VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
John L. Allen Jr. | Jul. 19, 2013 NCR Today
A Vatican spokesman today called a report “not credible” charging that a cleric hand-picked by Pope Francis to reform the troubled Vatican bank led a double life while serving as a papal diplomat in Uruguay a little more than a decade ago, including having a live-in male companion and visiting gay bars.
The charges appeared in a report published today by veteran Italian journalist Sandro Magister for the magazine L’Espresso. They concern Monsignor Battista Ricca, a veteran Vatican diplomat appointed on June 15 to serve as the pope’s “prelate,” or representative, at the Vatican bank.
Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, issued a statement to journalists calling the report “not credible.”
L’Espresso swiftly replied with an acerbic statement “confirming point by point” the details in Magister’s story, which it said had been “confirmed by primary sources.”
The magazine’s statement also claimed that the charges in Magister’s piece were judged by the Vatican at the time to be sufficiently serious as to warrant Ricca’s removal from Uruguay.
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