Dark Mysteries of the Vatican

by H. Paul Jeffers

  After St. Peter’s Tomb, the Pietà Chapel is the most frequently visited and silent place in the entire basilica. The sculpture is protected by bulletproof glass to prevent a repeat of an attack upon it by a deranged man. In 1972, a thirty-three-year-old, Hungarian-born Australian, Laszlo Toth, leaped over a guardrail in St. Peter’s crying, “I’m Jesus Christ!” and attacked the statue with a hammer. The left arm of the Virgin was shattered and the nose, left eye, and veil were chipped. The attack was the first major damage suffered by a work of art in St. Peter’s since a German broke two fingers off the statue of a kneeling Pope Pius VI in 1970.

  The museums of the Vatican are filled with artwork by Giotto, Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael, among many others. The libraries of the Vatican hold ancient manuscripts of the Bible and other literature, in some cases the only copy of a certain work. The buildings of the Vatican, especially St. Peter’s Basilica, are ornamented with gold, silver, precious stones, and the finest marble. “To understand why the Pope has such collections,” explained the Vatican’s expert in charge of maintaining them, Maurizio de Luca, “one must think about what the Church and the pope have meant over the centuries. The popes and their court at the time were the greatest supporters of culture. This is the place where the popes put some of the greatest artists to work and these have now become collections.”

  In 2001, “two former senior officials at the Vatican were charged in Rome in connection with an alleged art fraud. Monsignor Michele Basso, an ex-administrator of the chapter of St. Peter’s, and Monsignor Mario Giordana, a former counselor in the Vatican’s Italian embassy, were accused of trying to sell works of art falsely attributed to artists such as Michelangelo, Guercino and Giambologna, to art institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the National Gallery in Washington…. The most remarkable works were a marble bust, the Young St. Johnthe Baptist, attributed to Michelangelo, and an antique Greek vase attributed to Euphronius. The officials allegedly used headed Vatican notepaper to authenticate the works and enhance their value.”

  Because the Vatican is both a city and a state (both within the city of Rome), it runs in the same manner as governments, with a need to account for all its wealth, but it also operates like a worldwide corporation. Author Karl Keating recently noted that the Vatican’s annual budget was about the size of that of the Archdiocese of Chicago. The funds went partly for the upkeep of the Vatican itself and partly for the Church’s missionary and other work around the world.

  “I suppose we could ask why the Vatican has trouble balancing its rather small annual budget,” Keating wrote. “The wealth of the Church is almost entirely in church buildings, hospitals, schools, and missions, plus artworks. You could sell off the artworks, but the proceeds wouldn’t feed the poor of the world for even a day.

  “If the Vatican sold all its artworks, they would bring in hundreds of millions of dollars—but only once. Then they would be gone, and that money wouldn’t go very far…. The popes are custodians, not owners. They have a responsibility to preserve its artistic treasures for posterity, not to sell them off to private collections.”

  It has been calculated that “it costs about $250 million a year to operate the Vatican. The money comes from…contributions from bishops’ conferences, dioceses, religious orders, individual lay donors, and ‘other entities.’ For 2004, that total came to $89 million. Of this amount, roughly $27.2 million came from individual dioceses under the terms of canon 1271 of the Code of Canon Law, which obligated dioceses to contribute to the financial support of the Holy See. This means that the 2,883 ecclesiastical jurisdictions in the world gave an average of $10,000 each in 2004…. Wealthy archdioceses gave much more, a lot of smaller dioceses gave little or nothing.”

  The Vatican also garners “earnings on real estate, which refers principally to roughly 30 buildings and 1,700 apartments owned by the Holy See in Rome, which produced revenue of $64.5 million in 2004. Earnings [also come] from investments and other financial activities, with the Vatican’s portfolio divided into 80 percent bonds and 20 percent stocks. In 2004, the Vatican’s financial statement did not provide a comprehensive total,” but experts said the “earnings must have been in the range of $100 million. The statement noted that this was an improvement of $21.5 million, attributed to an improved situation in the world financial markets in 2004.”

  “[A 2004] statement from the Vatican indicated that contributions to Peter’s Pence, a fund to support papal charities that are not part of the regular Vatican budget, totaled $52 million,…a decline of 7.4 percent.”

  The best-selling author and Chicago priest, Father Andrew Greeley, wrote, “There was perhaps a time when the Church was truly rich (and that is another story), but the Reformation and the French Revolution ended that. Catholicism is property poor. What, for example, is the replacement value of St. Peter’s [Basilica] in the Vatican? Who would buy it? How much income does it produce a year? In fact, the votive candle offerings—its only source of income—barely pay for maintenance. And what would someone do with it if they purchased it, especially once they discovered it was a loss leader? Build condos over it? What would one do with the Vatican museum? Maybe the Italian government could buy it as a station on the unfinished Roman metro line. The Vatican’s endowment is less than that of a mid-level American Catholic university. It necessarily lives a hand-to-mouth financial existence. It puts on a great show with its splendors and its ceremonies, but the wealth that paid for its splendors vanished long ago and it can barely pay for the ceremonies.”

