I would immediately abdicate to this padre, the wisest of all catholic clergy:
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by The Consul » Fri Feb 17, 2012 12:09 pm
by cptmarginal » Fri Feb 17, 2012 12:20 pm
VATICAN CITY—A scandal over leaked Vatican documents and reports of political infighting, financial mismanagement and administrative chaos in its frescoed halls have cast a cloud over this weekend's ceremony to create 22 new cardinals.
With Pope Benedict XVI slowing down as he nears his 85th birthday, Saturday's ceremony has taken on the aura of a pre-conclave summit. Reports abound in the Italian media of cardinals and their supporters jockeying for prominence ahead of a future papal election, and of a Vatican bureaucracy in disarray as Benedict focuses his waning strength on other matters.
All that has weighed on Saturday's consistory, where the 22 new princes of the church will get their red hats, or birette, and be formally welcomed into the elite men's club that will elect Benedict's successor. That ceremony will bring up to 125 the number of cardinals worldwide eligible to vote for the next pope.
On Friday, cardinals new and old joined Benedict for a pre-consistory day of reflection on spreading the faith in an increasingly secularized world. The meeting was headlined by Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York.
Apologizing for his rusty Italian, Dolan peppered his remarks with his trademark good humor. He told the cardinals that evangelizing in today's world required its missionaries to live and spread the faith with love, joy -- and "sorry to bring it up, but blood."
He noted how cardinals wear scarlet cassocks to symbolize their willingness to shed blood as martyrs for the faith and make a pledge during the consistory to die as martyrs, if necessary.
"Holy Father, can you omit the 'shedding of your blood' when you present me with the biretta?" Dolan asked the pope. "Of course not! We are but 'scarlet audio-visual aids' for all of our brothers and sisters also called to be ready to suffer and die for Jesus."
While the subject matter was deadly serious, Dolan's delivery lightened the mood of the otherwise somber Vatican. The Vatican spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi, took pains to tell journalists how appreciative the cardinals were of Dolan's "lively" remarks.
The Vatican spokesman has been doing serious damage control of late amid reports and leaked documents alleging corruption in the running of the Vatican city state and money laundering at the Vatican bank.
The scandal began last month with the publication of letters from the former No. 2 Vatican administrator, who begged the pope not to be transferred after he exposed millions of euros in cost overruns in the Vatican administration. He was then removed and named the Vatican's U.S. ambassador in Washington.
Subsequent news reports focused on four priests under investigation for allegedly using Vatican bank accounts to launder cash. The pope's top banker, meanwhile, remains under investigation for allegedly breaking Italy's anti-money laundering law by trying to transfer cash from two Vatican bank accounts without identifying the sender or the recipient. He has denied wrongdoing.
More recent leaks have included a Vatican document warning of a plot to kill the pope this year -- a scenario that has since been discredited -- and of an internal debate over the scope and power of the Vatican's new financial watchdog.
The scandal, dubbed "Vatileaks" after Lombardi himself noted the similarities to the Wikileaks documents scandal that hit the U.S. government, has come as the Vatican has tried to clean up its finances and be more transparent in its financial dealings to comply with international norms.
The Vatican hopes to get on the so-called "white list" of countries that share information to crack down on tax evasion, aiming to forever erase its reputation as a secrecy-obsessed offshore tax haven.
The latest reports certainly haven't helped its bid.
In an editorial this week, Lombardi said the leaks "tend to create confusion and bewilderment, and to throw a bad light on the Vatican, the governance of the church, and more broadly on the church herself."
"We must, then, remain calm and keep our nerve, make use of reason -- something which not all media outlets tend to do," he said.
The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano took up the charge as well, saying in a front-page editorial this week that Benedict was fighting unnamed "wolves." The pope himself made a vague reference to the rumors during a meeting with seminarians Wednesday when he said a lot was being said about the church in these days.
"Let's hope that our faith, the exemplary faith of this church, is also talked about," he said.
The picture that has emerged is one of political infighting and intrigue inside and outside the Vatican. One scenario suggests internal power struggles centering around Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the pope's longtime deputy and the Vatican's secretary of state. The other underscores the tense relations the Vatican's financial institutions have with the Bank of Italy and Italian prosecutors.
