Msgr Battista Ricca

A visitor who follows the Italian press has sent me pointers to stories that are covered there but are underreported elsewhere and, as far as I can see, are not covered at all in the US Catholic press -- not even by Church Militant. (Come to think of it, I'd follow the German press if anything interesting happened there.) It's a bit puzzling that nobody's followed these stories in the US, since, as Raymond Arroyo has noted, the corruption in the Church has fathers, and those fathers must be in Rome.

Msgr Battista Ricca is the Prelate of the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), commonly called the Vatican Bank. He has a remarkably colorful background. The best English-language coverage I've found is in the UK Guardian from 2013:

Papal nunciate who lived openly with his male lover in Uruguay appointed by pope to senior job in the Vatican

On 15 June, the pope appointed Monsignor Battista Ricca, an Italian cleric and former Vatican diplomat, to be "prelate" of the bank, formally known as the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR). As such, Ricca is entitled to attend meetings of both the bodies that oversee the scandal-ridden IOR's operations – its board and a five-strong commission of cardinals. The prelate can also demand to see any document he cares to inspect.

According to the latest edition of the weekly news magazine L'Espresso, Ricca has a past punctuated with scandal. Its report, which the pope's spokesman branded as "not trustworthy", claimed Ricca lived more or less openly with a Swiss army officer while at the Holy See's nunciature (embassy) in Uruguay. It said he arrived with his lover and, while running the post between nuncios, provided him with both accommodation and a job.

The weekly magazine said Ricca was once beaten up in a gay bar in Montevideo and that, when the lift at the nunciature broke down in the night, firefighters called to deal with the emergency found him inside with a local rent boy known to police. It said that, after he was transferred to Trinidad and Tobago, that his alleged lover left trunks behind in Uruguay containing his effects. When they were opened later, they were found to contain a pistol, large numbers of prophylactics and sizeable quantities of pornography, the magazine said. Ricca has not made any comment on the allegations.

The Guardian echoes the Italian press in cutting to the chase:

That points to the key questions in the affair: whether Pope Francis knew of the claims against Ricca before he handed him one of the most sensitive jobs in the Vatican. And if not, why not? After he was recalled to Rome, Ricca served in the Vatican's secretariat of state before being given charge of first one, and eventually three, of the guest houses that the Holy See uses to accommodate church dignitaries on visits to Rome.

It was at one of these that the future pope met the Italian cleric. Their friendship was cemented after the pope's election when Francis decided not to occupy the lavish papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace, but to remain at the guest house, run by Ricca, in which he stayed during the election.

It would have been standard procedure for him to call in Ricca's personal file before making the appointment and – whatever the truth or otherwise of the claims against him – it is inconceivable that he would have gone ahead had he known about them. It is hard to imagine a more dangerous official for the pope than one charged with shaking up the IOR, yet acutely vulnerable to blackmail.

The conclusion in all this coverage is remarkably polite: it's inconceivable that the Holy Father would hire this guy in light of his history -- someone must have scrubbed his file, huh? An alternate explanation is that this ain't a bug, it's a feature. In light of the Viganò testimony, this would be another circumstance in which Francis, as he was with McCarrick, was fully aware of an individual's sketchy background but made him a key deputy or important adviser.

Ricca continues as the head of the IOR. I would say the question is not whether he's a danger to the pope, but precisely because he's vulnerable to blackmail, he owes Francis everything. Without his patronage, he'd be banished to some remote monastery living out his days in prayer and penance.

There's a second question attached to this one, too: how did a character who was about as well suited to a diplomatic post as Guy Burgess then wind up as the hotel manager for the Vatican guest houses? It seems as though this could also put him in a position where he could learn some secrets of his own -- wouldn't bigwigs from out of town be disposed to seek out companionship? Wouldn't the guy who ran the guest house be in a position to help out?

I asked my visitor if Francis is still at the Casa Santa Marta guest house, and he replied he still is. I asked why it might be to his advantage to stay there, and he said it's a good question.