Paul KeenanThe secular media did not report all sides in ‘Vatileaks II’
The excitement in media circles was palpable last week. Having faced a measure of disappointment that the Synod on the Family, which ended the previous week, had not degenerated into all-out war between prelates (remember the constant reporting on the ‘liberal’ German bishops in the weeks before the synod?), the secular media was forced to make do with a ‘one-day wonder’ in the form of a rumour – quickly dismissed – that Pope Francis was suffering a brain tumour. Renewed whispers of high-level plotters at odds with the Pontiff’s reform agenda did little to boost headlines.
Then came Emiliano Fittipaldi and Gianluigi Nuzzi.
Italian journalists, the two men have been working for some time on books dealing with the Vatican’s financial dealings, with both publications – Fittipaldi’s Avarizia (Greed) and Nuzzi’s Merchants in the Temple –appearing simultaneously on November 5 (following advance buzz generated by The Washington Post and the Associated Press).
Frenzy
Cue the inevitable media frenzy of salacious allegations immersed in pop culture reference points for the modern audience. One of the more ‘measured’ journalists managed to hold off until paragraph three before likening the books’ contents to The Da Vinci Code.
Meanwhile, the involvement of Gianluigi Nuzzi , the journalist behind the ‘Vatileaks’ scandal involving Pope Emeritus Benedict’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, had journalists racing to be the first to declare this ‘Vatileaks II’.
The title appeared borne out when, working from Vatican documents cited by the new books, Vatican investigators moved to detain and question alleged leakers Francesca Chaouqui, a PR executive, and Fr Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, both former members of COSEA, the commission established by Pope Francis in 2013 specifically to examine the finances of all dicasteries towards reforms and improvements of expenditure.
It was allegedly from papers spirited out of the Vatican by these two figures that Nuzzi was able to declare (reportedly quoting Pope Francis) that “costs are out of control” at a Vatican still lacking full transparency of its financial dealings.
Among those singled out by the books on the grounds of expenditure and transparency were Cardinal George Pell and the office for curial reform he leads, the Secretariat for the Economy. However, on the very day of the twin book launches, and in response to them, the secretariat issued a clear breakdown of its expenditure from the date of its establishment in March 2014 to December of that year.
Few, if any, media outlets offered space in their Vatileaks II coverage for it.
Dealing with some €500,000 in expenditure, the secretariat laid all of its spending bare, including €4,000 in air travel expenses for secretariat members over the nine months – “considerably less than many other entities”.
“Finally, and for the avoidance of doubt about the commitment of Cardinal Pell to cost management and control,” the release states, “the secretariat completed the year well below its 2014 Budget and was one of the very few entities to propose a reduction in total expenditure in its 2015 Budget submission.”
The secretariat’s release also took the unusual step of re-releasing previous statements, from February, when it sought to counter what it charged were misleading stories of its work and expenditure by Italian media, including Fittipaldi’s L’Espresso magazine.
Tellingly, the secretariat story was not the only one ignored by the press last week.
In any search for new and dramatic allegations of financial impropriety with headlines containing ‘the Vatican’, one only had to look at the ‘Nattino case’, unfolding as the press was gearing up for Nuzzi and Fittipaldi.
On November 4, the Vatican’s Financial Intelligence Authority (AIF) announced an investigation of the affairs of Gianpietro Nattino, president of Finnat Bank Euramerica SpA, a major Italian investment bank.
Vatican investigators have apparently found cause to suspect that Nattino has been involved in money laundering and insider trading which involved, as one channel, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA) – the Holy See’s money manager – possibly with the collusion of some APSA employees.
Among the AIF’s findings is the shifting of €2million to Switzerland, allegedly by Nattino, just ahead of the Vatican’s own enactment of laws to combat money laundering through its financial institutions. AIF has formally requested the assistance of Switzerland and Italy in tackling the Nattino case.
Story
A new financial story, replete with corrupt practices and international investigations. And yet the Nattino case, offered up by the Vatican itself, did nothing to displace the wall-to-wall weekend coverage of old allegations based on old documents.
None of this is to suggest that the Vatican has no case to answer when it comes to the use and misuse of finance.
The very establishment of the AIF itself, by then-Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, was a direct result of scandal upon scandal involving the Vatican bank, the Institute for the Works of Religion. The press coverage of former Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone and his financial dealings in renovating his personal apartment in Rome represent unanswered questions at this point in time. (The prelate has furiously denied using funds destined for the Bambin Gesù children’s hospital in Rome for personal purposes, as alleged by Fittipaldi.)
If there is anything to thank Mssrs Nuzzi and Fittipaldi for, it is for the fact that they have put on the record Pope Francis’ very real and ongoing drive to end malpractice over Vatican finances. Were it not for the Pontiff’s establishment of COSEA, the details dredged up would never have been available to the journalists in the first place.
The hard investigative work was already done by the time they put pen to paper.
Notably, Gianluigi Nuzzi subconsciously acknowledges this in his book when he quotes Pope Francis at one meeting of COSEA as stating: “We must clarify better the finances of the Holy See and make them more transparent… Clarity: this is what is done in the most humble firms and we must do it too.”
It was for this reason that another veteran Italian journalist, Andrea Tornielli, was able to report last weekend that the Pope remains both unconcerned and on track amid ‘Vatileaks II’.
Smarting indeed from the betrayal by two COSEA figures he trusted implicitly to help him weed out corruption, the Pontiff nevertheless sees the good in the exposés for his work. According to Tornielli, one insider has revealed that in recent days the Pope has stated once again, and boldly: “There is going to be change.”