"There is a great discontent within in the Roman curia, the outproducts of this discontent are back-stabbing, intrigues, anonymous letters about plots but the main thing is that Cardinal Bertone, who is the secretary of state, was never accepted by the curia because he was an outsider," said Marco Politi, a veteran Vatican watcher.
Against that backdrop is the perennial papal gossiping that comes with any consistory, since the ceremonies exist purely to restaff the College of Cardinals, which selects the next pope. All cardinals under age 80 are eligible to vote in a papal conclave.
The Italians are gaining seven new voting-age cardinals, adding to the eight they picked up at the last consistory in November 2010.
That boosts Italy's chances of taking back the papacy for one of its own following decades under a Polish and a German pope, or at least playing the kingmaker role if the Italians can't rally around a single candidate.
As of Saturday, Italy will have 30 cardinals out of the 125 under age 80. Only the United States comes close with 12, including the two new red hats going to Dolan and Cardinal-designate Edwin O'Brien, the former archbishop of Baltimore who is now grand master of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, which raises money for the church in the Holy Land.
The consistory class of 2012 is heavily European, reinforcing Europe's dominance of the College of Cardinals, even though two-thirds of the world's Catholics are in the southern hemisphere. All but three of the new under-80 cardinals come from the West, with only a Brazilian, an Indian and a Chinese rounding out the balance.
The Council of Cardinals studying the organizational and economic problems of the Holy See released a statement on Thursday concerning the consolidated draft budget of the Holy See and the draft budget of the Governatorate of the Vatican City State for the year 2012 :
The Council of Cardinals charged with studying the organizational and economic problems of the Holy See held a meeting in the Vatican on Tuesday the 14th and Wednesday the 15th February, chaired by the Secretary of State, his Eminence Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, SDB.
11 Cardinals from around the world took part in the two-day meeting along with high-ranking officials from the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, the Governatorate, the Administration for the Patrimony of the Apostolic See and from Vatican Radio.
The participants heard a report on the consolidated draft budget for 2012 of the Holy See and afterwards on the draft budget for the Governatorate. In their interventions afterwards, the Cardinals, whilst voicing their satisfaction with the projected budget, did not fail to mention their concern for the overall global financial crisis which also has had an impact on the Vatican’s own economic situation.
This is particularly evident when it comes to the Holy See whose irreplaceable source of funding comes from the offerings of the faithful. The members of the Council expressed their deep gratitude for the support these faithful give, often anonymously, to the universal ministry of the Holy Father and appealed to them to continue these good works.
by AhabsOtherLeg » Thu Feb 23, 2012 5:26 pm
The Consul wrote:I would immediately abdicate to this padre, the wisest of all catholic clergy:
by cptmarginal » Sun Mar 25, 2012 2:45 pm
Vatican bank image hurt as JP Morgan closes account
(Reuters) - JP Morgan Chase (JPM.N) is closing the Vatican bank's account with an Italian branch of the U.S. banking giant because of concerns about a lack of transparency at the Holy See's financial institution, Italian newspapers reported.
The move is a blow to the Vatican's drive to have its bank included in Europe's "white list" of states that comply with international standards against tax fraud and money-laundering.
The bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), enacted major reforms last year in an attempt to get Europe's seal of approval and put behind it scandals that have included accusations of money laundering and fraud.
Italy's leading financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore reported at the weekend that JP Morgan Chase in Milan had told the IOR of the closing of its account in a letter on February 15.
The letter said the IOR's account in Italy's business capital would gradually be phased out starting on March 16 and closed on March 30.
In Milan, JP Morgan Chase declined to comment and the Vatican also had no comment. It was not possible to contact IOR officials because Monday was a holiday in the Vatican.
Il Sole said JP Morgan Chase informed the IOR that the account was being closed because the bank's Milan branch felt the IOR had failed to provide sufficient information on money transfers.
The financial newspaper, which gave the number of the IOR account, said some 1.5 billion euros passed through it in about 18 months. It said the account was a "sweeping facility," meaning that it was emptied out at the end of each day with funds transferred to another IOR account in Germany.
