ROME
Channel News Asia
Rome – An Italian cardinal accused of using charity money to refurbish his luxury apartment has donated 150,000 euros ($163,000) to the Catholic foundation which allegedly footed the bill, media reports said Saturday.
Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s former Secretary of State, a role equivalent to prime minister, has insisted he paid for the 300,000 euros renovation of the flat overlooking Saint Peter’s Square himself.
But a document published in a book this month by Italian investigative journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi purportedly shows he used 200,000 euros from the Bambin Gesu Foundation which collects donations for a children’s hospital in Rome.
“Acknowledging that what has happened has been detrimental to the Bambin Gesu, Cardinal Bertone wanted to meet us half way, donating a sum of 150,000 euros,” the hospital’s president Mariella Enoc said Saturday, according to the reports.
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