Merchants in the Temple by Gianluigi Nuzzi Read Free Book Online Page A

linked to canonization or beatification procedures. At the IOR, a total of almost 40 million euros was blocked. 18

    Panic at the IOR
    The next day, Tuesday, August 6, the situation became even more tense. At VISA-POS, the IOR office that handles ATM and credit card transactions, one bank official had hesitations. Stefano De Felici wanted written confirmation that the credit cards of a series of high-level clients had been blocked. He gave nine names to the Deputy General Director of the Institute, Rolando Marranci, highlighting the two most prominent names in bold:
    Good morning.
    On the basis of various communications that this office has received, the following credit cards linked to the accounts of physical persons are to be blocked. Here is the list:

Client
  
Name
19878
  
Ambrosi, Andrea
15395
  
Batelja, Rev. Juraj
29913
  
Gänswein, H.E. Mons. Georg
24002
  
Kasteel, Mons. Karel
10673
  
Marrazzo, P. Antonio
27831
  
Murphy, Mons. Joseph
29343
  
Nemeth, Mons. Laszlo Imre
18635
  
Paglia, H.E. Mons. Vicenzo
18625
  
Tisler, Rev. Piotr

    I hereby request confirmation that I should proceed to block these accounts.
    The measures had also affected the bank account of Monsignor Georg Gänswein, the former personal secretary of Benedict XVI, and now the prefect of the Pontifical House. Also blocked were the accounts of Antonio Marrazzo, postulator for the beatification of Paul VI, Giovanni Battista Montini; and of Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family. With the first moves of the Commission, there was already a risk of a diplomatic incident. To prevent matters from escalating, the general accountant of the Prefecture, Stefano Fralleoni, who had attended many of the international auditors’ meetings and was now helping COSEA with its investigations, wrote directly to von Freyberg:
    The provision for the temporary blocking of the accounts of postulators and single causes [for canonization] opened at the IOR and APSA should not be applied to the personal accounts of religious postulators and/or employees of the Holy See who meet the proper requirements to hold an account there.
    The postulators were almost all religious, with the exception of two laypeople, the already mentioned Andrea Ambrosi and Silvia Correale. The only safe accounts were those held by religious people or employees who had the right and met the requirements for an account at the Vatican financial institutions. Unfortunately from the documentation examined I am unable to establish which of the four hundred accounts was immediately unblocked. In all probability, they included Monsignor Gänswein’s.
    Deputy General Director Marranci received the order directly from Fralleoni. 19
    The accounts of Andrea Ambrosi and Silvia Correale do not seem to meet the normal requirements that exist for religious personnel or employees of the institutions of the Holy See. It is thus requested as a precautionary measure, and while awaiting the institution’s clarifications of the modalities and origins of the amounts present in these accounts, that the temporary blocking of activities be extended also to the accounts held by the persons highlighted above, according to the same modalities as the accounts held by Causes.
    Ambrosi had approximately one million euros in his three bank accounts at the IOR blocked. The Prefecture and COSEA demanded an explanation from him. Ambrosi defended himself in a letter he wrote to Marranci on August 20:
    After being introduced by Cardinal Salvatore Pappalardo in around 1985, having engaged in the activities of a postulator, he [Ambrosi, referring to himself in the third person] was allowed to open a personal account, with the exact numbers 19878001/2/3. In the past thirty years there has been a flow into these accounts first of credit from the stakeholders in the various causes as well as donations from the parents of the