Italian ‘security consultant’ freed from jail until Vatican extradition request decided

October 30, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 1 Print

Rome Newsroom, Oct 30, 2020 / 07:18 am (CNA).- An Italian woman under investigation by Vatican authorities for suspected embezzlement was released from a jail in Milan on Friday, as she awaits a decision on the Vatican’s extradition request.

A Milan court of appeal decided Oct. 30 to release Cecilia Marogna, 39, from Milan’s San Vittore jail on condition that she daily register her presence to local police, according to Il Fatto Quotidiano.

A self-described geopolitical analyst and security consultant, Marogna has been in custody following her arrest Oct. 13 on an international warrant issued by the Vatican through Interpol.

Vatican prosecutors requested Marogna’s extradition to the city state, which she has appealed. The appeal process is expected to take as long as a month.

The native Sardinian has been accused of misappropriating Vatican funds from payments of more than 500,000 euros she received from the Secretariat of State through her Slovenia-registered company in 2018 and 2019.

The accusation is that funds intended for humanitarian purposes were used for personal expenses, including stays at luxury hotels and purchases of designer label handbags.

Prosecutors deemed Marogna a flight risk, asking her to be kept in police custody, but her appeal for release was accepted by a Milan court of appeals Oct. 30.

Marogna has said she worked for the Holy See’s Secretariat of State as a security consultant and strategist, and she acknowledged receiving hundreds of thousands of euros from the Vatican, stating that the money all went to her Vatican consultancy work and her salary.

Expensive gifts “were used to create cooperative relationships,” she said.

It has been reported that these payments were made under the direction of the former sostituto of the Secretariat of State, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who has been accused of using Marogna to build “off-books” intelligence networks.

Becciu has also been reported to be under Vatican investigation for his connection to Marogna’s case, but lawyers for the cardinal denied the report in a statement Oct. 28, stating that Becciu has not been contacted by Vatican authorities.

“In the interest of His Eminence the Cardinal, the defense attorneys once again reiterate that their client has not received any communication from the competent authority,” said lawyers Fabio Viglione and Agostinangelo Marras.

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Pope Francis to visit graves of two 20th century Italian priests

April 24, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Apr 24, 2017 / 11:28 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis will make a pilgrimage June 20 to visit the graves of two 20th century Italian priests in the towns of Bozzolo and Bariana, the Vatican announced Monday.

Fr. Lorenzo Milani and Fr. Primo Mazzolari both have reputations for being anti-establishment, though they were obedient to the Church throughout their lives. The Pope’s visit to their graves will take place in a “private and unofficial manner,” the April 24 communique stated.

The pilgrimage takes place in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the death of Fr. Milani, who lived from 1923-1967. Pope Francis spoke about Fr. Milani in a video message to the participants of a presentation on the priest’s complete works in Milan Sunday.

“I would love to remember him especially as a believer, in love with the Church even though he was wounded,” the Pope said in the message April 23, “and as a passionate educator with a vision of the school that seems to me to respond to the need of the hearts and the intelligence of our children and youth.”

Pope Francis’ brief visit – only half a day – will begin with an early morning helicopter flight to Bozzolo June 20, landing at 9:00 a.m. He will be welcomed by the Mayor of Bozzolo and the Bishop of Cremona, Antonio Napolioni.

From there the Pope will proceed to the parish of St. Peter to pray at the tomb of Fr. Primo Mazzolari, after which he will give a commemorative speech to the faithful present at the church.

At 10:30 a.m. he will leave for Barbiana, arriving at the Barbiana church at 11:15 a.m. He will be welcomed there by Cardinal Giuseppe Betori, Archbishop of Florence and the Mayor of Vicchio, a municipality of Florence.

He will then visit privately the cemetery of the church to pray at the grave of Fr. Lorenzo Milani. Afterwards, Pope Francis will meet in the church with still-living disciples of Fr. Milani.

After a short visit to the rectory in the adjacent garden he will give a speech in the presence of around 200 people, including the disciples, priests of the diocese and some children living in family homes in the area. The Pope will return to the Vatican by about 1:15 p.m.

Fr. Milani came from a wealthy but secular family, the son of an atheist father and a Jewish mother. He studied art, which had a profound influence on his conversion to Catholicism and eventual entrance into the priesthood in 1947.

His “frankness that sometimes seemed too rough when not marked by rebellion” carried over even into his priesthood, Pope Francis noted in his video message. This led to some friction and misunderstandings with ecclesiastical and civil structures “because of his educational proposal, his preference for the poor, and defense of conscientious objection.”

Despite this, however, he was always deeply obedient to the Church and to her directives. He once wrote: “I will never oppose the Church because I need (her) several times a week for the forgiveness of my sins, and I would not know to whom else to go to look for it if I had left the Church.”

Fr. Primo Mazzolari lived from 1890-1959. He grew up in a small neighborhood of the town of Cremona, Italy, entering the seminary in 1902. Some have called him a “priest of the embankment,” because he grew up on the banks of the Po River and also at the “embankment” of the Church.

Very politically active, he intervened in the First World War and after, and was so anti-fascist he refused to sing the “Te Deum” after a failed attack on Mussolini by Tito Zaniboni in 1925.

His greatness already recognized, he was invited to the Vatican by both Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI before his death. In 2015 permission was formally granted to open the diocesan phase of Fr. Mazzolari’s cause for beatification.
 
Andrea Gagliarducci contributed to this report.

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