Journalists acquitted, Spanish prelate guilty in Vatileaks

Yahoo – AFP, Ella Ide, July 7, 2016

Italian journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi (C) and Emiliano Fittipaldi (R) give a press
 conference on July 7, 2016 in Vatican City after a verdict in the "Vatileaks" trial
(AFP Photo/Gabriel Bouys)

Vatican City (AFP) - Two investigative journalists accused of publishing stolen papers which exposed scandal in the Vatican were acquitted Thursday, while a whistle-blowing Spanish prelate was sentenced to jail time in the Vatileaks trial.

The drama of sex, greed and press freedom which had gripped the tiny city state for months peaked with the surprise verdict given by presiding judge Giuseppe Dalla Torre "in the name of his Holiness Pope Francis".

Italians Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, who had published books based on the documents at the heart of the trial, were not considered to have committed a crime on Vatican territory and therefore were outside the judges' territorial authority.

Francesca Chaouqui leaves Vatican

 City on July 7, 2016 after the verdict in

 the "Vatileaks" trial (AFP Photo/

Gabriel Bouys)

Spanish prelate Lucio Vallejo Balda, who had admitted to leaking secret papers, was handed a 18-month prison sentence while his assistant, who prosecutors admitted had had little to do with the affair, was acquitted.

Italian PR expert Francesca Chaouqui, who had been involved in a review of Vatican finances and is accused of both "inspiring" and being ultimately responsibility for the leaks, was given a 10-month suspended sentence.

Dalla Torre said there was no evidence Chaouqui had stolen documents, though she had played a role in the leaks.

Chaouqui told the media she had been punished for serving as a go-between between Balda and the journalists, but was relieved the pope would now know she was not guilty of whistle blowing, describing her acquittal on that count as "my biggest victory".

Balda and Chaouqui have three days to appeal the verdict.

'Tensions, polemics in Vatican'

The trial "had to be done, to show the Vatican's determination to fight the existence and consequences of the tensions and internal polemics of the Vatican," spokesman Federico Lombardi said.

The leaks, he said, had "negative consequences on public opinion". But fighting them had "not put freedom of the press on trial".

Nuzzi told journalists outside the courthouse that it was "a historic day. This is the base of democracy, freedom of the press".

Pope Francis (left) greets his predecessor Benedict XVI before a 2015 ceremony

at the Vatican (AFP Photo)

Fittipaldi described the trial as "Kafkaesque" but said in its ruling the Vatican had been "courageous", adding that he had not expected to be acquitted.

"Journalists have to do their job without being afraid of power. Here secrets were revealed that they wanted to cover up, but revealing them is just what we must do," he said.

The scandal, the second to hit the Vatican, rocked the Roman Catholic Church with its leaked accounts of theft and greed, as well as publication of secret recordings of Pope Francis's private conversations.

Among the most striking revelations in the books was that less than 20 percent of donations made by believers around the world under the Peter's Pence scheme ended up being spent on good works.

The rest was swallowed up by the Vatican bureaucracy, reportedly partly helping to subsidise the luxurious lifestyles of certain cardinals.

Parties and plots

The trial then ballooned into steamier fare, as Spanish monsignor Vallejo Balda and PR expert Chaouqui turned on each other in the witness box.

Details emerged of alleged sexual affairs, glitzy parties and secret plots in the corridors of power.

The prosecution had called for prison sentences for all, apart from Fittipaldi, saying he should be acquitted for lack of evidence.

Pope Francis, flanked by Vatican's spokesman Federico Lombardi, right, arrives 

to greet journalists on board the airplane on his way to Yerevan, Armenia, Friday, 

June 24, 2016. Pope Francis will be in Armenia for a three-day visit. (AP Photo/

Andrew Medichini)

Chaouqui, who gave birth three weeks ago, had made an emotional plea to the court earlier Thursday, saying she could not bear spending the first few years of her son's life behind bars.

Vallejo Balda had admitted to leaking the classified papers but said he had done so under pressure from Chaouqui, with whom he claimed to have a "compromising" relationship.

He also claimed he had been blackmailed by a woman he believed to have links to Italian secret services and other contacts in a "dangerous world".