  “The Vatican’s assets [have always been] a well-kept secret but one which is the topic of much speculation. Estimates range from $1.5 billion to $15 billion and more. They include works of art and buildings, which for the most part cannot be sold. Large parts of the Vatican’s assets are in securities and gold reserves. Additional assets are in rental revenues, the sale of coins, stamps and souvenirs.” Like palaces, royal residences, historic stately homes and manors in Great Britain, the Vatican has become a tourist attraction and money raiser.

  Financial experts note that despite its wealth, the Vatican’s budget has shown a deficit of several million dollars since 2001, but its debt is secured by assets. The largest include the Vatican’s properties in and around Rome, the papacy’s summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, office buildings, palaces and cathedrals. Vatican City, with fortress walls dating back to the sixteenth century, gained independent status in 1929 after the conclusion of “Lateran Pacts” with Italy. On February 11 of that year, Pope Pius XI and Benito Mussolini created the Vatican in its current dimensions and secured additional sovereignty rights and buildings.

  According to Ivan Ruggiero, the Holy See’s chief accountant, Vatican real estate is worth about $1.21 billion, not including its priceless art treasures. “The value of the real estate holding was calculated without taking into account its real value on the market,” said Ruggiero. “And of course, the vast artistic holding of the Holy See was not taken into account, since it is a priceless and non-commercial holding. (Because of it being ‘priceless,’ the value of the art treasures has been listed as ‘One Euro.’)” St. Peter’s Basilica is categorized “beyond market values.”

  In July 2008, the Associated Press reported that the Vatican ran a deficit in 2007, which the Holy See attributed to “the weak dollar in the generous collection baskets from the U.S. faithful,” and steep costs of running the Vatican’s media (a newspaper and radio station). “The Vatican issued financial figures showing a nearly $13.5 million deficit. It cited the sharp drop in the exchange rate for the U.S. dollar. The Vatican in Rome pays many of its expenses in euros, a currency that had soared in value against the U.S. dollar. The financial report, released by the Holy See’s press office, listed 2007 revenue of $371.97 million against expenses of $386.27 million.

  “The Vatican said its financial investments were hurt ‘principally by the sharp and rather marked inversion in exchange rates, above all for the
U.S. dollar.’ The Vatican said rents and other income from its vast real estate holdings helped its finances. The Vatican Museums, which include the Sistine Chapel, a top tourist attraction, also helped the Holy See’s finances.”

  “The Vatican’s annual Peter’s Pence collection worldwide found that the U.S. faithful were the most generous in absolute terms of the amount donated, more than $18.7 million.”

  “No nation of Catholics gives more than Americans. A cardinals’ advisory committee on Holy See finances released a report in 2008 that showed the U.S. was the top contributor nation ($19 million, or 29% of the total) to the Holy See’s charitable spending in 2007, and came in second (after Germany) in contributions to the support of the Holy See itself.”

  In 2007, the Vatican decided to “give financial rewards to employees who were doing a good job.” “It said it would take into account employee ‘dedication, professionalism, productivity and correctitude’ when awarding a pay rise…. More than 4,000 people, from cardinals to cleaners,” were employed by the Holy See in the Vatican. “Base pay across a broad spectrum of jobs reportedly ranged from 1,100 euros ($1,634) to 2,200 euros ($3,268) a month.” A recent account gave the number of employees at 2,659, of which 744 were diocesan priests, 351 men and women in religious orders, and 1,564 laity.

  When Pope John XIII was asked how many people worked in the Vatican, he quipped, “About half.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Naughty Priests

  When a Texas lawyer was digging in Vatican archives in 2003 in the pursuit of cases on behalf of American victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, he found a document titled De Modo Provedendi di Causis Crimine Soliciciones (On the Manner of Proceeding in Cases of the Crime of Solicitation). Bearing the signature and seal of Pope John XXIII, it was written in 1962 by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani and distributed to senior clerics all over the world with an order that it was to be kept secret.

  The sixty-nine-page document dealt primarily with any priest who tempted anyone in the act of sacramental confession “towards impure or obscene matters.”

  Bishops who received the order were instructed to pursue these cases “in the most secretive way.” Everyone involved, including the alleged victim, was sworn “to observe the strictest secret, which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office” under penalty of excommunication. The “worst crime” was defined as “any obscene external deed, gravely sinful,” carried out by a cleric “with a person of his own sex.” The document was described as “strictly confidential” and was not to be published.

  Seven centuries before Pope John XXIII authorized the Vatican’s cover-up of sexual abuse of boys and young men by priests, St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) stated “right reason declares the appointed end of sexual acts is procreation,” and declared that homosexuality was one of the gravest of the peccata contra naturam or “sins against nature.” But buried in Vatican archives are records of papal misbehavior that included Pope Clement VII having sex with page boys, Benedict IX engaging in both bestiality and bi-sexual orgies, and Boniface VII being described as a “monster” and a criminal. Leo I was a sadist and torturer, Julius III sodomized young boys, Clement VI frequented prostitutes, Anacletus raped nuns, and Paul II liked watching naked men being put on the rack and tortured.

