Another month, another scandal. That seems to be the case these days with former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden.
It’s also the case when we talk about Vatican life in the tense era of Pope Francis. World without end. Amen.
The most-recent drama in Rome involves Luca Casarini, who recently took part in the Synod on Synodality as a special nominee of Pope Francis.
Here is the key for religion-news consumers: The problem isn’t that the mainstream press has done a poor job covering this case — it’s that mainstream journalists have’t covered it at all. This fits into a recent trend in which important and, for many, troubling stories about Catholic debates, scandals and divisions are simply ignored by leaders in elite newsrooms.
The Catholic press, however, has been on this latest story, especially newsrooms with Rome-based bureaus and reporters. This is what noted Vatican journalist John Allen reported on Dec. 3 for Crux:
Perhaps under the heading that no good deed ever goes unpunished, Pope Francis today finds himself dragged into a new controversy which, among other things, illustrates that even the very best of intentions have the potential to generate heartache.
The case centers on an Italian non-governmental organization called “Mediterranea,” the head of which is a former leader in the “no-global” movement and a longtime leftist activist named Luca Casarini, who recently took part in the Synod of Bishops on Synodality as a special nominee of Pope Francis.
While saving lives unquestionably is a worthy cause, there have been accusations that the group’s motives aren’t entirely altruistic.
Currently, Casarini and five other individuals associated with Mediterranea are under investigation in Sicily for an incident in 2020 in which the Mare Jonio, without permission from local authorities, disembarked 27 migrants in a Sicilian port whom it had taken on board from a Danish supply ship which had rescued them at sea 37 days before.
The Danish company that owned the ship, Maersk, later paid Mediterranea roughly $135,000, in what the company described as a donation but which prosecutors suspect was a payoff for violating Italian immigration laws. A judge is expected to rule Dec. 6 as to whether the case should go to trial.
The press in Italy has been all over the story since the start of this month, but legacy media in the English-speaking world have not. It may be because it involves this pope and a hot-button issue such as immigration, one of the most painful fault lines in European life today.
Either way, it is the latest in a growing number of scandals that have either been ignored or downplayed in recent years.
The scandals involving money and matters running foul of the law — much like the ones that have enveloped Biden and Trump — have had Vatican observers on alert, even though many Catholics who get their news from mainstream news sources may have never heard of them. Then there are undercovered stories about fierce doctrinal debates — think German bishops pushing ahead on same-sex blessing rites — that are raising tensions in the church.
But let’s focus on money, in this post. Here’s a guide to three legal and financial scandals plaguing this papacy, why they matter and why the mainstream press has struggled to report on them. We will save the hottest scandal for last.
(3) Papal Foundation scandal
The issue: In 2017, Cardinal Donald Wuerl provided false and misleading information to the board of the Papal Foundation to secure a $25 million grant for the Istituto Dermopatico dell’Immacolata, a scandal-ridden Rome hospital.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin requested this grant from the Papal Foundation in June 2017, on behalf of Pope Francis. When the Papal Foundation board met in December 2017 to discuss the grant, Wuerl made two false assertions which were recorded in the meeting minutes.
This past April, Pope Francis praised members of the U.S.-based Papal Foundation for assisting him in fulfilling his mission, noting that, through their generous support to Catholic charity projects throughout the world and the transparent management of funds, they offer a “visible sign of unity.”
The Papal Foundation has also been given little mainstream press attention — negative or positive — in the last few years.
Again, Crux has been covering the foundation. This is from a story they published in April:
ROME — In a formal audience with members of the U.S.-based Papal Foundation, Pope Francis thanked the group for their generosity, saying their role is to help foster unity in the church and promote transparency at all levels.
Speaking to the group, the pope said the role of St. Peter was to “strengthen his brothers and serve as the visible sign of unity for the Church.”
Established in 1988, the Papal Foundation describes its mission as serving “the pope and the Catholic Church through faith, energy and financial resources.”
As a foundation dedicated to supporting the works of the pope, members have the task, like St. Peter in the early years of Christianity, of fostering unity in the church, Pope Francis said in his April 21 audience with foundation members and trustees.
“Sadly, we see also in our own day how the unity of the Church is wounded by division,” he said, noting that this division “is often caused by the influence of ideologies and movements that while at times well intentioned, end up fomenting parties and cliques, with each one developing a certain superiority complex when it comes to insight into the practice of the faith.”
This is compounded further, he said, “by the application of secular terminology, especially from the political realm, when speaking of the Church and the faith itself.”
Saint Paul in his letters warned the early Christian community of “these instruments of division,” which Pope Francis said “speak superficially or reject outright the nature of the Church as unity in diversity, as unity without uniformity.”