All five were prosecuted under draconian anti-leaks legislation, rushed onto the Vatican statute book in 2013 as a result of the fallout from the first Vatileaks scandal, which centred on secrets divulged by the butler of now-retired pope Benedict XVI.

Butler Paolo Gabriele was sentenced to 18 months jail time in 2012 after stealing documents in a bid to "fight evil and corruption", and was pardoned by Benedict three months later and banished from the Vatican forever.

Extradition lawyer Alessandro Tirelli said finding the journalists guilty would likely have led to the Vatican requesting they be extradited from Italy, sparking "a polemical wave in the country of the sort the pope hopes to avoid".

He said he thought it probable Balda and Chaouqui would be pardoned by Francis and exiled from the tiny state.

Vatican arrests priest and 'sex bomb' in new Vatileaks scandal

Yahoo – AFP, Ella Ide, 2 Nov 2015

The Vatican says Monsignor Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda was arrested as part

 of an investigation into the "misappropriation and disclosure of classified

documents and information" (AFP Photo/Gabriel Bouys)

Vatican City (AFP) - The Vatican has arrested a Spanish prelate and social media expert for allegedly stealing and leaking classified documents in the second such scandal to hit the secretive institution in three years.

Monsignor Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, 54, who served on a special commission set up by Pope Francis to advise him on economic reform within the Vatican, was arrested along with a second member of the commission, Francesca Chaouqui, who has been dubbed a "sex bomb".

The arrests were part of a several months-long investigation into the "misappropriation and disclosure of classified documents and information".

Pope Francis leads a mass at the 

Campo di Verano cemetery in Rome, on 

November 1, 2015 (AFP Photo/Alberto

Pizzoli)

They followed Italian media reports at the weekend that Vatican police were investigating the attempted theft of a laptop belonging to Libero Milone, the head of the city state's new finance office.

Both Vallejo Balda and social media expert Chaouqui, 33, were arrested but she was released by Vatican prosecutor Roberto Zannotti on Monday because she agreed to collaborate with investigators and was not considered a flight risk.

Chaouqui's appointment to the economic committee, which was handpicked by the pope, caused no little embarrassment in 2013 when it emerged the woman dubbed a "sex bomb" by the Italian media had been highly critical of the Vatican on Twitter.

Vatican expert Sandro Andrea Tornielli said Monday it was Vallejo Balda who got Chaouqui a place on the committee.

A furious Vatican also denounced the expected publication this week of two new books believed to be based on leaks from hackers releasing information regarding the famously murky world of its finances.

And it referred to the last time employees aired the centuries-old institution's dirty laundry.

'Serious betrayal of trust'

In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI's butler engineered a series of leaks that revealed fierce infighting in the highest echelons of the Catholic Church and allegations of serious fraud in the running of the city state.

Butler Paolo Gabriele was sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing secret papal memos but pardoned by Pope Benedict, who nonetheless banished the once loyal servant from the Vatican for good.

"As far as the books announced for the coming days go, it is clear that this time too, just as in the past, they are the fruit of a serious betrayal of the pope's trust," the Vatican statement said.

It also dismissed any attempts to echo the butler's excuse that he leaked the information for the pope's own good.

Italian journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi, who is releasing "Avarice: Documents Revealing Wealth, Scandals and Secrets of Francis' Church", writes for L'Espresso newsweekly, an avid publisher of leaks in recent years.

Pope Benedict XVI's former butler Paolo Gabriele (right) was pardoned 

by the then pontiff in 2012 after he was jailed for stealing documents from

the Vatican (AFP Photo/Alberto Pizzoli)

"Merchants in the Temple", by Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, follows his 2012 book which was based on information gathered from Benedict's butler in a scandal some believe was the reason behind the pontiff's historic resignation.

Nuzzi is reported to be friends with Chaouqui, who hit the headlines again in 2014 when she was suspected of having organised a lavish party for the rich and famous on a Vatican terrace at the Holy See's expense -- much to Francis's fury.

The Vatican said it was considering taking legal action against the journalists.

Francis was tasked by his cardinal electors to stamp his authority on the bickering Curia, the Church's governing body, and clean up the Vatican bank -- but the fresh leaks looked set to fuel criticisms of his reform programme.

