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Vatican spy story takes center stage as fraud trial resumes
National Catholic Reporter ^ | February 17, 2022 | Nicole Winfield

Posted on 02/18/2022 2:12:07 PM PST by ebb tide

Vatican spy story takes center stage as fraud trial resumes

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican's big fraud and extortion trial resumes Friday after exposing some unseemly realities of how the Holy See operates, with a new spy story taking center stage that is more befitting of a 007 thriller than the inner workings of a papacy.

According to written testimony obtained Thursday, one of Pope Francis' top advisers brought in members of the Italian secret service to sweep his office for bugs and commissioned intelligence reports from them, completely bypassing the Vatican's own police force in the process.

The reported actions of Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, the No. 2 in the Vatican secretariat of state, raise some fundamental questions about the security and sovereignty of the Vatican City State, since he purportedly invited foreign intelligence operatives into the Holy See's inner sanctum, and then outsourced internal Vatican police spy work to them.

Peña Parra hasn't been charged with any crime, though his subordinates have. They are among 10 people, including a once-powerful cardinal, on trial in the Vatican criminal tribunal in connection with the Vatican's bungled 350 million euro investment in a London property.

In the trial, which resumes Friday, prosecutors have accused the Holy See's longtime money manager, Italian brokers and lawyers of fleecing the pope of tens of millions in fees and of then extorting the Vatican of 15 million euros to finally get full ownership of the property.

Peña Parra's role in the scandal has always been anomalous, since he authorized his subordinates to negotiate the final contracts in the deal, and then triggered a suspicious transaction report when he sought a 150-million-euro loan from the Vatican bank to extinguish the mortgage on the property. But prosecutors at least for now have spared him indictment.

The new testimony, reported by the Italian agency adnkronos and "Domani" daily and obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, provides another twist in the affair and underscores the Hollywood levels of intrigue that plague the Vatican and have rarely come to light. Until now.

One of Peña Parra's former deputies, Vincenzo Mauriello, told prosecutors that in May or June 2019, after the London deal was finalized, Peña Parra told him he wanted to do a security sweep of his office because he believed his private conversations "after a short while were becoming known outside."

Peña Parra asked if Mauriello if he knew anyone outside the Vatican security apparatus who could do the job and Mauriello said he suggested a friend who worked in Italy's AISI foreign intelligence service. After a preliminary meeting, the spy, Andrea Tineri, conducted the sweep on a Friday afternoon when few people were in the palazzo, Mauriello testified.

Nothing was found. But Peña Parra then asked Tineri to produce some intelligence dossiers on key figures, Mauriello testified. Tineri and his boss at the AISI presented the findings to Peña Parra, handing over a white envelope in one of their many encounters on Vatican soil, he said.



TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; Moral Issues
KEYWORDS: 2018; 201905; 201906; aisa; aisi; angelobecciu; becciu; dossier; eavesdropping; edgarparra; edgarpenaparra; edgarpinaparra; frankenchurch; frankthehippiepope; liars; parra; parts; penaparra; popefrancis; sneaks; spies; spooks; spying; thevatican; thieves; wiretapping; wiretaps
And Pope Francis himself authorized Vatican prosecutors to conduct wiretaps of Italian citizens on Italian soil, in yet another of the sovereignty-defying details of the case.
1 posted on 02/18/2022 2:12:07 PM PST by ebb tide
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To: Al Hitan; Fedora; irishjuggler; Jaded; JoeFromSidney; kalee; markomalley; miele man; Mrs. Don-o; ...

Ping


2 posted on 02/18/2022 2:12:56 PM PST by ebb tide (Where are the good fruits of the Second Vatican Council? Anyone?)
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To: ebb tide

“The Vatican’s bungled 350 million dollar investment....”

I think I see the problem right here.


3 posted on 02/18/2022 2:14:38 PM PST by Seruzawa ("The Political left is the Garden of Eden of incompetence" - Marx the Smarter (Groucho))
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To: ebb tide

How do they hang a Pope? With all his garb, etc.?


4 posted on 02/18/2022 2:16:18 PM PST by SgtHooper (If you remember the 60's, YOU WEREN'T THERE!)
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To: ebb tide

The Catholic Church is falling apart under the Marxist Pope. The downfall of the Catholic Church IMHO is really the fault of the modern day Jesuits, they’re communist pedophile scum.


5 posted on 02/18/2022 2:34:18 PM PST by fatman6502002 ((The Team The Team The Team - Bo Schembechler circa 1969))
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To: ebb tide

Doing his best to make the Borgias look like saints.


6 posted on 02/18/2022 2:36:25 PM PST by sitetest (Professional patient. No longer mostly dead. Again. It's getting to be a habit. 21st)
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To: Fedora

wiretapping ping


7 posted on 02/18/2022 2:44:12 PM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
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To: fatman6502002

The Church is not falling apart; evil men within it are being exposed. The Holy Spirit’s got this.


8 posted on 02/18/2022 2:48:53 PM PST by Bigg Red (Trump will be sworn in under a shower of confetti made from the tattered remains of the Rat Party.)
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To: ebb tide

In “May or June 2019” Parra wants to have specialists sweep his office for bugs, etc., because he believes he may be tapped.

Trivia : In September 2019, Durham visits Rome for the first of at least three times. The first time Barr was also on the trip. Maybe or maybe not related.


9 posted on 02/18/2022 2:51:23 PM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
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To: Bigg Red

Hahahahaha, Ok, if you say so.

There’s nothing like burying ones head in the sand when one doesn’t want to deal with reality.

I don’t believe my lying eyes either.(sarc)


10 posted on 02/18/2022 3:30:58 PM PST by fatman6502002 ((The Team The Team The Team - Bo Schembechler circa 1969))
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To: Bigg Red

Not so sure about that. After all, they pray to the dead. Big no no


11 posted on 02/18/2022 4:08:26 PM PST by roving (Vaxxers Suddenly Eager To Be Pro-Choice)
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To: roving

Ridiculous.


12 posted on 02/18/2022 6:59:51 PM PST by Bigg Red (Trump will be sworn in under a shower of confetti made from the tattered remains of the Rat Party.)
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