catholic-run institutions.
The First Nations, Metis, and Inuit communities have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the head of the 1.3 billion Catholics who make up the world’s population, who arrived in Edmonton on Sunday for a six-day visit.
A national truth and reconciliation committee has referred to the scandal as “cultural genocide,” and the 85-year-old pontiff’s trip, which he has termed as a “penitential tour,” is primarily intended to apologise to survivors for the Church’s part in it.
About 150,000 First Nations, Metis, and Inuit children were transported by the Canadian government into 139 residential schools managed by the Church between the late 1800s and the 1990s, where they were separated from their family, language, and culture.
Thousands of children are thought to have perished from disease, hunger, or neglect, and many suffered from physical and sexual abuse at the hands of headmasters and teachers.
More than 1,300 unmarked graves have been found at the locations of the former schools since May 2021, shocking Canadians across the country.
Slowly but surely, the nation is starting to acknowledge this protracted, tragic period in its past.
Even though it is eagerly awaited, some survivors and their families are divided on the papal visit.
Many anticipate that Francis would respond symbolically, maybe by returning some of the Native American relics that have been kept in the Vatican for years.
Prior to Francis’ six-day visit, a team of indigenous peoples visited the Vatican in April and had a meeting with the pope. The pope then officially apologised.
But since the land of their ancestors holds a special value for the survivors and their families, doing it once more on Canadian soil will be of great significance.