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The media campaign kicked off last month with the publication on television news program "The Untouchables" of leaked letters from the former No. 2 in the Vatican city state administration, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, to Benedict and Bertone in 2011. In one, Vigano begged not to be transferred after exposing what he said was corruption in the awarding of Vatican contracts. Vigano was subsequently named the Vatican's ambassador to Washington
-- a high-ranking post that was perhaps better suited to his diplomatic background but that nevertheless sealed the impression that he had been punished for stepping on too many toes in his cost-cutting efforts. Lombardi initially issued a lengthy statement lamenting the leak but insisting that Vigano enjoyed the "undoubtable esteem and trust of the pope." A week later, Vigano's now-retired boss and the three current top officials of the Vatican city state changed course, saying Vigano's assertions were the baseless "fruit of erroneous evaluations." Lombardi subsequently shot down an article in the leading newspaper Corriere della Sera suggesting that a monsignor with links to the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints had lost euro1.6 million by investing with a Bernard Madoff-like schemer. Corriere identified the source of that story as Luca Tescaroli, the Rome prosecutor who has pursued a 30-year-old case concerning the worst scandal at the IOR: the death of Roberto Calvi, the Catholic banker who helped managed the Vatican's investments and was found hanging from London's Blackfriars Bridge in 1982. Calvi headed the Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed in 1982 after the disappearance of $1.3 billion in loans made to dummy companies in Latin America. The Vatican had provided letters of credit for the loans. Calvi was found hanging a short time later, his pockets loaded with bricks and cash. After an initial ruling of suicide, murder charges were filed against five people, including a major Mafia figure, but all were acquitted. While denying wrongdoing, the Vatican Bank paid $250 million to Ambrosiano's creditors. The case remains unresolved, but Tescaroli has recently revived judicial requests to the Vatican for information about it
-- information the Vatican insists it has provided. Tescaroli was the featured guest this week on "The Untouchables," which has been on a campaign of sorts against the IOR. It is hosted by Gianluigi Nuzzi, author of the 2009 book Vatican SpA about the IOR scandals that was based on a trove of leaked Vatican documents. Separately, the IOR's president and director general remain under investigation by Rome prosecutors who allege they broke Italian law in 2010 by trying to transfer money from two IOR accounts without identifying the sender or recipient. The Vatican says the matter was the result of a misunderstanding. Almost lost in all the noise was a victory that the Holy See scored for the IOR in the United States on Feb. 1: A federal judge in Mississippi dismissed with prejudice a fraud and racketeering lawsuit against the Holy See filed in 2002 by the insurance commissioners of five southern states alleging Vatican involvement in jailed financier Martin Frankel's scheme to buy and loot insurance companies of some $200 million. The Vatican's lawyer called for the media to report on the "undignified" demise of the case and not just on claims of corruption. "That inflammatory allegations against the Holy See and the IOR are easily disseminated and make good fodder for conspiracy theorists cannot be doubted," the lawyer said in a statement.
[Associated
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