His drive for transparency at the bank, once renowned for shady dealings, has ruffled feathers and supporters say the pontiff has been targeted by revengeful mudslingers -- including those behind a rumour last month, denied by the Vatican, that Francis has a benign brain tumour.

Con men stopped entering Vatican bank with €3 trillion of fake bonds

Police in the Vatican have prevented a pair of fraudsters from trying to enter the Vatican bank with a suitcase stuffed with trillions of euros of fake bond certificates

The Telegraph, Tom Kington, Rome, 30 Mar 2014

The middle aged men, an American and a Dutch citizen of Malaysian origin,
 arrived at the main gate of the Vatican on the morning of March 11, telling
Swiss guards they had an appointment at the bank Photo: GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP

Two smartly-dressed men armed with forged bond certificates worth trillions of euros have been caught while trying to talk their way into the Vatican's bank, in a spectacularly bungled fraud scheme.

The middle aged men, an American and a Dutch citizen of Malaysian origin, arrived at the main gate of the Vatican on the morning of March 11, telling Swiss guards they had an appointment at the bank, which has been dogged by scandals over the years.

When bank staff said they had no record of an appointment, the two men said cardinals were expecting them – arousing the suspicions of Vatican police, who called in colleagues from Italy's tax police.

"When we arrived, the Vatican police had opened the men's briefcase to find bond certificates valued in US and Hong Kong dollars, as well as euros, worth €3 trillion," said Lt Col Davide Cardia, a tax police official.

The two men, Lt Col Cardia, said, were likely planning to use the certificates to fraudulently open a line of credit at the bank.

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• Pope Francis: corrupt should be tied to a rock and thrown into the sea 11 Nov 2013
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• Banks 'wooed Vatican priests with massages' 03 Oct 2013
• Vatican bank publishes accounts for the first time 01 Oct 2013

"We noticed the grammar of the English used on the certificates was full of mistakes – it looked like they had been written using Google Translate," he told The Daily Telegraph. "Searching their hotel room we found the seals used to forge the bond certificates."

Since the men were stopped before carrying out a fraud, they were released under Italian law and have now likely left Italy, said Lt. Col. Cardia.

"The men have been caught trying this before in other countries and seem to go around the world trying their luck with banks," he said.

The men may have been lured by the reputation of the Vatican bank – known as the IOR – for attracting money launders and mafiosi.

Last week, Italian prosecutors said two former senior officials at the bank, Paolo Cipriani and Massimo Tulli, would stand trial for money laundering.

But the Vatican is also trying hard to end corruption at the bank and close shadowy accounts opened by lay customers over the years, particularly following Pope Francis's threat to close the bank down.

"We were surprised the two men tried this scam with the IOR – maybe they didn't know what is going on there at the moment," said Lt Col Cardia.

Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said the police operation "shows the controls are working."

But he added, "I don't think we're talking about a plot by criminal masterminds if they managed to get caught at the first hurdle."

Ex-Vatican accountant hit with new money laundering charge

Google – AFP, Dario Thuburn (AFP), 21 January 2014

This handout picture taken from a video released by the Italian financial police

 on June 28, 2013 shows Nunzio Scarano (front left) shortly after he was arrested

in Rome (Italy's financial police/AFP)

Rome — A former Vatican accountant already under house arrest and on trial for alleged corruption and attempted money laundering has been notified of fresh charges against him, Italy's financial police said on Tuesday.

The police said in a statement that they had seized Monsignor Nunzio Scarano's luxury 17-room apartment and blocked nearly 9.0 million euros ($12 million) on current accounts linked to the senior Italian cleric.

The Vatican in July last year said it had already frozen assets belonging to Scarano and the police on Tuesday said these funds amounted to 2.2 million euros.

"This is very significant," the police said in a statement, a reference to unprecedented levels of cooperation between Vatican and Italian judicial authorities on a high-profile financial crime case.

The headquarters of the Institute for 

Religious Works (IOR) in the Vatican,

 on February 18, 2012 (AFP/File, 

Gabriel Bouys)

Vatican bank spokesman Max Hohenberg told AFP: "All activity on his accounts over the past 10 years has been extracted, analysed and submitted to authorities.

"This investigation is based on information provided by the Vatican," he said.

The police said a priest in Scarano's hometown of Salerno who was an aide to the monsignor, Father Luigi Noli, has also been charged and put under house arrest.

