VATICAN CITY
The Independent (UK)
MICHAEL DAY
FRIDAY 11 OCTOBER 2013
In a clear sign that he wants to be seen to be tackling endemic corruption at the Vatican, Pope Francis welcomed the Church’s highest-ranking whistleblower to a special audience today.
The Pontiff tonight met Monsignor Carlo Maria Vigano, the Holy See’s ambassador to the US, whose letters provided the most explosive evidence to emerge from the Vatileaks scandal. Mgr Vigano’s correspondence with former Pope Benedict XVI and his No 2, the Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, suggested that he was effectively exiled in the US after attempting to lift the lid on rampant corruption in the Holy City.
Mgr Vigano served as the second-ranked administrator in the Curia – the body responsible for the administration of the Vatican – under Benedict’s reign, from July 2009 to September 2011, before his transfer to America.
His letters, leaked to the press by Benedict XVI’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, in the Vatileaks scandal, revealed how he had begged not to be transferred to the US after accusing fellow administrators of arranging corruption contracts that may have cost the Vatican millions of euros.
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