VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
John L. Allen Jr. | Oct. 3, 2013 NCR Today
ROME
Just days after the Vatican bank attempted to project a new image of transparency with a first-ever audited financial statement, another Vatican financial department faced fresh charges of corruption and shady practices.
Italian newspapers today contained extracts from testimony given to Italian investigators by Msgr. Nunzio Scarano, a former accountant at the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See (APSA), who was arrested in June for alleged involvement in a plot to smuggle $26 million in cash into Italy from Switzerland at the behest of a family of shipping magnates.
APSA is the primary department that manages the Vatican’s assets, including an “ordinary section” responsible for physical property and an “extraordinary section” that oversees an investment portfolio resulting from a large cash settlement paid to the Vatican by the Italian state in 1929.
While most of the assets of the Vatican bank – technically, the “Institute for the Works of Religion” – belong to dioceses and religious orders, the properties and funds overseen by APSA directly belong to the pope.
According to the newspaper extracts, Scarano charged that during his time at APSA, officials routinely accepted gifts from banks looking to capture part of the Vatican’s assets, including “trips, cruises, five-star hotels, massages, etc.” He claimed that APSA officials frequently transferred funds from one bank to another, in part in order to keep the stream of benefits flowing.
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