VATICAN CITY, Italy, January 15, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The Holy See Press Office released a statement on Wednesday clarifying recent reports that document that more than $ 1.7 billion (AUS $ 2.3 billion) were sent from official Vatican financial agencies to Australian accounts. The Holy See claims that the shocking number was in fact the result of a “software error” and that the value of the transfers did not exceed $ 7.4 million.
Last month, LifeSiteNews reported that the Vatican had sent $ 1.7 billion to accounts in Australia between 2014 and 2020, based on a statement from the Australian financial agency, AUSTRAC. The money was sent between the two nations in more than 40,000 transactions. Interestingly, the value of the annual transfer peaked in 2017, when Cardinal George Pell left his position as mayor of the Secretariat of Economy to face trial in his native Australia on historic charges of child sexual abuse.
However, after a few weeks in collaboration with the Holy See’s Financial Information and Supervisory Authority, AUSTRAC has rescinded its previous claim of such a high transfer fee. The Holy See Press Room, recognizing the huge discrepancy, announced that the reduced amount of about US $ 7.4 million “is due, among other things, to a series of contractual obligations and to the ordinary management of resources”. He added that the Holy See “takes the opportunity to reaffirm its respect for the country’s institutions and expresses its satisfaction with the collaboration between the entities involved”. The peak in the revised transfer numbers was also in 2017.
At the time of the initial reports, Australian senior clerics expressed disbelief at the vast sums of money that would have been received in the Vatican country. Speaking to Reuters, Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane said: “I can assure you that no diocese or other Church entity has seen any part of the money.” In addition, an anonymous Vatican official said “[t]That amount of money and that number of transfers did not leave Vatican City, ”reported the Sydney Morning Herald. The anonymous source added that he was absolutely surprised by the figure, saying “It’s not our money because we don’t have that kind of money.”
In a statement to the Australian Senate, AUSTRAC announced that the real value of the transfers was not $ 1.7 billion, but only $ 7.4 million, and that the money was transferred in 363 transactions, instead of the 46,000 originally reported. The regulator of financial crimes attributed the great overestimation to a “computer coding error”.
The regulator allegedly discovered the error after opening a “detailed review” of its initial findings, according to The Australian newspaper. But AUSTRAC said it would continue to investigate individual transfers that it suspects were irregular.
“AUSTRAC reaffirmed its confidence in the original financial intelligence about suspicious money transfers, which are being investigated by Vatican prosecutors who are examining hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud and money laundering,” The Australian reported.
Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells brought the case of suspicious financial ties between the Vatican and Australia to the Senate floor for the first time. AUSTRAC provided the original amount of $ 1.7 billion in response to the senator’s investigation into financial transfers allegedly used to influence the outcome of Pell’s trial.
Commenting on the revised figures, Fierravanti-Wells said that the figures “bring more clarity to the main question – where did the funds go and for what purpose? The serious allegations related to the alleged use of funds in the Pell case remain in place. Law enforcement officials need to speed up their investigation of the facts. “
The National Catholic Register reported that not everyone found the explanation of the “coding error” put forward by AUSTRAC to be completely convincing. Catholic investment manager Matthew O’Brien told the Register that “a lot depends on what ‘coding error’ means.” He added that “he does not believe that AUSTRAC made a mistake of this magnitude due to a simple administrative error in a formal report to parliament.”
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In O’Brien’s view, the “error” is probably the result of a disparity between AUSTRAC reports of Vatican funds and the Holy See’s claim that some of these transfers were “incorrectly coded” as they should be classified as originating in Italy. With AUSTRAC having “codified transfers originating from certain entities in Italy as ‘the Vatican’”, the problem seems to be to agree on which financial entities are considered “Italian or Vatican” in origin.
O’Brien noted that certain bodies administered by the Vatican exist outside the Vatican itself, such as the Bambino Gesù de Romes hospital. The hospital is under Italian law and receives public funding from Italy as well as from the EU, but is administered by the Vatican, the Record reports. O’Brien proposes that this type of configuration may have been included as a Vatican entity in AUSTRAC reports, while Vatican authorities may have “objections” to this classification based on the hospital that operates and is being legally incorporated in Italy, naming the categorization is a “coding error”.
Regarding allegations that he dishonored Cardinal Becciu transferred money to Australian accounts to help with Pell’s conviction, O’Brien said that “[n]no one has produced any real evidence of bribery so far, despite the hyped rumors. ”He speculated, however, that“[g]given the publicly available information, [money] washing is the best explanation. “
He noted that transfers “are prima facie evidence of a large-scale money laundering operation, which is sufficient to suggest that the mafia may be involved. “