The Bergoglio Money Changers

“Hagan Lio” is the favorite saying of the Argentine Bergoglio. “Make a mess” serves as the motif of this Papacy. The Vatican financial mess may be his undoing.

The title of this Vatican financial intrigue should be called the Money Changers. The financial despoiling of the sanctity of the temple is a daily occurrence at the highest level of the Francis Vatican. Scandal upon scandal envelops Francis and his minions. This should be a cautionary tale for we know what Jesus Christ did to the Money Changers in the Temple.

This financial scandal is so endemic, pernicious, and long running that it has been given a name by the Italian Police. Police code-named it “Operation Broking Bad,” an apparent play on the TV series “Breaking Bad”. The scandal involves a 2014 Vatican investment in a luxury apartment project in an elite section of London, using off-balance sheet funds taken from Swiss bank accounts under the control of the Secretariat of State. The investment incurred enormous losses for the Vatican, which were then compounded by further management errors.

The lead actors in Operation Broking Bad are none other than the Secretary of State Cardinal Piero Parolin, and his deputy Archbishop Giovanni Becciu. The highest ranking diplomatic Vatican officials are knee deep in one of the worst, ever financial scandals involving money laundering, Swiss bank accounts, charitable funds, hidden assets, and extortion, to name just a few crimes.

 This ongoing financial scandal involves the Secretary of State Cardinal Piero Parolin (also, the drafter and architect of the secret China agreement) and his second in command, Cardinal Becciu. Becciu is a very close confidante of the Pope Bergoglio and according to whistleblower Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, Archbishop Becciu“knew in every detail the situation regarding the (predator )Cardinal Ted McCarrick.” 

This scandal began in 2014 early in the Francis papacy when $200 million in funds from the Pope’s charity, Peter’s Pence was used as collateral to purchase highly speculative real estate in an upscale Chelsea neighborhood of London. Parolin and Becciu invested in the London property using an investment fund from Swiss bank accounts. According to press reports the Secretariat of State allegedly failed to receive the required authorization for the loan and investment from the Vatican Council for the Economy.

The speculative London purchase began to “break bad” when in 2016, the Vatican’s first Auditor General, Libero Milone, along with the new Perfecture of the Economy, Cardinal George Pell detected the loans which were concealed and kept off the appropriate Vatican ledger. Pell confronted Becciu about the loan and its impropriety and Becciu responded by terminating the upcoming forensic Vatican audit of PwC arranged by Cardinal Pell.

Nevertheless, the London cat was out of the diplomatic pouch and law enforcement authorities began to scrutinize the loan, its specifics and curious origins.

In June 2018-Pope Francis elevated Giovanni Becciu to the position of Cardinal. As a result, Becciu left the #2 position at the Secretary of State was reassigned to another Vatican Dicastry, the office that names and canonizes saints. Was Francis deploying an old maneuver to remove Becciu by promoting him?

In November 2018, after Becciu had left the secretariat of state, the Holy See decided to buy out the remainder 55% of the London building. It did so after Becciu's successor determined that the mortgage debt was burdensome and that the businessman was losing money for the Vatican in some of the fund’s other investments. The buyout deal, however, cost the Holy See tens of millions of euros in broker fees and sparked the Vatican investigation that has so far implicated a half-dozen Vatican employees. Here is the investigative timeline of Operation Broking Bad:

Oct. 1, 2019.

Vatican police raided the Secretariat of State and the Vatican’s financial watchdog office.

Five members of staff were suspended. Vatican police officers seized documents and computers.

June 2020, Gianluigi Torzi, an Italian businessman, who served as the Vatican’s broker on the sale of the London property was arrested by Vatican police on suspicion of extortion and embezzlement. He was subsequently released after 10 days in Jail.

25 September 2020 The shocking resignation of Cardinal Becciu occurred which was dubbed by Italian media, the “Vatican Earthquake.”  Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, the close adviser to Pope Francis was relieved of his Cardinal duties by Pope Francis.

