Greg Burke is an Opus Dei numerary. Even if his career was not carried out under the Opus Dei umbrella, it is also true that Opus Dei has always been very attentive to institutional communications. For a long time, the director of the Holy See Press Office was Joaquin Navarro Valls, an Opus Dei numerary. And, thanks to Navarro Valls’ presence and experience, Opus Dei soon realized that teaching institutional communications to the Church is a must nowadays. The only dissertation paper about the vaticanisti – the journalists specialized in covering the Vatican – came out from the Holy Cross Pontifical University, the Opus Dei University in Rome. And so it was almost logic – even given the good relationships between Georg Gaenswein, secretary of the Pope, and Opus Dei, whose university had Gaenswein as a teacher – to look to Opus Dei to find a solution for the «communication crisis» of the Holy See. It is not by lobbying, but by necessity that Greg Burke, who recently became an Italian citizen and whose native language is English – a much needed value added, since aggressive articles on the Church are often written in English – has been identified as the right person to become the media advisor of the Vatican Secretariat of State.

That something has changed in the Holy See communication strategy is evident. Often, Benedict XVI has personally taken the lead in addressing a situation. We just need to look at how the Vatileaks case was managed, the week following the arrest of Paolo Gabriele, the Pope’s Butler. The statements marking a clear change in the Holy See’s communication strategy followed each other in a crescendo: first, on Tuesday, May 29 morning, Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, asked journalists not to allow themselves to be manipulated, since many of the stories that had been published in the newspapers fell «outside reality»; on Tuesday, May 29 afternoon,  Angelo Becciu – substitute (deputy) to the Secretary of State – gave an interview to the Holy See  newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, asking journalists to reach «a higher moral standard», and criticizing partisan narratives of events; finally, on Wednesday, May 30 morning, for the first time, the Pope talked openly and clearly about the Vatileaks scandal, renewing his trust on his closest collaborators.

It was not the only change. After Paolo Gabriele’s arrest, Lombardi gave a press briefing almost daily, providing updates and setting the record straight on false stories circulating in the media. And there was more. After the IOR (the Vatican’s financial body) board of Superintendence’s no confidence vote on the board’s president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the memorandum of the meeting when the vote took place was “institutionally” leaked to the press. The IOR has maintained, for some time now, an open door policy, allowing an inside look of its work. Not long  ago, a group of ambassadors accredited to the Holy See were invited to a briefing in the Torrione Niccolò V – the IOR’s headquarters – where Paolo Cipriani, general manager, talked about transparency and the activities of the Institute. Last week, it was the turn for a selected group journalists. Standing before them, Cipriani not only outlined the activities of the Institute, but also gave an in-depth explanation about the seizure of 23 million euro transferred by the IOR from an IOR account to Credito Artigiano in 2009 and to the closing of an IOR account in a  JP Morgan branch in Milan in 2012. Cipriani also denied there was a lack of cooperation with the Italian authorities, showing a letter of the Italian police where they thanked the IOR for the speed and precision of responses to their questions – Mondayvatican had already reported about this letter some postings ago.

Even though many inside and outside the Vatican are contemptuous, Benedict XVI is moving on his path toward transparency. This Pope was not afraid to write an open letter to the bishops in the midst of the Williamson affair; to write a letter to the Catholics of Ireland in the midst of the pedophilia scandal; to personally meet the victims of priest abuses, whenever he went to visit a country where there were victims who asked for a meeting; and to start a purification process within the Church that is perhaps poorly explained, though it is true and alive.  Here, the contrast with the “Communication machine” of Joaquin Navarro Valls is most evident. In his more than twenty years as the head of the press office, Navarro proved himself to be much more than a simple means of communication. He was a spin doctor, an editor, a PR man, an investigator, an advisor, a diplomat and an ambassador for the pope.

Is yet to be seen if Greg Burke will be able to have Navarro Valls’ relation with, and influence over, the Papal apartment. Surely, working within the Secretariat of State, he will be closer to the power center, and he will should be in a good position to elaborate communication strategies. Will he be in charge of an information office of the Secretariat of State or will he just be an official inside the Apostolic Palace? And what will be the future of the Holy See Press Office? Will the appointment of Greg Burke change its role?

Some insiders predict that the Holy See Press Office will become a sort of “base”, to put into effect Burke’s strategies. The next step could be to link the Press Office to the Pontifical Council of Social Communication. This would lead to more strict accreditation norms and to a new role for the director of the Press Office: the role of a simple spokesperson.

Though his appointment has still not been officially announced (and it will probably not be, since it is just the hiring of an employee joining the Curia), Burke has already given some interviews about his new charge. Burke wants first of all to listen, think and understand what has failed in Vatican communications. From the Regensburg speech to the Vatileaks, passing through the Williamson affair and the annus horribilis (horrible year) of the pedophilia scandals (it was 2010), the institutional communications of the Holy See was always playing catch-up with the news. Now, they want to address the stories as they hit the news.

Lombardi did not succeed in keeping apace with the news, in part because he lacked the privileged relationship his predecessor had with the Papal apartment. It will surely be a hard challenge. Greg Burke loves to compare his post with that of the «media advisor» of the White House. The Holy See, however, is not the White House, and the Apostolic Palace is not the West Wing. There is a very different storyline to tell, deeply anchored in a Church that is 2000 years old. A Church that still seems unable to communicate everything that it stands for and does. For example, the most interesting part of the journalists’ visit to the IOR was when the general manager, Cipriani, spoke about his trips to personally see “the works of religion” all over the world: «I recently went to Peru – he said – and I found priests that were taking care of people in shanty towns made of mud. The Church does wonderful things all over the world, and to see what the Institute funds help to achieve gave me a better sense of my own job». This part of the story was not covered in the media. That is why Greg Burke’s has such a formidable challenge before him.