The closure move by JP Morgan Chase, which was also reported by two leading general newspapers on Monday - Corriere della Sera and La Stampa - was a further blow to the IOR, whose image has been tarnished by a string of scandals.
In September, 2010, Italian investigators froze 23 million euros ($33 million) in funds in two Italian banks after opening an investigation into possible money-laundering.
The bank said it did nothing wrong and was just transferring funds between its own accounts. The money was released in June 2011 but Rome magistrates are continuing their probe.
"VATILEAKS" SCANDAL
The public image of the bank has also been harmed by the so-called "Vatileaks" scandal, in which highly sensitive documents, including letters to Pope Benedict, were published in Italian media.
Some of the leaked documents appear to show a conflict among top Vatican officials about just how transparent the bank should be about dealings that took place before it enacted its new laws.
The IOR, founded in 1942 by Pope Pius XII, handles financial activities for the Vatican, for orders of priests and nuns, and for other Roman Catholic religious institutions.
Last year, the Vatican adapted internal laws to comply with international standards on financial crime.
The 108-acre sovereign state surrounded by Rome now complies with the rules of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
It also established an internal Financial Information Authority (FIA) along the lines of other countries and has committed to comply with international anti-money laundering standards and liaise with the group and law enforcement agencies.
The IOR was entangled in the collapse 30 years ago of Banco Ambrosiano, with its lurid allegations about money-laundering, freemasons, mafiosi and the mysterious death of Ambrosiano chairman Roberto Calvi - "God's banker".
The IOR then held a small stake in the Ambrosiano, at the time Italy's largest private bank and investigators alleged that it was partly responsible for the Ambrosiano's fraudulent bankruptcy.
Several investigations have failed to determine whether Calvi, who was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge near London's financial district, killed himself or was murdered.
The IOR denied any role in the Ambrosiano collapse but paid $250 million to creditors in what it called a "goodwill gesture".
Vatican opens rare criminal probe into leaks
(Reuters) - The Vatican has opened an extremely rare criminal investigation into embarrassing leaks of top-level sensitive documents alleging corruption and mismanagement in several of its departments.
The investigation, announced in the Vatican newspaper on Friday, will be carried out by an internal tribunal in a bid to find out who leaked the material.
A separate, administrative investigation will be conducted by the Secretariat of State, which manages Vatican bureaucracy. Pope Benedict had also ordered a "high-level commission" to shed light on the affair, the newspaper said.
The scandal, which has come to be known as "Vatileaks," involves the leaking of a string of sensitive documents to Italian media in January and February, including personal letters to the pope.
The two investigations and the establishment of the papal commission were announced in an interview with Archbishop Angelo Becciu, the deputy secretary of state.
Becciu denounced the leakers as cowardly and disloyal people who took advantage of their privileged position to leak documents "whose privacy they had an obligation to respect".
The archbishop said the pope was very "hurt" by the leaks.
Becciu also rejected media portrayals of the Curia, the Vatican's central administration, as being populated by ambitious clerics more interested in advancing their careers than serving the Church.
Criminal investigations are very rare in the Vatican.
One of the most sensational was opened after Cedric Tornay, a 23-year-old Swiss Guard who had been turned down for a promotion, killed his commander and the commander's wife before committing suicide.
The Vatican investigator determined that Tornay had acted in a "fit of madness".
ARCHBISHOP WHSTLE BLOWER
The leaked documents included letters by an archbishop who was transferred to Washington after he blew the whistle on what he saw as a web of corruption and cronyism, a poison pen memo which put a number of cardinals in a bad light and documents alleging internal conflicts about the Vatican Bank.
The leaks began in January when an Italian television investigation broadcast private letters to Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and the pope from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the former deputy governor of the Vatican City and currently the Holy See's ambassador in Washington.
The letters showed that Vigano was transferred after he exposed what he argued was a web of corruption, nepotism and cronyism linked to the awarding of contracts to Italian contractors at inflated prices.
As deputy governor of the Vatican City for two years from 2009 to 2011, Vigano was the number two official in a department responsible for maintaining the tiny city-state's gardens, buildings, streets, museums and other infrastructure, which are managed separately from the Italian capital which surrounds it.