A total of 52 people are being investigated in the case, including a notary who allegedly helped organise the money laundering scheme and lawyers, doctors and businesspeople who are suspected of making use of it.

Scarano is accused of taking cheques marked "Donation for the Poor" and in return giving cash from accounts at the Vatican bank, officially known as the Institute of Religious Works or IOR under its Italian acronym.

The police said they had seized two bank accounts at a branch near the Vatican of Italy's UniCredit, one in Scarano's name and the other belonging to a company in which the prelate held 99 percent of shares.

One of the cash withdrawals made by Scarano and traced by police was for 588,248 euros and the police said he gave it to 50 people and used it to pay back a mortgage.

They said they managed to find at least five million euros that Scarano "had at his disposal" and alleged he made extensive property investments in Salerno.

The prelate's lawyer, Silverio Sica, said his client used the money for charity and could not be responsible for the provenance of donations he received.

"These are donations we received over the years from wealthy people. They are free donations. It is not up to us to say where the money came from," he told AFP.

Silverio Sica said the latest accusations had been a "blow" for Scarano and that he had requested that a psychiatrist be allowed to visit him, adding: "He is completely in shock, he is very disoriented."

The police said their suspicions were first aroused in January 2013 when Scarano reported a theft from his home of "several million euros' worth of valuables".

They said the sum was "significantly disproportionate" to Scarano's declared income.

Scarano was arrested in June of last year on suspicion of being an intermediary for suspect payments from Monaco to Italy, carried out through the Vatican bank.

The clergyman has since been suspended from his duties as chief accountant for APSA, the organisation that manages the Vatican's vast real estate portfolio.

Investigators said Scarano used IOR accounts to make transfers to friends and attempted to repatriate from Switzerland 20 million euros that were untaxed, on behalf of a family of ship owners from Naples.

Scarano's trial started in December last year.

The Vatican, the world's smallest sovereign state, has launched a series of reforms aimed at bringing its bank into line with international standards against money laundering.

The bank has been plagued by scandals in the past and its former president, Paul Marcinkus, sheltered in the Vatican for years to fight off repeated attempts by Italian judicial authorities to arrest him in the 1980s.

Related Article:

Pope Francis shakes up Vatican Bank supervisory board

Pope looks beyond Vatican as reforms take shape

Google – AFP, Jean-Louis de la Vaissiere (AFP), 18 January 2014

A picture released on September 30, 2013 by the Vatican press office shows

 Pope Francis during a meeting of cardinals known as a consistory (Osservatore

Romano/AFP/File)

Vatican City — Pope Francis has looked beyond the usual Vatican circles for new cardinals and overhauled the governance of the Vatican bank at the start of a year that heralds key reforms for the Roman Catholic Church.

Even some measures that appear limited in scope, like the curtailment of the honorific "monsignor" title and a cut in costs for sainthood applications, are being seen as signals of a will to overhaul the Vatican.

The new cardinals, who will be formally appointed next month, include several from relatively minor dioceses in developing countries and with a reputation as pastoral figures -- far from Vatican power games.

Pope Francis (centre) is surrounded by

 cardinals as he arrives for a pastoral

 visit at St Francis of Assisi on October 4,

2013 (POOL/AFP, Filippo Monteforte)

The nominations have knocked a few noses out of joint in the Vatican, where becoming a cardinal has previously been seen as an appointment traditionally associated with particular high-placed posts.

"Without starting any revolutions, this choice clearly shows an interesting reasoning," said Andrea Tornielli, a Vatican expert who knows the pope personally and interviewed him for the La Stampa daily last year.

"In all his public comments, in all his reign so far this pope has shown he wants a Church in which the clergy is not seen as a cast apart," Tornielli said.

Tornielli said the pope has shown particular attention to reforming the clergy, frequently upbraiding priests for not being close enough to their communities and condemning the "shame" of child sex crimes by clerics.

In one oft-repeated comment, he said priests should be shepherds "with the smell of their sheep on them".

He has also criticised "smarmy priests who worship Narcissus" and "butterfly priests who live in vanity".

Joseph Xavier, an Indian priest from the pope's own Jesuit order and a lecturer in theology at the Gregorian University in Rome, said Francis has shown he "prefers a Church in motion like the people of God".