Catholic News Agency provided more details:
The foundation will also provide approximately $4.8 million in scholarships and humanitarian aid in 2023.
The group will meet with Pope Francis … to share with him the chosen projects and renew its commitment to supporting his desired charitable efforts.
“The foundation really looks for projects to fund in developing countries so that we can reach the most vulnerable and the poorest,” Dave Savage, the foundation’s executive director, told CNA in Rome.
That’s big money. Journalists should continue to watch this group and how they handle grants. Stories about charities are typical during Christmas and near the end of a tax year. This could be a story again in the near future as long as this group is tasked with handling so much money.
(2) Rome’s Rupnik problem
The issue: This scandal has been a headache for this pope, the Jesuits and the Vatican due to allegations that the disgraced Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik — some call him a friend of Pope Francis —received favorable treatment from the Holy See, where a Jesuit is pope and other Jesuits head the sex crimes office that investigated (and later declined) to prosecute him because the claims against him were deemed too old.
Rupnik had been declared excommunicated by the Vatican in May 2020 for one of the most serious crimes in the Catholic church’s legal code of using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual activity. But the excommunication was lifted two weeks later, and he continued in his artistic and preaching activities, which include running an art center in Rome. He has also been accused of sexually abusing at least nine other women and at least one man.
The Catholic press has been very good about covering this case, especially news sources on the doctrinal right. But the Associated Press has attempted to cover this case fairly, when it was necessary for a global audience.
Again, the legacy news outlets have not, as a rule, done a very good or thorough job on this case. And, once again, Crux has been among the best sources on this scandal. Here’s some crucial information from a recent report:
ROME — As the abuse case of famed Slovene priest and artist Father Marko Ivan Rupnik continues to perplex Catholics around the globe, experts have warned that a perceived gap in Church law regarding an offense known as “false mysticism” is preventing him and other alleged abusers from facing prosecution.
However, some observers believe that a recent case out of Spain could set a precedent needed for these cases to be more swiftly and thoroughly handled in the future.
Perhaps contemporary Catholicism’s most famed muralist, Rupnik, 68, is accused of engaging in sexual, psychological and spiritual abuse of at least 25 adult women over a 30-year period. For over a year now, the case has plagued the Church in large part due to several question marks over how it’s been handled, including the response of Pope Francis himself.
Despite the quantity of allegations against Rupnik, and despite a brief excommunication in 2020 for allegedly using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom he’d had sexual relations, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) initially declined to open canonical proceedings beyond the initial excommunication, citing a statute of limitations in the Church’s Code of Canon Law for the abuse of adults, which had previously been waived in other cases.
An internal inquiry conducted by the Jesuits concluded that the allegations were “highly credible” and culminated with the expulsion of Rupnik from the order in June for disobedience, on the basis that he had failed to comply with the investigation and refused to obey orders from his superiors.
Despite that finding, critics charge that Francis appeared nonchalant about the accusations, including granting a Sept. 15 audience to a longtime Rupnik ally who’s publicly termed the charges against him a “lynching.”
Three days later, the pope’s own Diocese of Rome gave the Centro Aletti, founded by Rupnik, a clean bill of health, flagging what it said in a statement were “gravely anomalous procedures” behind Rupnik’s excommunication in 2020 and raising “well-founded doubts” about the decision.
Crux also reported the following:
Beyond the specific issue of false mysticism, the Rupnik case also highlights a gap between a relatively firm and clear response by the Church to the sexual abuse of minors, and a more ill-defined and uneven approach when the abuse concerns adults and “vulnerable persons.”
Excellent point. While this may not be a financial scandal per se, it can be viewed in the larger context of clergy sex abuse, which has cost the church many millions of dollars over the last two decades in many parts of the world.
(1) Cardinal Becciu and the “Trial of the Century”
The issue: The ongoing Vatican financial trial has all the trappings of a Netflix mini-series.
Becciu is on trial along with nine other people in a sprawling case that is focused on the Vatican’s 350 million-euro investment in a London property but also includes charges of embezzlement surrounding Becciu’s donation of Vatican funds to a charity run by his brother. Becciu has denied wrongdoing, as have the other defendants.
From the start, defense lawyers have complained that the Vatican City State’s legal code has deprived their clients of basic rights afforded defendants in modern countries.
Even the pope’s role in the case — he modified the law four times in favor of prosecutors during the ongoing probe — has been cited by defense lawyers as evidence that defendants can’t get a fair trial in an absolute monarchy where the pope wields supreme legislative, executive and judicial power.
