The Deception Unveiled, Francis "Will Know What to Do"

The Chiesa
July 25, 2013

http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350565?eng=y

Statement of the nuncio in Montevideo. Confirmations and new background on the case of the prelate of the IOR. But another storm is already approaching. On a strange appointment (photo) at the newly created commission for the reorganization of the Vatican administrations

ROME, July 25, 2013 – It is enough these days to enter the offices of the Institute for Works of Religion to understand how flimsy the argument is that has been advanced in defense of Monsignor Battista Ricca, the prelate of the IOR whose scandalous past has been revealed by L'Espresso:

> The Prelate of the Gay Lobby

Three floors below the window of the pope's Angelus, in two rooms facing the colonnade of Saint Peter's Square, across large monitors scroll movements of money, past and present, of the clients of the IOR, before the eyes of auditors hunting for suspicious operations. The team is led by Antonio Montaresi, with solid experience in the United States, the new Chief Risk Officer of the controversial Vatican "bank."

Every operation of dubious regularity is brought to the attention of the Financial Information Authority directed by Rene Brulhart, vice-president of the international network of the Financial Intelligence Unit, which in turn informs its sister authorities in the countries involved and if necessary the Vatican magistracy.

"Bad management": this is how the president of the IOR, Ernst von Freyberg, dismisses the conduct of the previous director, Paolo Cipriani, who was forced to resign together with his deputy last July 1.

According to Ricca's defenders - very active both inside and outside of the Vatican - by striking him the "old guard" of the curia is trying to block the rehabilitation of the "pope's bank."

But the facts say the opposite. With or without the prelate, the remediation of the accounts and apparatus of the IOR is moving forward at an accelerated pace.

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The affair of Monsignor Ricca is a case in point of the weeds that pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio wants to uproot from the Vatican curia.

Against homosexuals who live in chastity, including priests, bishops, cardinals, there is no preconceived hostility whatsoever in the Church, so much so that, in tranquility, a number of them have occupied and still occupy important positions.

What the Church does not accept is that consecrated persons, who have made a public commitment of celibacy and chastity "for the Kingdom of Heaven," should betray their promise.

When the betrayal is public, it becomes scandal. And to heal it the Church requires a penitential journey that begins with repentance, not with falsification, concealment, deception, worse still if carried out with the complicity of others, in a "lobby" of intersecting interests, licit and illicit. In the case of Ricca, the deception has hit Pope Francis himself.

About the monsignor's scandalous past, and the present cover-up, Francis knew nothing when on June 15 he appointed him prelate, meaning his fiduciary at the IOR. He had been shown the file concerning Ricca that is kept at the personnel office of the secretariat of state, and everything appeared to be in order.

But over the following days a number of trusted persons sounded the alarm for the pope, in speech and in writing, over what had happened in Uruguay between 1999 and 2001 at the nunciature of Montevideo where Ricca had been in service. More information came to the pope on June 21 and 22, when he met with the nuncios who had convened in Rome from all over the world.

After the news of the looming scandal was published on July 3 on www.chiesa, Francis wanted to see Ricca's personal file again.

This time as well they passed him off as immaculate. The chain of command composed of cardinal secretary of state Tarcisio Bertone, his substitute Giovanni Angelo Becciu, and the delegate for the pontifical diplomatic missions, head of personnel Luciano Suriani, did not even take the basic step of asking the nunciature of Montevideo for copies of the reports from the nuncio at the time, Janusz Bolonek, which arrived in Rome but were evidently made to disappear.

Worse, after L'Espresso last week brought the elements of the scandal to everyone's attention, they had Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi say that what was published is "not reliable."

When instead it corresponds in every way to the documents - ecclesiastical and of the civil authorities - kept at the nunciature, including the letter with which Bolonek implored the Vatican authorities to send him in place of Ricca a new and "morally sound" adviser.

In Uruguay, at least five bishops who were direct witnesses of the scandal are ready to report. "Es todo verdad," it's all true, ecclesiastical sources have told the leading newspaper of Montevideo, "El Pais."

After seeing L'Espresso, Pope Francis himself picked up the telephone and called persons in his trust in that country, for definitive confirmation of the facts.

"Surely the Holy Father, in his wisdom, will know what to do," was the succinct statement of the current nuncio, Guido Anselmo Pecorari.

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This commentary was published in "L'Espresso" no. 39 of 2013, on newsstands as of July 26, on the opinion page entitled "Settimo cielo" entrusted to Sandro Magister.

Here is the index of all the previous commentaries:

> "L'Espresso" in seventh heaven

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Between 2001 and 2005, during the years in which Monsignor Battista Ricca was removed from the nunciature of Montevideo and finally called back to the Vatican, the chain of command with regard to him was made up of cardinal secretary of state Angelo Sodano, the substitute Leonardo Sandri, and the delegate for pontifical diplomatic missions, head of personnel Carlo Maria Vigano. This last would remain in this position until 2009.

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On July 9 Pope Francis wrote an affectionate letter "with the accent that unites all of us who were born in the region of the Rio de la Plata" to the president of Uruguay, Jose Alberto Mujica Cordano, received in audience at the Vatican on June 1.

In the letter the pope recalls with pleasure having spoken with him about "issues that address fundamental questions of the life of persons, seeking their good and just progress."

And he writes, with transparent reference to Mujica's repeated affirmations that he is seeking the meaning of existence:

"God is always on the side of those who love and allows himself to be encountered by those who make generous and disinterested love, in the service of others, the criterion of their own lives."

To the invitation to visit Uruguay Francis expresses thanks but says that "for the time being" he cannot accept it.