Cardinal Angelo Becciu speaks with journalists after he was asked by Pope Francis to resign as prefect of the
Congregations for the Causes of Saints last year. The cardinal is due to go on trial this month for alleged financial wrongdoing. Photo: CNS Australia’s financial crime watchdog said Thursday that it is conducting a “detailed review” of Vatican-linked transfers worth $2.3 billion Australian dollars (€1.5 billion).
The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC), a government agency, said January 7 that it was seeking to shed light on the mystery transfers in cooperation with the Vatican.
“AUSTRAC is currently undertaking a detailed review of the figures and is working with the Holy See and Vatican City State Financial Intelligence Unit on this matter,” the agency said in a statement to the Associated Press.
Reports of a money transfer from the Vatican to Australia date back to October 2, when Italian media claimed that an alleged transfer was part of a dossier being compiled by Vatican investigators and prosecutors against Cardinal Angelo Becciu.
Allegations that Church funds had been sent to Australia at the behest of Cardinal Becciu for the purposes of influencing Cardinal George Pell’s trial on charges of sexual abuse were raised in the Australian Senate October 20 last year. Becciu has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing or any attempt to influence Pell’s trial.
Meanwhile, a source close to the Vatican told The Catholic Weekly, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Sydney, that it was “completely implausible” that the AU$2.3 billion in Vatican funds transferred to Australia from Rome between 2014 and 2020 were legitimate.
The source told The Catholic Weekly the Vatican did not have AU$2.3 billion to spend. In October 2020, the Holy See released a detailed 2019 financial statement. It closed the year with a budget deficit of €11 million. The statement showed it had €307 million in revenues, €318 million in expenditures and a total of €1.4 billion in net equity.
The Vatican has said it does not know the origin or destination of the money, with a senior Vatican official telling media the Holy See would seek details from Australian authorities.
Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, told The Australian newspaper that the bishops may also ask the AUSTRAC to reveal whether any of the funds sent from Vatican City in 47,000 separate transactions went to Catholic organizations in Australia.
He said the bishops did not know about the transfers until December, were “astonished” at their scale and will request an investigation from Pope Francis into how they occurred without the bishops’ knowledge.
Since October, Australian Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has pursued an alleged transfer of AU$1.14 million from the Vatican to Australia at the time of the investigation into Australian Cardinal George Pell for historical sexual abuse offenses, of which he was later cleared by a unanimous decision of the High Court. The discovery of the mystery transfers, reported by the analysis centre in December, raises even more questions.