 |
A general
view of St. Peter square where Pope Benedict XVI celebrates
the canonization
ceremony in St. Peter square at the Vatican October 12, 2008.
(Credit:
Reuters/Alessandro Bianchi)
|
(Reuters) -
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."
(Reporting By Philip Pullella)
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