In one letter, Vigano wrote of a smear campaign against him by other Vatican officials who were upset that he had taken drastic steps to clean up the purchasing procedures. He begged to stay in the job to finish what he had started.
Bertone responded by removing Vigano from his position three years before the end of his tenure and sending him to the United States, despite his strong resistance.
Other leaks centre on the Vatican bank, which is trying to put previous scandals behind it.
They included the collapse 30 years ago of Italy's private Banco Ambrosiano in a tangle of lurid allegations about money-laundering, freemasons, the mafia and the mysterious 1982 death of its chairman Roberto Calvi - who was dubbed "God's banker".
The Vatican bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), is aiming to comply fully with EU standards on financial transparency in order to make Europe's "white list" by June.
2/09/12 (VATICAN) Institute for Religious Works (IOR aka "Vatican Bank"), 62 year old Monsignor Emilio Messina, the Archdiocese of Camerino-San Severino Marche investigated on money laundering by Italian officials.
http://goo.gl/uztVU
2/09/12 (VATICAN) Institute for Religious Works (IOR aka "Vatican Bank"), 49 year old Father Don Salvatore Palumbo of the socially popular parish of San Gaetano
http://goo.gl/uztVU
2/09/12 (VATICAN) Institute for Religious Works (IOR aka "Vatican Bank"), 37 year old Father Horace Bonaccorsi of Catania, already tried and acquitted in Sicily for money laundering offenses recycling money through accounts at IOR
http://goo.gl/uztVU
2/09/12 (VATICAN) Institute for Religious Works (IOR aka "Vatican Bank"), 85 year old Father Don Evaldo Biasini of Rome. Father Don Evaldo Biasini is known as the "Don of Cash".
http://goo.gl/uztVU
Vatican Calls for ‘Global Public Authority’ and ‘Central World Bank’
October 24th, 2011
http://cryptogon.com/?p=25667
Via: Reuters:
The Vatican called on Monday for the establishment of a “global public authority” and a “central world bank” to rule over financial institutions that have become outdated and often ineffective in dealing fairly with crises.
by Wombaticus Rex » Sun Mar 25, 2012 3:56 pm
by Ben D » Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:56 pm
by cptmarginal » Sun Mar 25, 2012 11:05 pm
Wombaticus Rex wrote:Someone is actively engaged in a covert war against the Vatican, these are major, major tectonic shifts.
All I can say to that is: awesome.
I hope they have the manpower & resources to finish the job in our lifetimes.
Drug enforcement chiefs have for the first time identified the Vatican as a possible centre for money laundering from criminal activity.
The report by the American State Department's International Narcotics Control Strategy lists the Holy See as one of 68 countries including Yemen, Algeria and North Korea, describing it as a 'country of concern' for money laundering or other financial crimes.
Officials said they had placed the Vatican on its watch list because of the 'huge amount of cash' that flows into the tiny city state and also because it was still unclear how effective anti money laundering legislation introduced last year by Pope Benedict XVI had been.
by justdrew » Thu Apr 19, 2012 3:13 pm
19 April 2012 Last updated at 06:11 ET
Vatican orders crackdown on 'radical' nuns in the US
The Vatican has ordered a crackdown on a group of American nuns that it considers too radical.
It says the group is undermining Roman Catholic teaching on homosexuality and is promoting "feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith".
The Leadership Conference of Women Religious is the largest organisation of Catholic nuns in the US.
An archbishop has been appointed to oversee its reform to ensure that it conforms to Catholic prayer and ritual.
The Leadership Conference, which is based in Maryland, represents about 57,000 nuns and offers a wide range of services, from leadership training for women's religious orders to advocacy on social justice issues.
Vatican concerns
But its activities have clearly worried the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said the nuns' organisation faced a "grave" doctrinal crisis.
It said issues of "crucial importance" to the church, such as abortion and euthanasia, had been ignored.
Vatican officials also castigated the group for making some public statements that "disagree with or challenge positions taken by the bishops", who are the church's "authentic teachers of faith and morals."
The review will include an examination of ties between the Leadership Conference and Network, a Catholic social justice lobby.
Network played a key role in supporting the Obama administration's health care overhaul despite the bishops' objections that the bill would provide government funding for abortion.
