Category: Follow The Money

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The Monsignor Who Took Money From the Poor and Binged on Ecstasy and Champagne

By Barbie Latza Nadeau

 

Rev. Pietro Vittorielli
Rev. Pietro Vittorielli

Italian officials say Rev. Pietro Vittorielli stashed church donations for the poor in an account that paid for ecstasy-fueled Rio trip, oysters in London, and a Ralph Lauren wardrobe.

At least it is safe to assume that is the case with Monsignor Pietro Vittorelli, the head of Roman Catholic Benedictine abbey of Montecassino, which was made famous when it was destroyed in Allied bombing in World War II when Britain and the U.S. destroyed it in search of Germans who were thought to be hiding there. The abbey was rebuilt, but the hillsides nearby are dotted with the graves of fallen soldiers.

Vittorelli, who gave up his post at the abbey in 2013, was arrested this week on suspicion of siphoning off nearly $540,000 that was donated under Italy’s “Eight per Thousand” tax break, whereby kind-hearted people donate 8 percent of their income to a religious institution. The funds are an oft-used tax break for Italians and almost always go to Catholic entities.

Instead of reaching the poor, the funds that Vittorelli was supposed to distribute to worthy church-sponsored causes ended up in his personal Italian bank accounts, transferred from the Institute for Religious Works, otherwise known as the Vatican Bank. From those personal accounts, Vittorelli paid a personal credit card on which he charged luxury hotels and expensive meals from Brazil to the U.K., according to Italian investigators.

One entry in his credit-card statement included in the criminal dossier against him was for a $7,000 hotel bill in London, which included room service and hotel meals consisting of oysters and Champagne. On that trip, he is alleged to have spent $740 on one meal alone and more than $1,800 on designer duds from Ralph Lauren.

Another charge shows an extravagant holiday in Rio in 2010 on church funds, where, according to testimony by Italy’s Guardia di Finanza to Judge Virna Passamonti, he paid cash for ecstasy tablets he shared with a variety of suspicious friends.

In one month alone, the partying priest spent $34,800.  The other months he averaged expenses around $5,000.

He also owned four apartments in Rome and two storage facilities, which police claim he rented out as part of an intricate money-laundering scheme to keep the embezzlement hidden. Police say he enlisted his brother Massimo, a financial consultant who allegedly shared the wealth and the keys to safe deposit box No. 236 at Deutsche Bank in Rome. His brother would apparently stash cash that was withdrawn from the abbey’s Vatican Bank account in the secret deposit box until it was safe to deposit it in personal accounts without raising suspicion over having both transactions in the same bank statement period. “The sequence of operations unequivocally proves the intent to hide the path of the sums withdrawn from the accounts of the abbey,” Judge Passamonti wrote in her arrest warrant. “The examination of the financial flows directly documents the accurate operating systems meant to defraud.”

Italian police confiscated property, computers, and belongings found in all of the residences tied to the Vittorelli brothers.

Vittorelli left his post at Montecassino in 2013, citing health problems, and retired in Rome on his substantial, albeit ill-begotten, savings. In 2014, an organization hired by the Vatican Bank to audit its books discovered the money trail and started unraveling the fraudulent behavior that apparently began in 2008.

The latest scandal comes on the heels of two recent books published by Italian journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, who were fed by Italian laywoman Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui and Spanish Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda, who were on a panel meant to clean up the Vatican Bank’s messy accounting system that has been long embroiled in scandals ranging from money laundering to ties to organized crime. Both journalists are under investigation by Vatican authorities, but the Vatican has no jurisdiction to make arrests outside its fortified walls. Vittorelli, however, will join Vallejo Balda in the Vatican jail while both await trial.

Pope Francis has not commented specifically on the latest scandal, but this week he alluded to the problems in Rome. “God save the Italian Church from any form of power, image, and money,” he said on a visit to Florence.  “I prefer a church that is bruised, hurting, and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.“

Francis will embark on a five-day apostolic voyage to Africa on Nov. 25 before returning to Rome to open the doors of St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 8 to kick off the Jubilee year of mercy.

Complete Article HERE!

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Pope Francis dumps 2 more bishops as housecleaning continues

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Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of a Mexican bishop who reportedly shielded a priest accused of sexually molesting an 11-year-old boy, and on Wednesday (July 15) the Vatican announced that a Brazilian archbishop who spent $600,000 on renovations to his home and offices had been dismissed.

The moves are the latest signs that Francis is pursuing a hierarchical housecleaning that aims to address the heart of the clergy sex abuse scandal — accountability for bishops — while also removing prelates who don’t reflect the humble and simple lifestyle he says is key to promoting the gospel.

Bishop Gonzalo Galvan Castillo
Bishop Gonzalo Galvan Castillo

Both Bishop Gonzalo Galvan Castillo, 64, of the Diocese of Autlan in Mexico, and Archbishop Antonio Carlos Altieri, 63, of the Archdiocese of Passo Fundo, Brazil, were well under the canonical retirement age of 75.

