VATICAN CITY The Vatican summoned Italy's ambassador to the HolySee on Thursday to discuss the loan-shark investigation of Naples'cardinal.
Some opposition politicians have joined Cardinal MicheleGiordano's supporters in denouncing a police search and reportedphone taps of the archdiocese's offices as a violation of Italy'schurch-state accords.
Prosecutors were investigating whether money the cardinal gavehis brother and other relatives was used in an alleged loan-sharkoperation involving hundreds of thousands of dollars. The cardinal'sbrother was arrested Aug. 20. The cardinal has said he is innocent.He said he wrote blank checks from his personal funds to his brother,who had business problems.
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said Italy's envoy tothe Holy See was summoned to hear Vatican Foreign Minister MonsignorJean Louis Tauran spell out the church's position on "aspectsrelating to church-state relations in the well-known affair involvingCardinal Michele Giordano."
Vatican officials did not say what they told the ambassador.But RAI state television reported that the Vatican believed therewere violations of the Italy-Vatican accords.
Earlier in the week, Italian Premier Romano Prodi said he wasconvinced no violations of the accords occurred.
After corruption probes earlier in the decade toppled hundredsof leading Italian figures, many politicians have seized on the probeof the popular cardinal as proof that Italy's prosecutors were goingtoo far.
The Vatican's rare intercession Thursday was "more thanjustified," according to Enrico La Loggia of the Forza Italia partyof Silvio Berlusconi, a thrice-convicted ex-premier who also hascomplained about Italy's crusading prosecutors.
About 30 agents from Italy's tax police had looked throughdocuments in the cardinal's offices, and Giordano invited reportersand TV crews to watch.
No comments:
Post a Comment