The Leadership Conference disagreed with the bishops' analysis of the law and also supported President Barack Obama's plan.
A Vatican report into the group suggested that they "collectively take a position not in agreement with the church's teaching on human sexuality."
In its presentations investigators noted "a prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith."
The investigation also found that the group has been "silent on the right to life from conception to natural death, a question that is part of the lively public debate about abortion and euthanasia in the United States".
by Simulist » Thu Apr 19, 2012 3:17 pm
by DrEvil » Thu Apr 19, 2012 3:30 pm
by crikkett » Thu Apr 19, 2012 5:48 pm
Simulist wrote:People just need to leave the Catholic Church.
Or at least quit giving it money.
by DrEvil » Thu Apr 19, 2012 6:42 pm
crikkett wrote:Simulist wrote:People just need to leave the Catholic Church.
Or at least quit giving it money.
ignore it, and it will go away?
by crikkett » Thu Apr 19, 2012 7:45 pm
DrEvil wrote:crikkett wrote:Simulist wrote:People just need to leave the Catholic Church.
Or at least quit giving it money.
ignore it, and it will go away?
Tried that with cockroaches once. Didn't go so well.
And probably not much chance of convincing them of the virtues of contraception
by 8bitagent » Thu Apr 19, 2012 9:39 pm
by cptmarginal » Sat Apr 21, 2012 2:40 pm
Italian Police Probe Vatican, Mafia Links in Teen’s Disappearance 30 Years Ago
Apr 17, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
Almost 30 years ago the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee disappeared. Now Italian authorities want to know if she’s buried with a Mafia don on the grounds of a Vatican church—and how much Holy See officials know about her disappearance.
The faint smell of incense and candle wax permeates the church of Sant’Apollinare near Rome’s famous Piazza Navona. The basilica is one of a handful of churches outside the walls of Vatican City owned by the Holy See. It is used primarily by members of the ultra-conservative Opus Dei prelature for special masses for student priests and for celebrations of marriage and baptism of those affiliated with the sect. Behind a side door near the back of the basilica is a small courtyard that’s closed to the public. There, in an external crypt near the ornate sarcophaguses of bishops and cardinals, is the curious tomb of Enrico “Renatino” De Pedis, a prominent member of the infamous Magliana organized-crime gang who was ambushed and murdered by rival gang members in 1990.
Why a known-mobster like De Pedis is buried on the grounds of a Vatican church has been the object of much speculation since 1997, when a church maid revealed the tomb’s existence to an inquisitive journalist. The Vatican was always cagey about why the mobster was buried in one of its churches, and ultimately, the church’s silence spurred countless conspiracy theories. Now, thanks to shocking Vatican letters leaked in the Vatileaks scandal that is rocking the Holy See, the Italian police are less interested in why he’s buried there. Instead, they want to open the tomb to see if the remains of 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi are interred with those of the mobster.
Orlandi was the daughter of a prominent non-clerical Vatican employee who worked in the Vatican’s special events office that organizes papal functions and Catholic celebrations. She disappeared without a trace after leaving her Vatican apartment for music lessons on the afternoon of June 22, 1983. Her lessons were in a music school adjacent to Sant’Apollinare church, and the last witnesses to see her alive told investigators the girl crawled into a dark green BMW, though that lead could never be corroborated. Her disappearance came at a tense moment for the Vatican, and nearly everyone associated her presumed kidnapping with a wider scandal. In 1981, Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turkish gunman, shot Pope John Paul II, nearly killing him. Orlandi’s parents received a series of phone calls from thugs who said they would give back their daughter if the Vatican released Ali Agca. The calls soon stopped and the Orlandi family was left wondering if their daughter was alive or dead.
Another theory surfaced a year later, when an unidentifed tipster told police Orlandi was kidnapped to keep her father quiet. Mr. Orlandi, it was said, had stumbled upon sensitive documents that tied Roberto Calvi, known as God’s Banker for his close association with both the Holy See and its primary banking facility, Banco Ambrosiano, and to an organized-crime syndicate. Calvi had been found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982, and speculation was swiftly turning from suicide to homicide in that case. It made sense that if the elder Orlandi knew something, taking his daughter would surely seal his lips.