They both also resigned under the canon law that says a bishop “who has become less able to fulfill his office because of ill health or some other grave cause is earnestly requested to present his resignation from office.”

That is the statute that is usually cited when a bishop has been forced to step down by Rome because of a scandal.

Galvan’s resignation was quietly noted in a Vatican bulletin on June 25, but Mexican media reports noted that the bishop had been under fire for years for refusing to report to police or remove from ministry a priest, the Rev. Horacio Lopez, suspected of abuse.

Archbishop Antonio Carlos Altieri
Archbishop Antonio Carlos Altieri

In 2009, a 24-year-old man identified only as Eric reported to Galvan that Lopez had sexually molested him when Eric was 11. Eric’s parents also demanded that Galvan take action to prevent the priest from harming other children, but Galvan reportedly transferred Lopez to another parish. The priest’s current whereabouts were not known.

Over the past year, Francis, who was elected pope in 2013, has taken increasingly forceful and unprecedented steps to hold bishops accountable if they do not protect children from abusers.

Earlier this year he established a Vatican commission — which includes two victims of clergy abuse — to set policies for the wider church, and in June he set up a Vatican tribunal to judge and possibly discipline bishops who cover up for abusers, a first.

Two U.S. bishops have also been forced to resign in recent months in the wake of clergy abuse scandals on their watch.

The announcement on Wednesday that Altieri had resigned followed a Vatican-ordered investigation of his archdiocese by Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes.

According to Catholic World News, Altieri had alienated many priests for spending $600,000 on a renovation of his residence, the archdiocesan offices and the seminary. He also instituted a 10 percent diocesan “assessment” on parish income and had questionable policies on accepting seminarians who left other dioceses and religious orders.

In March of last year, Francis accepted the resignation of a German bishop, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, who was dubbed “the Bishop of Bling” after revelations that the price tag on renovations to his home and diocesan offices had skyrocketed to some $40 million.

They included luxury amenities such as a $300,000 ornamental fish tank, $2.4 million for bronze window frames and $240,000 for a spiral staircase.

The bishop also had a free-standing bathtub, created by French designer Philippe Starck and featuring headrests at both ends, installed at a reported cost of about $20,000.

That all came to light just a few months after Francis was elected pope and began inveighing against churchmen who live like princes instead of leading humble lives marked by simplicity and service.
Complete Article HERE!

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Norway Police Raid Catholic Diocese Premises

Bishop Bernt Ivar Eidsvig is charged with aggravated fraud.

Norway Police Raid Catholic Diocese Premises

Photo: Jan-Erik Løken | Bishop Bernt Ivar Eidsvig

Finance and Environment Crime Section of the Oslo police raided administration premises of Roman Catholic Diocese of Oslo (OKB) this morning at 9.00.

After Dagbladet revealed that the Catholic church has registered unsuspecting persons as members and received public support on the basis of inflated membership figures for several years, County Governor of Oslo and Akershus decided to start an investigation in November.

This morning, Oslo police raided the administration building of Roman Catholic Diocese and two residents this morning in the frame of the fraud allegations.

Oslo Catholic Diocese and two people including the bishop are now charged with aggravated fraud, summing 50 million NOK, said prosecutor Kristin Rusdal to Dagbladet.

Bishop Bernt Eidsvig previously rejected that the suspicious membership registration that the church practices may be illegal.
Complete Article HERE!

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Church digs up graveyard to build ‘£1m home’ for vicar: Neighbours ‘disgusted’ after watching bones being exhumed to make way for house

  • Loughton Baptist Church is building the home for Reverend Wayne Dulson
  • Neighbours saw graves pre-dating 1860 dug up to make way for property
  • Plans for the home were initially turned down by Epping Forest Council
  • They were overturned on appeal to the planning inspectorate  

By Andrew Levy

A vicar has outraged neighbours after having bodies exhumed to make way for his new family home next to the church.

Residents, including children, watched as bones from resting places pre-dating 1860 were dug up and transferred to coffins before being taken away.Reverend Wayne Dulson

They say they are disgusted at the Reverend Wayne Dulson and Loughton Baptist Church’s lack of sensitivity over the matter and claim the move is motivated by money.

The locals claim a perfectly good four-bedroom manse not far from the Essex church was sold last year for £630,000 to fund the project and the new one could be worth over £1million when complete.

Underwriter Colin Hart, 50, whose family home backs on to the church, said: ‘I’m disgusted that a supposed man of the cloth should go round digging up bodies from their final place of rest. Local people have entrusted their loved ones to this church and this is how they behave.’

His wife, Julie, 48, added: ‘Whatever happened to rest in peace? We woke up to the sound of a JCB out the back and you could see them loading coffins from the back garden.’

Mother-of-four Simone Cohen, 52, said: ‘What I found most upsetting was that when they transferred the bones into coffins, the children could see everything.’

Complete Article HERE!

