Share
02 October 2019The Vatican investigation that yesterday saw the collection of papers and PCs in the Secretariat of State and the AIF, the Financial Information Authority, produced the first sensational measures. According to L'Espresso, today the Gendarmerie Corps has sent a service provision to the internal staff of the State and to the Swiss Guards who control the accesses, which indicates that 5 people from this morning have been "cautiously suspended by the service". They are two top executives of the Secretariat offices, Vincenzo Mauriello and Fabrizio Tirabassi, of an administration officer, Caterina Sansone, and of two senior Vatican leaders: Msgr. Maurizio Carlino, head of the Information and Documentation Office a few weeks ago, and the director of AIF Tommaso Di Ruzza."The aforementioned", reads the note signed by the commander Domenico Giani, "will be able to enter the State exclusively to go to the Health and Hygiene Department for related services, or if authorized by the Vatican judiciary. Monsignor Mauro Carlino will continue to reside at the Domus Sanctae Marthae ".
The investigation is only in its infancy, but it appears to the Espresso that the "financial transactions carried out over time", at the center of the investigations according to yesterday's press release from the Vatican Press Office, concern some real estate sales millionaires abroad, in particular properties of value in London, and some "strange" English companies that would have participated in the business.
For the record, Tirabassi manages the financial investments in the Secretariat of State, in the Administrative Office, a very delicate position dealing, among other things, with the Obolo of San Pietro, which saw its historic number one, Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, move last 26 July, when Pope Francis appointed him promoter of Justice to the Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. The investigators would also be analyzing some of the financial flows of the accounts on which St. Peter's Pence precisely passes, the set of money offers made by the faithful and sent to the Pope to be redistributed in support of the Church's mission and works of charity .
But also and above all for the sustenance of the Vatican apparatus. In 2015, the accounts and investments from funds coming from the Obolo had reached the record sum of almost 400 million euros. Every account and money transfer has now been placed under X-rays, to see if some hypothesized irregularities hide something more serious. The complaints made by the IOR and the General Auditor would affect a recent time frame, when the offices targeted by the judiciary, those of the First Section "General Affairs" of the Secretariat of State were led by Monsignor Angelo Becciu, a former deputy who became a few months ago prefect for the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and Cardinal. Monsignor Carlino, recently suspended from every function, was for years the personal secretary of the cardinal.