At the time of the teenager’s disappearance, the Vatican secret service firmly believed she was kidnapped to be used as leverage either by supporters of Ali Agca or Calvi. Last Saturday, the Vatican’s chief spokesman, Federico Lombardi, acknowledged they probably were wrong. “At the time, the authorities shared the prevailing opinion that the kidnapping might have been used by some obscure criminal organization to send messages or enact pressure in the context of the jailing and interrogation of the pope’s attacker,” he said.
But because the Vatican is a sovereign city-state, Italian police do not have jurisdiction to investigate so-called Vatican crimes. The investigation began in earnest again after a series of breaks in late 2004, but John Paul II died shortly after the new lead surfaced, and the thread was lost in the transition in leadership at the Holy See. In 2008, the case was opened again when the transcript of an Italian police interrogation with De Pedis’s lover tied the mobster to the girl’s disappearance. The lover told police the young girl was kidnapped on the orders of Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, who was then the head of the Vatican bank.
Marcinkus, an American, died in 2006, but records show that even the Vatican was suspicious of the priest. De Pedis’s lover said the death was to avenge a debt after the Vatican reneged on mafia loans secured by De Pedis, and that the girl’s body was dumped in a cement truck near the Roman seaside town of Ostia. De Pedis, having exacted his revenge, then forgave the loan in exchange for the prestigious burial plot inside the Vatican church, she said.
Now, the focus of the investigation has turned to the Vatican itself, and, according to revelations in a letter leaked to the Italian press last week, the Vatican is taking it very seriously. A three-page letter from Lombardi to church higher-ups indicated even he suspected a cover-up. In the letter, shown on Italian Rai Tre state television, Lombardi wrote of his concerns and asked how to address the press. “Was the non-collaboration [in the initial Orlandi investigation] normal and justifiable affirmation of Vatican sovereignty, or if in fact circumstances were withheld that might have helped clear something up.”
Italian magistrates are now wondering the same thing, and say they feel the Vatican may still be covering up vital information about Orlandi’s mysterious disappearance. They are picking up on a series of leads that stalled in 2005, starting with a tip from an anonymous caller to an Italian detective program Chi’l’ha Visto (“Who Has Seen”). The caller said Orlandi was kidnapped on the orders of the then vicar of Rome, Cardinal Ugo Poletti, and that “the secret to the mystery lies in a tomb in Sant’ Apollinare basilica.”
Last month, former Rome mayor and vice premier Walter Veltroni took up the case, asking the Italian interior ministry to ascertain whether the church of Sant’Apollinare is protected from Italian law or whether investigators could exhume De Pedis’s tomb. The Vatican quickly offered access to the tomb and suggested that perhaps moving the mobster’s remains was a way to quash speculation once and for all. But in an about-face this week, the prosecutors backed down and said they won’t be opening the tomb anytime soon—saying instead that it’s time for someone inside the Vatican to tell the truth. “There are those in the Curia who know elements of the circumstantial evidence,” Giancarlo Capaldo, assistant prosecutor in the case, said on Italian television. “There are people still alive, and still inside the Vatican, who know the truth.”
In the meantime Orlandi’s family is hoping investigators change their minds and open the tomb, even though De Pedis’s widow, Carla Di Giovanni, reportedly is the only person with keys, and now even she is under preliminary investigation in the nearly three-decade-old mystery and probably not feeling very cooperative.
“The declaration by the prosecutors that the truth is known in the Vatican is very heavy, but it’s overshadowed by the strange decision not to open De Pedis’s grave,” Orlandi’s brother, Peter, told La Stampa newspaper over the weekend. “Implicating the Holy See directly is a huge step forward. Now the Holy See has a moral duty to give a response after years of refusing to cooperate.”
But as long as it’s sealed, the mobster’s grave won’t give up any ghosts, or shed any light on the mystery.
Vatican insists: not hiding anything that could solve ‘83 disappearance of employee’s daughter
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican insisted Saturday it has done everything possible to try to resolve the 1983 disappearance of an employee’s teenage daughter and has no objections to allowing inspection of the basilica tomb of a reputed mobster from a gang purportedly linked to her presumed kidnapping.
