It’s almost like something out of a Dan Brown thriller: a web of corruption, conspiracy, frame-ups and murder, reaching all the way from the Vatican to the halls of power in Melbourne. Even cardinals aren’t safe, if they get too close to unmasking the conspiracy.
If that all sounds too far-fetched to be true, then you haven’t been keeping up.
When Cardinal George Pell was stitched up on highly dubious charges of sexual abuse, there was wide suspicion of a political agenda. Critics noted that Victoria Police set up a “Get Pell” taskforce before they had actually received any complaints. The obvious fishing expedition was joined in enthusiastically by the taxpayer-funded broadcaster, whose journalists gleefully trumpeted lurid, unsubstantiated and often ludicrous accusations.
Then there was the fact of a mysterious $2m transfer from the Vatican to Melbourne in 2017.
New revelations are only just beginning to peel back the dark secrets of Vatican finances.
The Vatican’s first auditor-general, Libero Milone, has launched a multi-million-euro lawsuit against the Holy See, warning he will not be intimidated or silenced by an internal power lobby that behaves like the “mafia and use every method including blackmail and dirty dossiers” to impede financial reform.
The Australian
Even more shocking, Milone’s deputy, Ferruccio Panicco, accuses the “Vatican mafia” of sentencing him to death by deliberate neglect. Panicco was monitored regularly and treated for a prostate condition by Vatican medical teams. But in 2017, secret accusations of embezzlement and spying saw the two forced to resign — and Panicco’s treatment ceased. He now has stage-four cancer.
The latest airing of the Vatican’s dirty laundering is another sad expose of the corruption, cover-ups, archaic financial controls, mystery money transfers, perversion of the Catholic Church’s aims and downright criminal behaviour that occurs under cover of the Holy See.
Behaviour that has occurred undetected and largely unpunished for decades.
It is also another injection of life into the deeply held convictions of some that Cardinal George Pell was the target and victim of a “villainous and infamous conspiracy”.
Milone’s lawsuit, however, does little to clear up the mysterious case of the money sent to Australia while the witch-hunt against Pell was at its height, and right about the time Milone was suddenly and mysteriously sacked.
Corruption investigators have been told money was sent to Australia to help damage Pell, who people wanted “out of the way” and sacked from his job as Vatican treasurer to clean up the finances and eradicate corruption.
Cardinal Angelo Becciu, an opponent of Pell’s reforms and currently on trial for corruption involving Vatican funds and property deals, did authorise more than $2m to be transferred to Australia during the Pell investigation and trials.
Becciu has denied any wrongdoing and claimed the money was for a tech security firm to organise a domain for the Catholic Church, among other explanations.
Milone’s claims at the moment amount to a vast pall of smoke — seeing through all that to the source of the fire is another matter. Especially as, as an auditor, Milone describes the ease with which the Vatican system allowed alleged wrongdoers to manipulate records and obscure international transactions.
So, why “Get Pell”? Because Pell was early on appointed to investigate alleged corruption in Vatican finances. Many believe that he did his job too well and was getting too close to the truth.
From the beginning of his appointment, Pell found missing millions of euros, suspected corruption and developed powerful enemies in an atmosphere where money laundering and dodgy deals amounted to hundreds of millions of euros.
The Australian
Milone and Panicco are convinced that Pell was the victim of a conspiracy.
“He is the victim of a real, villainous and infamous conspiracy,” Mr Milone said […] He was entrapped and maybe there is a connection between getting me out and his return to Australia … our dates of exit were basically the same.”
The Australian
Still, whoever heard of corruption and dodgy dealings in Victoria?