Report: Vatican investigators focus on longtime investment manager

October 27, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

CNA Staff, Oct 27, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- An Italian newsweekly said Friday that it has obtained a document in which Vatican investigators focus on a longtime investment manager for the Holy See as a central figure in the ongoing financial scandal. The investment manager has said there is nothing unusual about his work at the Vatican.

In a report published Oct. 23, L’Espresso said it had obtained a letter rogatory sent from the Vatican to Switzerland highlighting alleged activities of Enrico Crasso, an Italian-born Swiss citizen.

Letters rogatory are formal requests from courts in one country to the courts of another country for judicial assistance. 

The magazine published a photograph purporting to show the cover of the document, which bore the emblem of the promoter of justice of the tribunal of Vatican City State. The document reportedly requested information about several figures caught up in an investigation into a controversial London property deal. The newspaper said the document was sent to Swiss authorities almost a year ago.

CNA has not verified the document’s authenticity.

According to L’Espresso, Vatican investigators referred to “a hypothesis” which they said “cannot be excluded” when they requested information from Swiss authorities.

The investigators reportedly summed up that hypothesis by saying: “Given that the links between the various internal and external personages at the Secretariat of State took place over a considerable length of time, through the arrangement of well-structured legal instruments with offices in different countries, including those on ‘blacklists,’ and with the realization of multiple criminal activities, it also amounts to the crime of criminal association to the detriment of the Holy See.”

L’Espresso reported that Crasso appeared to be a pivotal figure in that framework. 

Crasso is the manager of the Centurion Global Fund, in which the Holy See is the principal investor. He began working with the Vatican in 1993.

According to L’Espresso, investigators alleged that Crasso repeatedly “contributed to using funds other than institutional funds and for unprofitable speculative investments.” They also reportedly highlighted “an evident conflict of interest and a possible risk of fraud to the detriment of the Secretariat of State.”

“It has not been possible to reconstruct the total commissions collected by him for his activity,” the investigators reportedly told Swiss authorities.

They also reportedly said: “Despite the fact that the Secretariat of State was alerted, it continued to trust him and did not take away from him the power to operate on his current accounts. The very bond that he has with the employees of the Secretariat of State deserves further study.”

Earlier this month, Crasso defended his stewardship of Church funds controlled by the Secretariat of State, saying that the investments he made were “no secret.” 

In an Oct. 4 interview with Corriere della Sera, Crasso also denied managing “confidential” accounts for Becciu’s family.

Crasso was named in reports last month alleging that Cardinal Angelo Becciu used millions of euros of Vatican charity funds in speculative and risky investments, including loans for projects owned and operated by Becciu’s brothers. 

On Sept. 24, Becciu was asked by Pope Francis to resign from his Vatican job and from the rights of cardinals following the report. In a press conference, the cardinal distanced himself from Crasso, saying he did not follow his actions “step by step.”

According to Becciu, Crasso would inform him of what investments he was making, “but it’s not that he was telling me the ramifications of all these investments.”

Crasso appeared to corroborate Becciu’s remarks, saying they had met only five or six times since 2012. He said that Becciu also never applied “pressure” about what investments to make.

Crasso’s Centurion Global Fund is connected to several institutions linked to allegations and investigations of money laundering, a CNA investigation found.

The fund registered a loss of some 4.6% in 2018, while at the same time incurring management fees of roughly two million euros.

According to Crasso, “the Secretariat [of State] has always earned from our management.” 

The Centurion Global Fund first made headlines in December 2019 for its use of Vatican assets under its management to invest in Hollywood films, real estate, and utilities, including investments in movies like “Men in Black International” and the Elton John biopic “Rocketman.”

Corriere della Sera reported that Centurion had raised around 70 million euros in cash, and that the Holy See’s Secretariat of State was the source of at least two thirds of the fund’s assets.

Crasso said Oct. 4 that after Il Corriere’s Dec. 2019 article, he was told “the Holy Father had given instructions to liquidate the fund. And now we are closing it.”

While Becciu has said that he didn’t know what Crasso was doing, Crasso said “Centurion was known in the Secretariat [of State]” and that Vatican officials “knew very well” which investments were being made. 

Asked how he made his decisions about how to invest Vatican money, Crasso said the secretariat pointed out some investments to him directly, such as shares in the English Eos fund, who were “friends of Mgr Alberto Perlasca.”

Perlasca is Becciu’s former chief deputy at the Secretariat of State. In February, his home and office were raided by investigators over his participation in the Vatican’s investment of hundreds of millions of euros with the Italian financier Raffaele Mincione. 

Crasso indicated that on at least one occasion he informed Perlasca that a desired investment was too risky and advised making an investment of only six million euros instead of 30 million, which they did.

Vatican investments through Centurion have also been reported to include funds from the Peter’s Pence collection, intended to support charitable works and the ministry of the Holy See.