Its chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, made the assertion following media speculation that the Vatican knows something it has not revealed about the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi in Rome. Sparking the speculation was a Good Friday homily on April 6 in St. Peter’s Basilica by the papal preacher, who decried that many “atrocious” crimes go unsolved.
With Pope Benedict XVI among those listening, the preacher, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, included this ringing appeal in his homily: “Don’t carry your secret to the grave with you!”
The priest didn’t name any names or specify any crimes, but his unusual choice for Good Friday reflection immediately sparked speculation that the appeal must have been meant for some Vatican official with knowledge about the Orlandi case, which the Vatican has viewed as a kidnapping.
Emanuela Orlandi was 15 when she disappeared after leaving her family’s Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome. Her father was a lay employee of the Holy See.
Because she vanished two years after the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square, some, Vatican officials among them, “shared the prevailing opinion that the kidnapping might have been used by some obscure criminal organization to send messages or enact pressure in the context of the jailing and interrogation of the pope’s attacker,” Lombardi said, referring to the Turkish gunmen, Mehmet Ali Agca.
Referring to the recent speculation, Lombardi said in a written statement that “doubt has been raised as to whether Vatican institutions or personalities truly did everything possible to contribute to the search for the truth about what happened.”
Lombardi gave details of what he said were Vatican efforts to help during the early days of the case.
“Just to give one example, the investigators, and above all, SISDE (intelligence) agents had access to the Vatican switchboard to hear possible calls from the kidnappers,” he said. He added that the Vatican authorized Italian investigators to tap the Orlandi family’s phone and to come and go to speak with the family without having to first ask Vatican permission.
“All the Vatican authorities collaborated, with commitment and transparency, with the Italian authorities to deal with the kidnapping in the first phase, and, then, later in the successive investigations,” Lombardi maintained.
“As far as we know, there is nothing hidden, nor are there ‘secrets’ n the Vatican to reveal on the subject,” Lombardi said. “To continue to assert it is completely unjustified; also, we reiterate, yet again, all the material from the Vatican was handed over, in its time, to the investigating magistrates and to police authorities.”
Apparently in hopes of putting to rest speculation, the Vatican is willing to allow a reputed mobster’s tomb in the Vatican Basilica dell’Apollinare, a Rome church, to be inspected, and the remains moved elsewhere, Lombardi added.
Four years ago, Italian news reports quoted the dead man’s former lover as telling Rome prosecutors that mobsters from the city’s crime syndicate, known as the Magliana gang, had kidnapped the girl and had her body dumped in a cement mixer near a beach outside the capital.
Italian prosecutors cannot publicly discuss a case while it is under investigation, so it is unclear if these claims have shed any light on Orlandi’s disappearance.
The Vatican at the time described the woman’s claims as having “extremely doubtful value.” The woman’s lover, Enrico De Pedis, was gunned down in 1990 as he rode his motorscooter in Rome.
The 2008 media reports also claimed the woman told prosecutors that the girl had been kidnapped on orders from Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, the late U.S. prelate who had headed the Vatican bank and was linked to a huge Italian banking scandal in the 1980s. Marcinkus had always asserted his innocence in the scandal.
Lombardi noted in his statement that the De Pedis tomb in the basilica “has continued and continues to be the motive of questions and discussions,” but he offered no explanation as why a reputed mobster would be buried in a Vatican church.
He recalled John Paul’s “intense personal involvement” in the suffering of the girl’s family, and said “suffering unfortunately is revived with every new path of explanation, so far without result.”
VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict marked his 85th birthday on Monday saying he is now in the "last stretch" of his life but sure that God would help him continue his mission.
Benedict, who has looked tired and drawn recently, is one of history's oldest reigning pontiffs - and already older than his predecessor John Paul II was when he died in 2005.
The pope said a Mass of thanksgiving with German bishops and close aides. Afterwards, children in traditional garb from his native Bavaria danced for him under the frescoes of the Vatican's Clementine Hall.
"I find myself facing the last stretch on the road of my life," Benedict said in German during the early morning Mass in a Vatican chapel.
He said he was confident that God's light would help him "proceed with assurance".
Benedict is now the oldest reigning pope since Leo XIII, who died aged 93 in 1903 after reigning for 25 years.
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