The Argentine pope has led by personal example in emphasising that priests should reach out to the needy, washing the feet of prisoners as part of an Easter ritual and baptising the child of a single mother.

Cardinals attend the celebrations of the

 First Vespers and Te Deum prayers with

 Pope Francis in Saint Peter's Basilica

 in the Vatican on December 31, 2013

(AFP, Filippo Monteforte)

In just a few months he has also sidelined some of the most powerful conservative figures in the higher echelons of the Church, including Italian cardinal Mauro Piacenza and US cardinal Raymond Burke.

Observers see this as a form of preparation ahead of important decisions he will have to make later in the year when a council of cardinals he has appointed to advise him issues a list of reform proposals.

At the same time, the 77-year-old pontiff has also shown that while he is willing to break with Vatican tradition he will not alter some of the most controversial tenets of Catholic doctrine.

This month, he issued his strongest condemnation yet of abortion, calling it "frightful" and a symptom of a "throwaway culture" that placed little value on life.

His critics in the Church have spoken of him as a "populist pope" who has created confusion with his multiple pronouncements on a range of issues and say his words could lead to more lax attitudes.

But Tornielli rallied to the pope's side, saying: "People, ordinary faithful understand and find in the pope a credible witness of faith who lives what he preaches and evangelises by example".

Related Article:

Pope Francis shakes up Vatican Bank supervisory board

Pope Francis shakes up Vatican Bank supervisory board

RT.com, January 16, 2014

Headquarters of the Institute for Religious Works (IOR) the Vatican's bank
(AFP Photo / Gabriel Bouys)

In a move to restore the reputation of the Vatican Bank, Pope Francis has reshuffled most of the cardinals from the oversight body of the institution, replacing all but one of predecessor Pope Benedict XVI's appointments.

Pope Francis appointed four cardinals to give new blood to the five member body tasked with overseeing the reform inside the very secretive institution. The new members of the consortium are the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Francis’s close friend Cardinal Santos Abril y Castello. The other new members are Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, Archbishop of Vienna and Cardinal Thomas Collins, Archbishop of Toronto. The one holdover was French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran.

On February 16, 2013, a few days before announcing his resignation, Pope Benedict XVI had confirmed the members of the supervisory board of the bank for five years. Among them was the assistant secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who has been widely accused by many for the administrative failures of the Vatican under the rule of Pope Benedict.

The cardinals’ commission is tasked with approval of the overall strategy of the institution including charity work as well as reviewing accounts. It is a de facto link between the Pope and the board of superintendence, consisting of five lay men from around the world. Last February, Ernst Von Freyberg was appointed as the new president of the bank.

AFP Photo / Osseervatore RomanoAFP Photo / Osseervatore Romano

Pope Francis has practically canceled the decree of Benedict, replacing Bertone and other members of the committee in charge of reforming the bank formerly known as the Institute for Religious Works (IOR). In the middle of 2013, Pope Francis appointed a trusted friend, Monsignor Battista Ricca, to occupy the post of supervisor and appointed an independent commission of inquiry to examine the activities of the bank and its legal status.

His team shut down many of the suspicious accounts held in the bank and asked the Promontory Financial Group to audit the institution and bring it up to international standards.

Pope Francis has vowed to reform the bank or close it down completely after a series of scandals that tainted the reputation of the Holy Sea and the institution responsible for its charity around the globe.

Last July, IOR director Paolo Cipriani and deputy-director Massimo Tulli resigned, three days after the arrest of Vatican accountant Monsignor Nunzio Scarano on charges of plotting to smuggle 20 million euros ($26 million) into Italy from Switzerland.

Dubbed "Monsignor 500", the man is currently on trial in Rome on the smuggling charge and is also under investigation for money-laundering Vatican accounts.

In a 2010 scandal, Italian police seized 23 million euros from an IOR account. At the same time authorities launched an investigation against IOR's then-president, Gotti Tedeschi and director Paolo Cipriani for alleged money laundering from a Vatican account at an Italian bank. The money was later unfrozen and Gotti Tedeschi was exonerated as a suspect, while Cipriani hasn't been charged.

In 2012, JPMorgan, an American financial giant closed its IOR accounts while Deutsche Bank Italia stopped its 15-year term providing electronic payment services to the Vatican.

