ROME
The Daily Beast
BARBIE LATZA NADEAU
07.16.17
ROME—Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state under Pope Benedict XVI, is an old-school kind of cleric whose lavish lifestyle has no place in the modest Catholic Church of Pope Francis. He was an early target of the incoming pope’s housecleaning, among the first to be kicked out and replaced by more frugal fathers. Since then, he remains a sort of poster-priest for the decadence and splendor the Vatican’s princes used to get away with.
Now the lavish 2,400-square-foot penthouse apartment he lovingly refurbished with such amenities as luxury white Carrara marble and a $6,000 security door, is the object of a criminal trial that will open at the Vatican’s tribunal next Tuesday. In the dock are two former executives of the Vatican’s Bambino Gesu children’s hospital who will face charges for using “money belonging to the Bambino Gesu Foundation in an illicit way” to help pay for Bertone’s palace, according to a statement by the Holy See press office.
The hospital’s former president, Giuseppe Profiti, and its treasurer, Massimo Spina, have been under investigation for more than a year over the matter, which exploded when aerial photos showed the extent of the restoration, which essentially merged two top floor apartments for the cardinal to share with three nuns and a secretary. Profiti admits that hospital funds were used, but he insists that it was because they intended to hold “fundraisers and meetings” at the penthouse, though none have been reported to have taken place.
The Vatican’s “promoter of justice,” who will lead the trial, disagrees, insisting that Bambino Gesu hospital, which offered to treat Charlie Gard, the British baby whose life support may be pulled, had no reason to spend nearly half a million dollars (€422,000) on the cardinal’s home improvement project.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.