Merchants in the Temple by Gianluigi Nuzzi Page A

came to outwitting the Pope’s auditors. As a result, after more than six months since its inception the Commission was still unable to give the Pope a full and accurate picture of the Vatican’s financial health. There was no way he could know which funds he could earmark for charity, the missions, and all the actions to aid the poor that were the heart and soul of his pontificate. Paradoxical but true: in a theocracy like the Vatican, the Pope could not get his hands on basic information.
    The Pontiff is often the last one to know and to be briefed, especially on money matters. It was still hard for him to know with any precision how much money was coming in and how much was going out. This made it almost impossible for Francis to bring the work of renewal that he was promoting tirelessly every day, inspiring Catholics around the world and filling them with hope. Everything was anesthetized, paralyzed. The smoke screen was obviously not accidental. It was meant to conceal superficiality, inertia, personal interests, and more. Without knowing the financial situation of the Vatican in detail, it was impossible to identify the problems and critical areas, and thus to propose solutions. And the idea of imposing the reforms was unthinkable.
    But the Commission did not give up. Its investigation expanded from the Peter’s Pence and Congregation for Saints to new areas that often harbored surprises. One of its main targets was the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, APSA, the administrative body that manages assets, stocks, and real estate, in addition to minting metal coins, headed by an Italian cardinal and Bertone loyalist: Domenico Calcagno.
    Calcagno had been appointed President of APSA by Benedict XVI in July 2011. He made headlines after an investigative report for the popular Italian TV show Le Iene . The reporter Paolo Trincia found that between 2002 and 2003, Calcagno, as the Bishop of Savona, had ignored repeated instances of sexual violence against minors by a pedophile priest. The diocese of Savona had reportedly been aware of the priest’s strange behavior since 1980, when he was removed from a school in Valleggia, in the province of Savona, after fondling a boy. He was sent to Spotorno (only ten kilometers away), but he was still allowed to supervise a Boy Scout troop at the local Catholic youth center. Following new complaints, the new bishop of the diocese, Monsignor Dante Lanfranconi (currently the Bishop of Cremona) moved the priest to another parish. Once again he was sent to a place only a few kilometers away, in the town of Feglino, where he was allowed to open a community center for troubled youths.
    Calcagno became the Bishop of Savona in 2002. Before dying, Father Carlo Rebagliati, former treasurer of the diocese, revealed that he had warned Calcagno about the pedophile priest and the danger to the minors with whom he was in daily contact. The Bishop’s response, according to Rebagliati, was evasive: “They might just be rumors,” he said. The Bishop had also been contacted by one of the victims of abuse, who testified that, “Calcagno … told me not to go to court, because the priest was a very fragile person who might commit suicide and then I would have that on my conscience.”
    The Bishop did not address the problem until the following year. He wrote a letter to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was then the Prefect to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, asking for “advice on what approach to take.” Calcagno attached a file to the letter. It was an internal document of the Savona diocese, compiled by the Vicar General, Monsignor Andrea Giusto: a chart that summarized the behavior of the priest, going through every instance, from the first episode in 1980 until the most recent complaints twenty-two years later, by social workers from the area. The chart was a blatant admission, in black and white, in which the diocese