In October 2013, for the first time in its 125-year history, the Vatican bank disclosed its annual financial report to the public, showing a total of 4.98 billion euros in assets and 769 million euros in equity funds.

Related Article:

Pope looks beyond Vatican as reforms take shape

Pope Francis 'is mafia target after campaigning against corruption'

Prosecutor says pope's attempt to bring transparency to Vatican is making mobsters agitated

The Guardian, Tom Kington in Rome, Wednesday 13 November 2013

Pope Francis is 'dismantling centres of economic power in the Vatican',
said Nicola Gratteri. Photograph: AGF srl/Rex

Pope Francis's crusade against corruption has made him a target for Italy's all-powerful mafia clans, a leading anti-mob prosecutor has warned.

Nicola Gratteri, who has battled Calabria's shadowy 'Ndrangheta mafia, said on Wednesday that Francis's attempt to bring transparency to the Vatican was making the white collar mobsters who do business with corrupt prelates "nervous and agitated".

He told the Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano: "Pope Francis is dismantling centres of economic power in the Vatican.

"If the bosses could trip him up they wouldn't hesitate. I don't know if organised criminals are in a position to do something, but they are certainly thinking about it. They could be dangerous."

Francis, who has called for "a poor church", has backed reform at the Vatican's bank, which has been suspected for years of being a channel for the laundering of mob profits. This week police impounded a luxury hotel on Rome's Janiculum hill – formerly a monastery – which the 'Ndrangheta allegedly purchased from a religious order.

In a fiery sermon on Monday, Francis railed against corruption and quoted the bible's advice that practitioners be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck.

"The mafia that invests, that launders money, that therefore has the real power, is the mafia which has got rich for years from its connivance with the church," said Gratteri. "These are the people who are getting nervous."

Gratteri attacked priests and bishops in southern Italy who legitimise mobsters. "Priests continuously visit the houses of bosses for coffee, which gives the bosses strength and popular legitimacy," he said. A bishop in Locri in Calabria had excommunicated mobsters after they damaged fruit trees owned by the church, he said. "But before that episode, the bosses had killed thousands of people" without being sanctioned, he added.

Boosting the strong links between mob and church is the fierce religious devotion of the gangsters themselves, he said, adding that in his 26 years as a magistrate he had never raided a mafia hideout which did not contain a religious image. "There is no affiliation rite that does not evoke religion. 'Ndrangheta and the church walk hand in hand," he said.

A survey of jailed mobsters had revealed that 88% were religious, he added. "Before killing, a member of the 'Ndrangheta prays. He asks the Madonna for protection."

Gratteri said mobsters did not consider themselves wrongdoers, and used the example of a mafioso putting pressure on a business owner to pay protection money, first by shooting up his premises, then by kneecapping him. "If the person still refuses, the mobster is 'forced' to kill him. If you have no choice, you are not committing a sin."

Related Articles:

"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…  1 - Spirituality (Religions)

Number one: Spirituality. The systems of spiritual design on your planet are starting to change. This is not telling you that certain ones are going to go away. They're simply going to change. Some of the largest spiritual systems, which you would call organized religion on the planet, are shifting. They're going to shift away from that which is authority on the outside to authority on the inside. It will eventually be a different way of worship, slowly changing the rules while keeping the basic doctrine the same.

The doctrine of the Christ has always been to find the God inside. The teachings were clear. The examples of the miracles were given as an example of what humans could do, not to set a man up for worship as a God. So when that has been absorbed, the teaching of the Christ can remain the teaching of the Christ. It simply changes the interpretation.

The teachings of the great prophets of the Middle East (all related to each other) are about unity and love. So once the holy words are redefined with new wisdom, the Human changes, not the words of the prophets. In fact, the prophets become even more divinely inspired and their wisdom becomes even more profound.