  Vatican archives and Church records attest to the problem of priestly sexual misbehavior, the Church’s struggle to stamp it out, and instances of covering it up. One week after the election of the present Pope, Benedict XVI, in 2005, it was reported that in his previous position as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith he had issued an order ensuring that investigations into sex abuse claims against priests be carried out in secret. It was alleged “in a confidential letter which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001. It asserted the Church’s right to hold inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to ten years after the victims reached adulthood. The letter was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (the Pope’s name before he was elected as John Paul II’s successor).

  “Lawyers acting for many abuse victims claimed that the letter was designed to prevent the allegations from becoming public knowledge or being investigated by the police. They accused Cardinal Ratzinger of committing a ‘clear obstruction of justice.’

  “The letter, ‘concerning very grave sins,’ was sent from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office that once presided over the Inquisition…. It spelled out to bishops the church’s position on a number of matters ranging from celebrating the Eucharist with a non-Catholic to sexual abuse by a cleric ‘with a minor below the age of eighteen years.’ Ratzinger’s letter stated that the church could claim jurisdiction in cases where abuse had been ‘perpetrated with a minor by a cleric.’ The letter stated that the church’s jurisdiction ‘begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age’ and lasts for 10 years. It ordered that the ‘preliminary investigations’ into any claims of abuse should be sent to Ratzinger’s office, which had the option of referring them back to private tribunals….

  “Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret,” Ratzinger’s letter concluded. Breaching the pontifical secret at any time while the 10-year jurisdiction order was operating carried penalties, including threat of excommunication.

  “The letter was referred to in documents relating to a lawsuit filed earlier this year against a church in Texas and Ratzinger on behalf of two alleged abuse victims. By sending the letter, lawyers acting for the alleged victims claimed, the cardinal conspired to obstruct justice. Daniel Shea, the lawyer for the two alleged victims who discovered the letter, said: ‘It speaks for itself. It’s an obstruction of justice.’…

  “Shea criticized the order that abuse allegations should be investigated only in secret tribunals. ‘They are imposing procedures and secrecy on these cases. If law enforcement agencies find out about the case, they can deal with it. But you can’t investigate a case if you never find out about it. If you can manage to keep it secret for 18 years plus 10 the priest will get away with it,’ Shea added.”

  When Pope Benedict XVI made his first visit to the United States in April 2008, he told reporters on his plane on the way to Washington, DC, that the sexual abuse of children “is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen.” He said, “As I read the histories of those victims, it is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way. Their mission was to give healing, to give the love of God to these children. We are deeply ashamed and we will do what is possible that this cannot happen in the future.”

  Drawing a distinction between priests with homosexual tendencies and those inclined to molest children, the pontiff said, “I would not speak at this moment about homosexuality, but pedophilia, which is another thing. And we would absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry.”

  Asserting that anyone guilty of pedophilia “cannot be a priest,” he said that church officials were going through the seminaries that train would-be priests to make sure that those candidates have no such tendencies. “We’ll do all that is possible to have a strong discernment, because it is more important to have good priests than to have many priests,” he said. “We hope that we can do, and we have done and will do in the future, all that is possible to heal this wound.”

  The Vatican archives and the annals of Christianity going back almost two thousand years contain accounts of the struggle with sexual misdeeds. In the year A.D. 390, Emperor Valentinian II was strongly influenced by his Christian beliefs when he decreed that men committing sodomy “shall expiate a crime of this kind in avenging flames in the sight of the people.” In eighth-century England, a book that referred to sexual crimes committed by clerics against children, the Penitential Bede, advised that clerics who committed sodomy with children be given severe penalties, depending on their rank. In A.D. 1179, a Church counc
il decreed that clerics who had committed “sins against nature” be confined to a monastery for life or be forced to leave the Church. In the sixteenth century, Pope Pius IV issued the first papal decree condemning solicitation of sex by priests. The next major statement of Church law, Sacramentum Poenitentiae, issued on June 1, 1741, by Pope Benedict XIV, decreed that all attempts by priests to lead congregants into sex be condemned. In 1917, a code was promulgated containing language condemning solicitation. Legislation on the subject of sexual solicitation was issued again in 1922.

  At the time of the discovery of Pope John XXIII’s 1962 secrecy edict in 2003, The New York Times News Service reported, “The sex-abuse crisis that engulfed the Roman Catholic Church during the past twelve months has spread to nearly every American diocese and involves more than 1,200 priests, most of whose careers span a mix of church history and seminary training. These priests are known to have abused more than 4,000 minors over the past six decades, according to an extensive New York Times survey of documented cases of sexual abuse by priests through Dec. 31, 2002. The survey, the most complete compilation of data on the problem available, contains the names and histories of 1,205 accused priests. It counted 4,268 people who claimed publicly or in lawsuits to have been abused by priests, though experts say there are surely many more who have remained silent. But the data show that priests secretly violated vulnerable youth long before the first victims sued the church and went public in 1984 in Louisiana. Some offenses date from the 1930s.”