Crasso confirmed that “the funds of Peter’s Pence were managed by banks, including hedge funds. Everyone knew it,” he said. “Now, however, the Vatican’s auditor general argues that these funds were tied to charitable works. But they never told the banks!”

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After Secretariat of State shakeup, what’s next for Curia reform?

January 7, 2021 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Jan 7, 2021 / 03:33 pm (CNA).- The draft of the delayed document that will reform of the Roman Curia gives the Vatican’s Secretariat of State a more prominent place in the workings of the Church’s central governing bureaucracy. But during the year 2020, Pope Francis moved in the opposite direction.

In fact, within the span of a few months, the Secretariat of State has been gradually divested of all of its financial power.

In September, the Pope appointed the new commission of cardinals of the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) – the also called “Vatican bank.” For the first time, the Secretary of State was not among the cardinal members. Nor is the Secretariat of State represented in the Commission on Reserved Matters that the Pope established in October via the first Vatican procurement law. In November, the Pope decided that the Secretariat of State should transfer all its funds to APSA, the equivalent of a Vatican central bank.

In December, Pope Francis spelled out how the handover should occur, clarifying that the Secretariat of State will be under the constant oversight of the Vatican’s leading financial operations watchdog, the Secretariat for the Economy, which has been renamed the “Papal Secretariat for Economic Affairs.”

These moves are in direct contrast with the Roman Curia’s draft constitution, Praedicate Evangelium, which continues to be revised by the Council of Cardinals.

Indeed, the document’s draft proposes the establishment of a real “papal secretariat” within the Vatican Secretariat of State, which would take the place of Pope Francis’s private Secretariat and coordinate the various bodies of the Roman Curia. The papal secretariat would, for example, summon the periodic interdicasterial meetings and even bring dicasteries together to work on specific tasks or projects when needed.

If Praedicate Evangelium remains essentially as it appears to be in the draft version that circulated last summer, then the piecemeal reforms that Pope Francis has introduced will make the new regulations old and outdated as soon as they are promulgated.

If, on the other hand, the draft is being heavily amended to match to what Pope Francis has been doing, then Praedicate Evangelium will not see the daylight any time soon. Instead, it will continue to be under examination for an even longer time, putting the Church in a state of “reform as you go.”

In other words, rather than setting reforms in stone with a binding document like Praedicate Evangelium, as previous popes have done, reforms will come via Pope Francis’ personal decisions, which several times have overturned his previous ones.

That is why the path of Curial reform has been characterized, until now, by many as back-and-forth.

First, it was the Secretariat for the Economy seeing its powers shrinking.

Initially, Pope Francis understood Cardinal George Pell’s reformist ideas and supported a significant recasting of financial control mechanisms. The first phase began with establishing the Secretariat for the Economy in 2014.

But by 2016, Pope Francis embraced the cause of the Secretariat of State, which argued that Cardinal Pell’s approach to financial reform did not take into consideration the Holy See’s particular nature as a State, not a corporation. The opposite views escalated into a fight when the Secretariat for the Economy signed a contract for a massive audit with Pricewaterhouse Coopers. The auditing contract was signed in December 2015 and scaled down by the Holy See in June 2016.

After reducing the scope of Cardinal Pell’s audit, the Secretariat of State regained its central role in the Roman Curia, while the Secretariat for the Economy was weakened. When Cardinal Pell had to take a leave of absence in 2017 to go back to Australia and face infamous allegations, of which he was later acquitted, the Secretariat for the Economy’s work got stalled.

Pope Francis appointed Fr. Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves to replace Cardinal Pell in November 2019. Under Fr. Guerrero, the Secretariat for the Economy regained power and influence. Simultaneously, the Secretariat of State got caught in the scandal that followed by the purchase of a luxury real estate in London.

With the decision to take any financial control from the Secretariat of State, the pope returned to his original vision of a strong Secretariat for the Economy. The Secretariat of State has lost any sense of autonomy since its financial operations are now transferred to APSA. Now, every financial move by the Secretariat of State falls directly under the Secretariat for the Economic oversight.

The transfer of funds to APSA seems to recall Cardinal Pell’s project for Vatican Asset Management. APSA, as the Vatican Central Bank, has been become the central office for Vatican investments.

So far, after the latest papal moves, the Secretariat of State is the only Vatican department with a former financial autonomy that has lost it. Pope Francis’ decision has not yet involved the Congregation for the Evangelization of People –which handles, among others, the massive funds of the World Mission Sunday- and the Vatican City State Administration, which also have financial autonomy.

But many Vatican observers agree that no dicastery can now consider itself safe from Pope Francis’ on-the-go reform, since the pope already proved himself ready to change direction unexpectedly, and to do it very quickly. In the Vatican, there is already talk of  “a permanent state of reform,” rather that the definitive one that should have come with Praedicate Evangelium.

In the meantime, the dicasteries’ activities are at a standstill, while Curia members wonders if the Curia reform document will ever be out. The Secretariat of State is the first victim of this situation. But most likely it won’t be the last.

 


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