Will the Vatileaks case be reopened?

Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the former president of the Board of Superintendency of the Institute of Religious Works (IOR) or the Vatican Bank, was recently exonerated by the Italian Courts. Tedeschi had been appointed to the position of president of the Board of Superintendency in 2009 by Pope Benedict. At the time, a column in the Our Sunday Visitor reporting on the papal appointment stated that "Gotti Tedeschi's mandate was crystal clear: to ensure the bank operated according to the highest ethical principles, and could not be used for illicit purposes, including money laundering." In May 2012, Tedeschi was terminated, ousted, or forced to resign (depending upon which account one reads) following a no confidence vote by the four fellow members of the Board; this move subsequently received the sanction of the Commission of Cardinals. Tedeschi was accused of substantial malfeasance as well as illegal acts. The Italian authorities have now charged the banks' former director general (Paoli Capriani) and his deputy (Massino Tulli) will money laundering and other criminal acts. These two gentlemen allegedly opposed actions taken and proposed by Tedeschi to upgrade the bank's operations so that it would comply with international banking standards. They may have engineered Tedeschi's ouster and most certainly supported it. Capriani and Tulli resigned in July 2013 at the time that Pope Francis appointed a Commission of Inquiry to examine the bank's operations and to make recommendations with respect to its future. Coincidence?

In 2012, Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone also served as the head of the Commission of Cardinals which oversees the Board of Superintendency and all other bank governance and operations. Bertone was also alleged to be behind Tedeschi's ouster. At the time, Tedeschi was also accused of being the mole behind the Vatileaks scandal; the papal butler was convicted in a Vatican court and subsequently pardoned by the pope.

Some have postulated that it was the bank's ongoing and still unfolding financial scandals coupled with the sacking of his appointed reformer which proved to be the "last straw" leading to Pope Benedict's decision to resign the papacy. Two weeks before Pope Benedict resigned in February 2013, he appointed Ernst von Freyberg as president of the Board of Superintendency to succeed Tedeschi. Freyberg served both as president of the Board of Superintendency and director general from July 2013 through November 2013, when Rolando Marranci was appointed director general.

As of May 2012, the Board of Superintendency was comprised of : President Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, Vice President Ronaldo Hermann Schmitz, Secretary Carl Anderson, Manuel Soto Serrano, and Antonio Maria Marocco. Today the composition of this Board remains the same except that Ernst von Freyberg is now president having replaced Tedeschi. In November 2013, Pietro Parolin was appointed Vatican Secretary of State by Pope Francis following Bertone's resignation. The Secretary of State continues to serve as a member of the bank's Commission of Cardinals. With exception of the four holdover members of the Board of Superintendency (Schmitz, Anderson, Serrano, and Marocco), there appears to have been a complete personnel change within the upper levels of bank governance. These four individuals were the ones who effected the ouster of Tedeschi. Carl Anderson, presumably acting in his capacity as secretary, issued a scathing statement outlining the charges against Tedeschi and the basis for the Board's lack of confidence in both his leadership style and management skills. Now that Tedeschi has been exonerated and has stated his intent to pursue further legal action to not only clear his name but to uncover the unethical and illegal acts of those, who wrongly dismissed him, or those, who acted through those individuals, what is to become of those four holdovers members of the Board of Superintendency? At a minimum, these four individuals appear to have surrendered all personal credibility and integrity by their actions of May 2012.

Will the Vatileaks investigation be reopened now that the alleged "higher up" has been exonerated? Will another "butler" (read: low level functionary) be found to take the fall? Remember this go-a-round is being played out in the Italian civil courts. A papal pardon is not in play. The actors are international financiers and bankers. This is a very different case of characters and environment than the papal household, where employment security and pensions may hold sway. Will former members of the Commission of Cardinals be "outed" relative to this matter in upcoming months? Who will meet an untimely and mysterious death this time? Who will retire to some sunny Arizona? Will there be one or more convictions in a court of law over which a papal pardon is ineffectual?