Corruption In Running Vatican City ? Some links

I have an Update at Slander, Gossip , and Truth - Thoughts on Viganò and Vatican " Corruption " Scandal

Well there was a quite a stir in Rome and the Vatican yesterday. It will be interesting to see if the USA secular media takes must interest here since the prime player in this drama is now in the United States. That is Papal Nunico to the USA Archbishop Viganò.

One difficulty is of course I don't speak Italian so I can not judge the fairness or tobeof the Italian TV news show this appeared on. . But if you do you can watch it here.

The best regarded Vatican beat reproter John Allen had a piece up on this pretty quick at Vatican denies corruption charges attributed to U.S. nuncio . As he points out the Vatican did not deny the authenticity of the leaked letter itself. The Italian based Vatican Insider does not have a piece up on this yet on their English page yet but I expect that to change. They have covered the drama on this for some time.

It does not appear we have "corruption" issues here that rocked the Vatican like the bank scandal did in the 1980's. Of course also these are Italians and their view of corruption might be different. Where is the line between giving a contract to the friend of the Church and like someone's nephew. The bigger issue here seems that the credibility of some bankers have been called into question. Were they looking out for their own interests rather than the Holy See's interest for instance.

It does seem that Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano before he was removed in October as the No. 2 administrator of the Vatican city-state did some needed reforms. Though as the Vatican Press people said maybe not all the positives can be just attributed to him.

I suspect in the cause of reform he ruffled a few feathers ( WHO ARE YOU TO BE CHANGING ALL THIS) in places like the Museums and other facets of running the physical plant of the Holy See . Those issues might have little to do with "corruption" but issues of change and people resenting it. For peace perhaps Benedict had to transfer (demote) the Archbishop to Papal Nuncio tot he USA.

The other issue is someone leaked this memo. I would not assume it was the Archbishop which might indicate the battle for good financial practices in the Holy See is far from over.

More Later.