You're going to lose a pope soon. I have no clock. Soon to us can mean anything to you. The one who replaces him may surprise you, for his particular organization will be in survival mode at that point in time. That is to say that fewer and fewer are interested in starting the priesthood. Fewer and fewer young people are interested in the organization, and the new pope must make changes to keep his church alive. That means that his organization will remain, but with a more modern look at what truly is before all of you in a new energy. It is not the fall of the church. It is instead the recalibration of the divinity inside that would match the worship that goes on. It's a win-win situation. The new pope will have a difficult time, since the old guard will still be there. There could even be an assassination attempt, such is the way the old energy dies hard. That is number one. Watch for it. It's a change in the way spiritual systems work. It's a realignment of spiritual systems that resound to a stronger truth that is Human driven, rather than prophet driven. …”

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“… I gave you a channelling years ago when Pope John Paul was alive. John Paul loved Mary, the mother. Had John Paul survived another 10 years, he would have done what the next Pope [The one after the current one, Benedict XVI] will do, and that is to bring women into the Church. This Pope you have now [Benedict XVI] won't be here long.* The next Pope will be the one who has to change the rules, should he survive. If he doesn't, it will be the one after that.

There is a large struggle within the Church, even right now, and great dissention, for it knows that it is not giving what humanity wants. The doctrine is not current to the puzzles of life. The answer will be to create a better balance between the feminine and masculine, and the new Pope, or the one after that, will try to allow women to be in the higher echelon of the Church structure to assist the priests.

It will be suggested to let women participate in services, doing things women did not do before. This graduates them within church law to an equality with priests, but doesn't actually let them become priests just yet. However, don't be surprised if this begins in another way, and instead gives priests the ability to marry. This will bring the feminine into the church in other ways. It will eventually happen and has to happen. If it does not, it will be the end of the Catholic Church, for humanity will not sustain a spiritual belief system that is out of balance with the love of God and also out of balance with intuitive Human awareness.  …”

Vatican bank publishes first ever annual report

BBC News, 1 October 2013

The headquarters of the Institute for Religious Works (IOR) the Vatican's bank

Related Stories

• Pope Francis tightens bank controls
• The Vatican Bank is rocked by scandal again
• Pope Francis makes key appointment

The Vatican's bank has published its first annual report in its 125-year history as part of an attempt to become more financially transparent.

The Institute for Religious Works (IOR) has been dogged by accusations of corruption.

The report shows 2012 was a successful year for the bank, with net profits more than quadrupling to 86.6m euros.

The bank said this jump was mainly due to favourable trading results and an increase in the value of bonds it held.

A majority of this profit - 54.7m euros - was given to the Pope to carry out the Church's mission around the world.

Its balance sheet shows a total of 4.98bn euros in assets and 769m euros in equity funds.

The assets were primarily held in bonds and money market accounts.

But the report also reveals the IOR had 41.3m euros in gold, coins and other precious metals, a stake in an Italian real estate company, and received two inheritance properties worth around two million euros in 2012.

German banker Ernst von Freyberg
currently heads up the Vatican Bank

Fighting corruption

In the report, President Ernst Von Freyberg, said the IOR needed to be a well-respected member of the global financial community.

"The annual report seeks to contribute to the transparency which the Catholic Church, our customers, our correspondent banks, our authorities and the public rightfully expect," he said.

Mr Von Freyberg added that the bank had been "been engaged in a process of far-reaching reform" to improve its organisation, compliance and transparency.

The IOR has been accused of money laundering and lack of due diligence in allowing non-religious businessmen to hold accounts in what amounts to an international offshore tax haven.

In August Pope Francis stepped up the fight against corruption at the Vatican by strengthening supervision of financial transactions at the bank.

He issued a decree designed to combat money-laundering and prevent any financing of terrorism.

The Pope also recently set up a commission to investigate the bank and report back to him personally.

In July the Vatican froze the account of a senior cleric, Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, suspected of involvement in money-laundering.

He and two others were arrested by Italian police in June on suspicion of trying to move 20m euros ($26m; £17m) illegally.

At the time the bank said it would have "zero tolerance for any activity, whether conducted by laity or clergy, that is illegal or outside the Statutes of the Institute".

Customers

Nunzio Scarano, who used to manage
 the Vatican's property holdings, was
 questioned by police

As of the end of 2012, the IOR had around 18,900 customers, most of which were institutional investors.

This was down from 21,000 the previous year, which the bank said was due mostly to it closing inactive accounts.

It handles the payroll for some 5,000 Vatican employees and funds for the central administration of the Catholic Church.

It also holds the accounts of cardinals, bishops, priests, nuns and religious orders around the world.

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