Pope Francis stripped the powerful Vatican central administration office of an investment portfolio worth hundreds of millions of euros, following a scandal linked to London’s luxury real estate development in Chelsea.
The Vatican said that all financial assets of the Secretary of State, the state bureaucracy of the Holy See, would be placed under the control of APSA, the Vatican’s existing centralized asset manager, since the beginning of the new year.
The announcement follows Pope Francis requesting the resignation of Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, who oversaw the Secretariat’s investments from 2011 to 2018, earlier this year amid an ongoing Vatican police investigation into how these funds were managed. Cardinal Becciu denied any wrongdoing.
The Pope asked for the resignation of Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, who denied any wrongdoing. © Gregorio Borgia / AP
The Vatican also said that Pope Francis has ordered the administration of so-called Peter’s Pence charitable donations by Catholics worldwide to now be brought under the control of APSA.
The Financial Times reported extensively how hundreds of millions of assets held in Swiss bank accounts by the Secretariat were invested in assets, including a property development scheme in Chelsea, which the Vatican said has resulted in huge losses for the Catholic Church.
Gianluigi Torzi, an Italian businessman residing in London who served for the Secretariat on his London property investments, was arrested earlier this year and accused by the Vatican of “extortion, embezzlement, aggravated fraud and self-laundering”. Mr. Torzi, who was later released from custody, denies any wrongdoing.
Last month, the Italian financial police, acting at the request of the Vatican judicial authorities, executed a search and seizure warrant against a group of people linked to the Secretariat’s investments, including a suspended Vatican official and Raffaele Mincione, a fund administrator. based in London who oversaw Property Development in Chelsea.
Mr. Mincione, who denies any wrongdoing, said that he “cooperated fully and beyond what was requested”, and that he was sure that the investigation would “confirm the lack of [his] involvement in relation to what is proposed by the authorities of the Holy See ”.
Nunzio Galantino, president of APSA, said that the Secretariat’s investment in the London development scheme directly influenced the decision to deprive the office of its financial assets.
“The London property case helped us understand what control mechanisms needed to be strengthened,” he said in comments to the Vatican’s state media. “It made us understand many things: not only how much we lost – an aspect we are still evaluating – but also how and why we lost”.
Galantino also said that the Pope has long called for a “more marked distinction” between Peter’s Pence charity money managed by the Secretariat and other funds.