Vatican's Former Chief Auditor: “We were getting too close to information that they wanted to be secret, and they fabricated a situation for me to be thrown out.”

Francis and then auditor general, Libero Milone in 2016

Amidst the idol worship and liberation theology teach-ins of the Amazon Synod, there's a huge perhaps more old-fashioned scandal brewing in the Vatican.

It was initially hoped by some that Francis would be a potential anti-corruption reformer, perhaps because he was an "outsider."

That he had been a high-level prelate in Argentina, one of the most corrupt modern societies on the planet, was conveniently ignored. 

From the Financial Times, 10/3/19:

Ousted auditor says he got too close to secret Vatican accounts 

Libero Milone believes his probe into huge sums held ‘off the books’ led to his removal 

The Vatican’s former chief auditor believes he was ousted after investigating secret bank accounts, some of which have now been linked to a London property deal that has prompted an internal Holy See inquiry into possible financial irregularities. 

Libero Milone told the Financial Times that he thinks he was forced to resign two years ago because of information he requested about hundreds of millions of dollars held “off the books” by Vatican entities in Switzerland. 

“Some people got worried that I was about to uncover something I shouldn’t see,” said Mr Milone, a former chairman of Deloitte in Italy who was hired by Pope Francis in 2015 as the Vatican’s first chief auditor. 

“We were getting too close to information that they wanted to be secret, and they fabricated a situation for me to be thrown out.” 

Last month Vatican police raided the offices of its Secretariat of State, the Holy See’s central administrator, to seize documents and computers linked to a $200m investment by the agency in a plan to build 49 luxury apartments in London’s Chelsea district. 

Mr Milone left the Vatican after he was accused by its police of spying and embezzlement. Vatican authorities later dropped all charges, which the former chief auditor has always denied. Mr Milone said Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, then second-in-command of the Secretariat who authorised the London property deal, told him he would have to leave the Vatican. 

The Vatican did not respond to a request for comment on Mr Milone’s allegations. 

Go here to read the rest. 

In sharing this story on Twitter this morning, Edward Pentin wrote:

The Vatican’s ex-auditor general first said this publicly back in 2017. The Vatican also exonerated him of any wrong-doing last year but the mainstream media, particularly in Italy, has largely ignored all of this. Why?