Pope Francis has stripped the Vatican’s powerful central administration office of an investment portfolio worth hundreds of millions of euros following a scandal involving luxury real estate development in London, Chelsea.
The Vatican has said that all the financial assets of the State Secretariat, the State Bureau of the Holy See, will be placed under the control of APSA, the existing central asset manager of the Vatican, from the beginning of the new year.
The announcement follows Pope Francis who earlier this year called for the resignation of Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, who oversaw the secretariat’s investments, from 2011 to 2018 amid an ongoing investigation by Vatican police into how these funds management is. Cardinal Becciu denied any wrongdoing.
The pope has requested the resignation of Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, who has denied any wrongdoing © Gregorio Borgia / AP
The Vatican also said that Pope Francis had ordered the secretariat that the so-called Peter’s Pence charitable donations made by Catholics around the world would now be placed under the control of APSA.
The Financial Times reported extensively on how hundreds of millions of assets held by the secretariat in Swiss bank accounts were invested in assets, including a property development scheme in Chelsea, which according to the Vatican said the Catholic Church had suffered huge losses.
Gianluigi Torzi, a London-based Italian businessman who represented the secretariat in London’s real estate investments, was arrested earlier this year and charged by the Vatican with “extortion, embezzlement, serious fraud and self-laundering”. Mr. Torzi, who was later released from custody, denies any wrongdoing.
Last month, at the request of the Vatican’s judicial authorities, the Italian financial police issued a warrant of inquiry and seizure against a group of people involved in the secretariat’s investments, including a suspended Vatican official and Raffaele Mincione. , a fund manager in London who oversaw the Chelsea property development.
Mr. Mincione, who denies any wrongdoing, said he “cooperated fully and went beyond what was required”, and that he was confident that the investigation “lacked [his] involvement with regard to what may be intended by the authorities of the Holy See ”.
APSA President Nunzio Galantino said the secretariat’s investment in the London Development Scheme had a direct impact on the decision to deprive it of its financial assets.
“The London property case has helped us understand what governance mechanisms need to be strengthened,” he said in a commentary on Vatican State News. “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 it”.
Mr. Galantino also said the pope had long demanded that there be a “clearer distinction” between Peter’s Pence charities managed by the secretariat and other funds.