The Vatican's troubled relationship with money has often been the subject of major and minor financial scandals. Buying real estate in London for profit has once again put Roman Curia in a difficult position.
It is well known that Pope Francis has particular sensitivities when it comes to financial management issues. "If we do not know how to keep the money that we see, how can we keep the souls of the faithful that we do not see?", The Pope wonders. However, it is not easy, even for the head of the Catholic Church, to control the revenues and expenditures of the Vatican.
A new financial scandal has been rocking the Vatican for some time now. In early October, a number of computers and documents were confiscated in a police raid on the offices of the State Secretariat, the highest service of the Roman Curia. A day later, the Italian magazine L´ Espresso published a secret document of the Vatican gendarmerie, which states that five high-ranking associates of the Curia were made available. Among them is the head of the Vatican's Financial Supervision Service AIF.
"The Holy Crash," wrote La Repubblica
The reason for the police raid was, according to Italian media, a highly controversial real estate market in London for purely speculative reasons, which cost between 150-180 million euros. The money, as everything shows, came from monetary donations of believers.
And as if that were not enough, a week later, the book by well-known journalist Gianluigi Nucci revealed that the Vatican is one step closer to bankruptcy. According to the Italian journalist, who has revealed a few scandals of the Catholic Church, at a time when wage costs are rising, revenues are shrinking. In his book, Gianluigi Nucci talks about an out-of-control client state in the Vatican. "The holy crash", wrote the newspaper La Repubblica on its front page a few days ago.
Experts at the Vatican say that despite the various scandals that have gripped the small independent state internationally, no oversight bodies have been set up to prevent or prevent financial disasters. In fact, according to Vatican expert Jacopo Scaramucci, the controversial property market in central London was not even profitable for Roman Curia.