Becciu said he was suspected of giving Church money to his brothers. Becciu denied any wrongdoing.

In November 2020, the Italian police raided the residence of Beccius’ former Vatican accountant and found 600,000 euros in cash and evidence that the Vatican employee received $15 million in fake invoicing over years. 

Breaking this week: Arrest warrant for Vatican broker of London property for money laundering, fraudulent billing and tax fraud.

In April 2021, an Italian judge ordered the arrest of an Italian businessman living in London who is a prime suspect in the Vatican’s two-year investigation into the Holy See’s ($416 million) investment in a London real estate venture.Vatican prosecutors have accused Gianluigi Torzi of extorting the Holy See of 15 million euros ($17.8 million) to turn over ownership of a luxury London building in which the Vatican's secretariat of state was a majority shareholder. Neither he nor anyone else under investigation has been indicted.

The Court Findings in the Italian court order present a shocking rebuke to the Secretary of State Piero Parolin.

1.The court order states that the Secretariat of State Parolin acted outside his legal authority when it invested hundreds of millions of euros of Church funds, and when it put Peter’s Pence funds up as collateral for high risk investments. According to news sources, the charge could void the transactions and implicate Cardinals Parolin and Becciu with financial responsibility.

2.The court order found that the Secretary of State cannot use funds received for charitable purposes in operations with a high financial risk. Mr. Torzi is facing multiple charges of tax evasion and fraud in Italy for his role in the final purchase of the London property on behalf of the Vatican.  

According to multiple news reports, Pope Francis endorsed the hiring of Torzi and the Pope was aware of Torzi’s fee paying him a maximum of 20 million euro.  

Gianluigi Torzi is residing in London and according to reports is fighting the Italian arrest warrant.

There are more troubling financial deals originating out of the Secretary of State’s Office and its use of Peter’s Pence funds for $4.5 million investment into films, including the Elton John biopic, RocketMan. The Rocketman has been banned in at least 15 countries for its explicit gay sex scenes.

Last year, Italian weekly L'Espresso published a report from the Vatican's anti-corruption authority alleging more widespread speculative investments amounting to $725m. The London scandal is just one of many financial Vatican boondoggles.

There are a lot of moving parts in this highly controversial and speculative real estate purchase in an elite and exclusive part of London. More information will be exposed by the law enforcement inquiry.

According to news reports,Pope Francis knew and approved this highly speculative London real estate deal and that it incurred massive financial losses for the Vatican. Francis has since transferred all real estate assets and investments managed by the Vatican Secretariat of State — the dicastery responsible for the London deal — to another Vatican dicastery. The pernicious corruption and deception in the Vatican Secretary of State raises serious concerns about the moral judgment at the highest echelon of this papacy.

Reckless abandon of funds earmarked for the poor and downtrodden contrasts with the Vatican media campaign of the ‘Pope of the Poor.’ Reality crushes the fake Bergoglio narrative. His Vatican is now deep in debt, slashing salaries, cutting back on expenses as a result of profligate spending and risky investments. Only 10% of Peter’s Pence funds reach the poor.

At the center of this nefarious scandal are the powerful Bergoglio and his Secretary of State Parolin. Both demonstrated callous disregard as the fiscal guardians of the treasury of generous Catholics.

These two power hungry men also plotted in secret with the Chinese Communist Party to outlaw the faithful and devoted Catholic Underground Church. Were Bergoglio and Parolin behind the yearly $2 billion donation to the Vatican by the Communist Chinese Party since 2014? Was the Vatican so broke or so greedy that it sought and accepted $2 billion from the vicious CCP regime? Did the CCP buy the Vatican’s continued silence over the ongoing genocide and persecution of the Chinese Uighurs?

Follow the money. There needs to be a modern day purging of the moneychangers in the Temple of Bergoglio.