Pope faces Mafia money scandal
Rome – In the latest scandal to engulf Pope Benedict XVI, a church official has warned that a ‘‘time bomb’’ is about to explode over Mafia money allegedly invested in the Vatican bank.
Prosecutors are investigating claims that a fugitive Sicilian Mafia godfather laundered cash through the Institute for Religious Works, as the bank is officially known.
The move follows the arrest of the pope’s former butler, Paolo Gabriele, and the leaking of confidential files outlining Vatican corruption, cronyism and infighting, in the worst crisis of Benedict’s sevenyear papacy. Last week, Benedict, 85, implicitly denounced the leaks as the work of the devil.
The new investigation into the Vatican bank focuses on Matteo Messina Denaro, 50, a drugs and arms trafficker based in Trapani, western Sicily.
On the run for the past 19 years, Messina Denaro is suspected of at least 50 murders. ‘‘With the people I’ve killed, I could make a cemetery,’’ he is said to have boasted.
According to prosecutors, gobetweens acting on his behalf opened accounts worth several million dollars. A senior church official confided that ‘‘tainted money’’ had been hidden in Trapani accounts.
‘‘What has surfaced is only a splatter of lava; underneath there’s a time bomb, which is ready to explode,’’ said the official, speaking anonymously to La Stampa newspaper.
After investigating the finances of the Trapani bishopric and the sale of church assets, the Pope last month dismissed Francesco Micciche, the bishop, and suspended Father Ninni Treppiedi, a priest who had in turn accused Micciche of holding accounts worth millions at the Vatican bank.
The Pope is braced for more revelations about the bank from its former chairman Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, 67.
Gotti Tedeschi, who says he was sacked last month after urging more transparency, is collaborating with Rome prosecutors who have accused him of money-laundering. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Among the documents seized by investigators were files that Gotti Tedeschi had prepared to be sent to the Pope. The files – a 10-page account plus some 200 pages of documents, emails and notes – include correspondence with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the secretary of state, or Vatican ‘‘prime minister’’.
Gotti Tedeschi described how he faced opposition from inside the Vatican after the Pope asked him to push through anti-moneylaundering measures, with the aim of meeting international transparency standards.
The banker said the process that led to his sacking began after he asked for information about accounts held by unnamed politicians and senior officials, among others, and that he came to fear for his life.