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Trial showed that Kansas City diocese hasn’t learned enough from its past

By Mary Sanchez

The Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph showed itself as a forgiving, diligent shepherd in the civil trial just concluded.

But the sheltering love was for priests’ welfare first. Less attention was apparent for parishioners’ concerns, and certainly not for vulnerable children.

Given the testimony of denial by multiple priests, it’s questionable how far deeply ingrained attitudes have really shifted. In recent years, changes came about when the diocese was forced through repeated pleas by the faithful, multimillion-dollar settlements and court orders.

The trial’s conclusion was halted by a nearly $10 million settlement that lumped together multiple cases. But the jury trial was intended to weigh the sexual abuse accusations of a former altar boy, now a 44-year-old man.

Nearly two weeks of proceedings put on public display how the diocese for five decades — through four bishops — rationalized its decisions and struggles with pedophile priests.

The diocese put forth a shameful record in its own defense.Finn

Letters and verbal complaints of specific troubling incidents, dating back to the mid-1970s, were initially dismissed. Sexually inappropriate advances were seen as raucous and drunken behavior, something that a priest could be chided for and then ushered back to the rectory. There seemed to be a belief, a misplaced hope, that treating a priest for alcoholism could also cure pedophilia, as if the criminal behavior was only contingent upon the drinking. For some bishops, there appeared to be confusion about the difference between homosexuality and the sexual abuse of children.

The church can choose to see the first as sinful. But to attack an innocent child is a crime. Such lack of common sense, that inability to separate church doctrine from criminal acts, is baffling.

In the 1980s, the diocese put its faith into what one expert testified was once common, moving a priest known to be struggling with sexual issues to a job as a hospital chaplain. One of the lawsuits settled this week was filed by a man who said he awoke from surgery to find a priest masturbating him.

Some of the deceased bishops’ actions can be understood better in the context of the times. Society in general is thankfully more informed about sexual abuse, how children are groomed to be victims.

But it’s a shallow defense.

Federal laws mandating that certain people must report suspected child abuse have been around since the mid-1970s. They always included clergy.

The priest in this case was still a priest when he died in 2013. He had been barred from performing some religious rites, but he was never formally defrocked. Monsignor Thomas O’Brien was treated as just another retired priest, his well-being taken care of as if he had served God and the diocese well in his time on Earth.

Before the settlement, O’Brien alone had already cost the diocese more than $7 million. And he’s just one priest who has been accused.

The question has always been, to what extent did the diocese shield its clergy at the cost of its flock? And why?

After this trial, we know more. But the jury was never going to hear the full story. Crucial information, broader context, was not allowed due to legal agreements between the parties to limit the case. Yet those elements draw a better picture of how the diocese mismanaged these problems, with one poor decision often leading to another.

Jurors were not told that one altar boy took his own life. They were not to know that O’Brien was believed to molest boys in tandem with another priest, Thomas Reardon, who has left the priesthood and has also been the subject of many lawsuits.

And they could hear no mention of former priest Shawn Ratigan.

Ratigan, sentenced last year to 50 years in prison for child pornography, is the link that makes the diocese’s past history so disturbing. Because the diocese used some of the same rationalizations initially for Ratigan’s behavior as they used in the 1970s and 1980s.

A long letter from a parish school principal detailed disturbing behavior by Ratigan toward children. The letter was not taken seriously by diocese officials. When disturbing pictures were found on Ratigan’s computer, he was simply shifted to another location and he abused again. Those decisions led to the misdemeanor charge of failure to report suspected abuse against the sitting bishop, Robert Finn.

It is only because of the Ratigan criminal trial that this civil proceeding came to be. Publicity about Ratigan’s case was the kick-start that brought these new allegations forward. So the past of the diocese is intricately linked to its more recent woes.

Certainly the addition of two non-clerical ombudsmen to handle allegations of abuse is significant. The two female workers have made prompt and appropriate reports. Most important, they’ve kept the diocese in compliance with the law when accusations have been raised the past three years.

Finn would not allow any non-monetary agreements to be tacked to this settlement. The diocese is still reeling from its breach of similar agreements to keep it on track, doing the right thing for parishioners. That lapse cost the diocese $1.1 million earlier this year.

These cases are not just about money. Lives have been ruined.

Among the most stoic in the courtroom were Don and Rosemary Teeman, with whom the diocese settled a lawsuit last year. Their son Brian committed suicide after serving as an altar boy at the same time as the plaintiff in this case.

These forever-grieving parents listened to detailed accounts suggesting the diocese knew this priest was a danger before he met their son. They believe Brian took his life after being molested by O’Brien.

No testimony changes their reality. The Teemans have two grandsons by their daughter. One boy bears a remarkable likeness to Brian.

But they do not have their son.

“They should have done something; it could have been stopped,” Rosemary Teeman commented midway through the trial. “I’d have a bigger family.”

Upon that truth is where the diocese should begin post-trial reflection.

Complete Article HERE!