The Pillar did a wonderful job this past summer trying to explain this complicated case that many have dubbed the Vatican’s “trial of the century.” This is what they reported:
According to most media coverage of the trial, the primary focus of the evidence and the charges — including against Cardinal Becciu — is the Secretariat of State’s now-infamous purchase of a London building at 60 Sloane Avenue.
But that story, however popular, isn’t quite right.
The London deal may be at the center of the trial, but the charges, accusations, and evidence extend back years before the deal was concluded, and well into the months after.
The 2018 acquisition of the building by the secretariat was a messy affair, to put it mildly.
And it was the building’s purchase which started the investigation which led to the current trial.
And it was the complicated structuring of the purchase which led to charges of extortion and other crimes for defendants, most notably the businessman Gianluigi Torzi.
But Cardinal Becciu has insisted that he had nothing to do with the purchase of the London building, and that the deal was done after he had left the Secretariat of State in June of 2018 and it was managed by his successor as sostituto, Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra.
In that, Becciu has a point. He did not, so far as the available evidence shows, have anything to do with the decision to buy the building outright, or with approving the details which left the Vatican wide open to (alleged) fraud and extortion.
Last week, Allen at Crux made another attempt to sum things up as the trial nears its end:
ROME — In the galaxy of Italian Catholicism, Alberto Melloni and Sandro Magister may not quite be matter and anti-matter, but they’re definitely not on the same planet. Melloni is a progressive historian and essayist, an exponent of the “Bologna School” and its liberal reading of Vatican II, while Magister, an influential journalist, is a voice for the church’s conservative and traditional wing.
When Melloni and Magister agree on something, therefore, you can be reasonably sure it’s beyond politics. Melloni and Magister are also veteran figures, who’ve more than logged the miles to know what they’re talking about.
All this comes to mind in light of an essay Melloni published Monday, which echoes a point Magister first made last May: To wit, that a new fundamental law Pope Francis issued for the Vatican City State on May 13, 2023, contains an absolutely unprecedented claim about the pontiff’s temporal authority.
The pope, the document asserts, is “called by virtue of the munus petrinum [Petrine ministry] to exercise sovereign powers over the Vatican City State.”
When the document first appeared, Magister wrote that “in reality, in the doctrine of the Catholic Church, the munus petrinum that Jesus conferred on the first of the apostles has nothing to do with any temporal power.” He backed that up with an appeal to history, noting that the papacy existed for at least eight centuries without any territory of its own, and also continued to exercise its ministry between 1870 and 1929 when it once again was bereft of any state over which to rule.
Melloni was more caustic in his own analysis on Monday.
“Not even the most tenacious defenders of temporal power have ever maintained that it was conferred on Peter consistent with the primacy and infallibility defined by the First Vatican Council,” Melloni wrote.
Allen added:
In effect, observers such as Melloni and Magister are suggesting that the trial and its vicissitudes represent a reassertion of virtually absolute temporal power on the part of the papacy — not the spiritual authority to govern the Catholic Church, which is a matter of faith, but the civil power to rule a state, which is an accident of history — with potentially far-reaching and dangerous consequences, no matter what the court rules.
The key defendant in the trial is Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu, a former sostituto, or “substitute,” in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, effectively the pope’s chief of staff, who’s been charged with various financial crimes related to three separate affairs: First, the $400 million purchase of a former Harrod’s warehouse in London by the Secretariat of State; second, the transfer of roughly $240,000 to a Catholic charity in Sardinia run by his brother; and third, payouts of around $600,000 for the liberation of a missionary nun kidnapped in Mali by Islamic militants.
Today, Becciu’s lawyers are scheduled to wrap up their closing arguments, having already insisted on their client’s innocence and demanded that he be absolved on every count.
Unless he pulls a rabbit out of the hat at the end, prosecutor Alessandro Diddi, a lay Italian attorney serving as the Vatican’s Promoter of Justice, appears to have failed to produce evidence that Becciu derived any financial benefit from the contested transactions — indeed, a recent Italian news report indicated that Becciu drives himself around Rome in a rickety Mazda Demio, so old that it’s actually worth less than what it would cost to have the car scrapped.
This is a trial that, again, the mainstream press has not covered in great detail. The Associated Press and Reuters have covered parts of this trial, but its the Catholic press that has been there almost the entire time.
These ongoing cases will certainly be major religion-news stories in 2024. The mainstream media should take note from their colleagues over in the Catholic press.
These issues matter to Catholics. They also matter for many journalists who still believe they should play a watchdog role, of some kind. It shouldn’t matter who the pope is.
FIRST IMAGE: Pope Francis in prayer. Photo via Vatican Media.