VATICAN CITY (RNS) – Former Vatican monetary auditor Libero Milone filed prices on Friday (Nov. 4) towards the Vatican Secretariat of State, demanding the Catholic church to pay for the damages to his status that he alleges adopted his unceremonious firing in 2017.
At a gathering on Tuesday (8 Nov.) organized by his lawyer, Milone advised reporters that Cardinal Angelo Becciu, as soon as the third highest rating member on the Vatican, was “the mastermind of the so-called operation eject-Milone.”
Milone was employed in 2015 by Pope Francis to look into the notoriously convoluted and troubled funds of Vatican departments as a part of persevering with monetary reforms begun by Pope Benedict XVI. Solely two years later, the Vatican introduced that Milone had resigned within the face of accusations of embezzlement and of spying.
As Milone was ushered out, Becciu advised reporters that the auditor “went towards all guidelines and was spying on the non-public lives of his superiors and employees, myself included.” Milone shot again, calling the cardinal “a liar.”
On Tuesday, the previous auditor framed his firing as a battle between “the Center Ages and modernity” and referred to as out “the small mafia on the Vatican” that was offended by his findings of lapses within the Catholic establishment’s funds, together with “many circumstances of rule violations, improper predisposition of accounting data, incorrect registrations.”
Milone stated he is able to share samples of the monetary mismanagement he witnessed at Vatican-owned hospitals and within the church paperwork. Milone and his deputy, Ferruccio Panicco, are asking the Secretariat to pay practically 10 million euros for reputational and psychological damages.
Panicco, who was fired alongside Milone in 2017, claims that the Vatican withheld his private information after his firing because it investigated him, inflicting him to lose treasured time in his combat towards prostate most cancers. “I feel they’re responsible of sentencing me to demise for no motive after sluggish and vital struggling,” he advised reporters, studying from a written assertion.
Vatican paperwork considered by Faith Information Service present that Vatican police claimed to have investigated the auditor and his deputy for seven months and located proof of “illicit conduct,” which led to a judicial continuing towards them for espionage and embezzlement. However in a letter dated Might 19, 2018, the Vatican’s prime prosecutor wrote that there have been no felony prices towards Milone.
In line with Milone, Vatican prosecutors have refused to settle the case and as an alternative have relaunched investigations into him and his deputy. Milone has been referred to as for questioning on the Vatican on Monday (Nov. 14).
Milone stated he has despatched seven letters to the pope and has obtained no reply. Whereas he has maintained a dialogue with Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, he has been unable to clear his title.
Prosecutors on the Vatican are presently grappling with a large monetary trial of 10 Vatican workers and curial members, together with Becciu, who’re charged with, amongst different issues, abuse of energy, embezzlement and witness tampering in connection to the controversial 2014 buy of London actual property made utilizing a papal fund earmarked for charity.
In 2018, Francis eliminated Becciu from his function as “substitute,” the Vatican equal of papal chief of employees, to go the Vatican company that oversees the method of constructing saints. In September 2020, Francis stripped him of his Vatican positions and cardinal rights, aside from his titles amid media studies that Becciu had funneled funds belonging to the Holy See to kin and buddies.
In a press release on Thursday (Nov. 10), Becciu’s authorized workforce stated they intend to take authorized motion towards Milone for his “fully unfounded reconstructions.”
“The cardinal clarified that he solely carried out an order by the Holy Father, who knowledgeable him that Dr. Milone now not loved his belief, and due to this fact invited him at hand in his resignation,” the assertion learn, echoing Becciu’s earlier pronouncements in court docket.
Becciu’s authorized workforce cited statements by the Vatican declaring that Milone was suspected of “unlawful surveillance” into the non-public lives of Vatican officers and denied that the cardinal interfered with exterior audits into the Vatican’s Secretariat of State.
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At his assembly with journalists, Milone stated the Secretariat of State resisted his efforts to audit the division’s monetary scenario. “Regardless of our pressing requests to the Secretariat of State to supply extra data concerning these investments, together with the London buy, no information has ever been transmitted to us and, after three years, the Sloane Avenue scandal exploded!” he stated, referring to the London property by its handle.
As well as, Milone stated he has proof that a number of different Vatican places of work hid transactions or obstructed auditors’ makes an attempt to see actual property and funding portfolios. Milone additionally pointed to vital anomalies within the administration of funds on the troubled Catholic Pediatric Hospital Bambino Gesù.
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