[ 2012-01-27 ]

Corruption scandal shakes Vatican as internal letters leaked
The Vatican was shaken by a corruption scandal
Thursday after an Italian television investigation
said a former top official had been transferred
against his will after complaining about
irregularities in awarding contracts.

The show "The Untouchables" on the respected
private television network La 7 Wednesday night
showed what it said were several letters that
Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who was then
deputy-governor of Vatican City, sent to
superiors, including Pope Benedict, in 2011 about
the corruption.

The Vatican issued a statement Thursday
criticizing the "methods" used in the journalistic
investigation. But it confirmed that the letters
were authentic by expressing "sadness over the
publication of reserved documents."

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.

Vigano, currently the Vatican's ambassador in
Washington, said in the letters that when he took
the job in 2009 he discovered a web of corruption,
nepotism and cronyism linked to the awarding of
contracts to outside companies at inflated prices.


In one letter, Vigano tells the pope of a smear
campaign against him (Vigano) by other Vatican
officials who wanted him transferred because they
were upset that he had taken drastic steps to save
the Vatican money by cleaning up its procedures.

"Holy Father, my transfer right now would provoke
much disorientation and discouragement in those
who have believed it was possible to clean up so
many situations of corruption and abuse of power
that have been rooted in the management of so many
departments," Vigano wrote to the pope on March
27, 2011.

In another letter to the pope on April 4, 2011,
Vigano says he discovered the management of some
Vatican City investments was entrusted to two
funds managed by a committee of Italian bankers
"who looked after their own interests more than
ours."

LOSS OF $2. 5 MILLION, 550,000 EURO NATIVITY
SCENE

Vigano says in the same letter that in one single
financial transaction in December, 2009, "they
made us lose two and a half million dollars."

The program interviewed a man it identified as a
member of the bankers' committee who said Vigano
had developed a reputation as a "ballbreaker"
among companies that had contracts with the
Vatican, because of his insistence on transparency
and competition.

The man's face was blurred on the transmission and
his voice was distorted in order to conceal his
identity.

In one of the letters to the pope, Vigano said
Vatican-employed maintenance workers were
demoralized because "work was always given to the
same companies at costs at least double compared
to those charged outside the Vatican."

For example, when Vigano discovered that the cost
of the Vatican's larger than life nativity scene
in St Peter's Square was 550,000 euros in 2009, he
chopped 200,000 euros off the cost for the next
Christmas, the program said.

Even though, Vigano's cost-cutting and
transparency campaign helped turned Vatican City's
budget from deficit to surplus during his tenure,
in 2011 unsigned articles criticizing him as
inefficient appeared in the Italian newspaper Il
Giornale.

On March 22, 2011, Vatican Secretary of State
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone informed Vigano that he
was being removed from his position, even though
it was to have lasted until 2014.

Five days later he wrote to Bertone complaining
that he was left "dumbfounded" by the ouster and
because Bertone's motives for his removal were
identical to those published in an anonymous
article published against him in Il Giornale that
month.

In early April, Vigano went over Bertone's head
again and wrote directly to the pope, telling him
that he had worked hard to "eliminate corruption,
private interests and dysfunction that are
widespread in various departments."

He also tells the pope in the same letter that
"no-one should be surprised about the press
campaign against me" because he tried to root out
corruption and had made enemies.

Despite his appeals to the pope that a transfer,
even if it meant a promotion, "would be a defeat
difficult for me to accept," Vigano was named
ambassador to Washington in October of last year
after the sudden death of the previous envoy to
the United States.

In its statement, the Vatican said the
journalistic investigation had treated complicated
subjects in a "partial and banal way" and could
take steps to defend the "honor of morally upright
people" who loyally serve the Church.

The statement said that today's administration was
a continuation of the "correct and transparent
management that inspired Monsignor Vigano."

Source - Reuters

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