After adopting the new law, the Holy See began a complex path to adequate to the international standard, according to GAFI (Financial Action Task Force) recommendations. This path would finally lead the Holy See to be enrolled in the «White List», the list of states most active in preventing and fighting the financial crimes.. In november, advisors of the Council of Europe made an on-the-spot investigation in Vatican. The news was not widely covered by the medias, and it did not seem to interest analysts and public opinion.

Still, the motu proprio delivered one year ago signed the change of an era. Before it, Vatican did not have an Authority of Financial Information. Before it, Vatican boundaries were just with Italy, and monetary agreements were to be signed just with Italy. Vatican Lira (the coin issuanced before euro) was not the international lira, but Italian lira. The entrance in the European Union changed everything. The changes did not deal just with the Vatican. But the changes dealing with the Vatican had been widely covered by medias, mainly focusing on the I.O.R. issue. This interest letted show – according to some Vatican insiders – other kind of goals, as – for example – the attack to the sovereignty of Vatican City State, in order to undermine the diplomatic importance of the Holy See.

Let us make a step back in time. February 2009: European Commission communicates that the Monetary Agreements with Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican are to be reviewed. If the three countries wants to remain hooked to the European Monetary System, they need to uniform to European norms and procedures, peculiarly for what concerns the countering of money laundering and of financial aids to terrorism.  The European Commission also asked to introduce a new uniform method for calculating the ceilings of euro coins issuance of the three countries and any country that would sign a Monetary Agreement with the Community in the future. In order to reach the objectives of the revisions, ad hoc bilateral commissions had been established.

Since February 2009, Vatican and European Commission advisors (Italy is part of the table as observer) start up the job to define the new monetary agreement. European Union conditions immediately seem to restrictive. The relationship between Holy See and European Union are fraught. Vatican has the will to keep its autonomy, and so every single point of the agreement needs to be discussed and weighed up. But time is short. Mons. Carlo Maria Viganò, then secretary of the Governatory of the State of Vatican City, even proposed to unhook Holy See from the Euro area, in order to let the Holy See avoid to be subjected to too restrictive conditions. In some ways, it was a prophetic idea, considering the state-of-the-art of euro area and the choice of some countries – e.g. Great Britain – to keep out from the euro area. Someone also propose not to close the agreement within the year 2009, and to postpone the closure of the agreement to 2010. Hierarchies of the Holy See did not take in consideration both of the hypothesis. The costs would be so high, both for political and economical reasons. A postponing would bring – for example – to a suspension of the coins issuance and stamps issuance, which are among the most important incomes of Vatican City State. It is too complicated.

The monetary agreement is finally signed on December, 17th 2009. It is a day full of tensions. The monetary agreement would be signed contextually by Joaquin Almunia, Europen commissioner for Economical and Monetary Affairs, and mons. André Dupuy, Apostolic Nuncio to the European Union. Almunia refuse to sign the agreement in the same room with the pontifical representant, and so Dupuy and Almunia sign the agreement each one in their own office. Almunia fairly slight the Holy See, also because of the fraught relationships between the Spanish Socialists and Catholic Church. The same Almunia, once he will be appointed as European Commissioner for Concurrency, will start the procedure against the Italian State for favoritism toward the Church because of a special fiscal regime – in fact the fiscal regime enjoyed in Italy by Churches that signed a Concordat with Italian State.
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Inside the Vatican, things goes on quickly, even because time is short. The Vatican Law 127 is adopted and it is decided to extend the effects of the new regulations to the Holy See via a motu proprio by Benedict XVI. The Motu Proprio is released the 30th of December 2010, right in time not to let the agreement lapse. According to some Vatican insiders, the institution of the Authority for Financial Information would mean that the same Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, president of the Commission of Vigilance of the I.O.R., is not given a blank cheque by the Pope, since the I.O.R. itself is subjected to monitoring.

But it is not downhill from there. In September 2010, two money transfers of the I.O.R. are subjected to preventive seizure for a suspected  violations of the norms against money laundering. I.O.R. moved money from an account it owned toward the Credito Artigiano ,a «friend bank», whose president, Antonio De Censi, seated in the Commission of Vigilance of the I.O.R. The I.O.R. ordered Credito Artigiano to make two transfers with the money in that same account: one of 3 million to an account at Banca del Fucino in Rome, and another of 20 million to a JP Morgan account in Frankfurt. Both the account were owned by the I.O.R.

The Banca d’Italia (Bank of Italy) demanded detailed information on the ownership of the accounts of the I.O.R. and the recipients of the transactions, but all the explanations are considered not sufficient. The money are seized, waiting for further investigations. They will be un-seized just when the Vatican counter money laundering regulations has come into effect.

In the meantime, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi – taking an  unprecedent and (according to many insiders) questionable decision – agreed to be questioned by the magistrates of Rome, and is questioned in the offices of the public prosecutor in Rome. His deposition filled 91 pages of transcripts. In it, he explained his action as «a demonstration of the desire to comply with a new era», and he also explained why and how the transfer took places. The magistrates did not deem satisfactory the clarifications given.  Gotti Tedeschi’s deposition created a disagreeable precedent in the diplomatic relationships between Holy See and Italy: if Holy See is a sovereign country, magistrates of a foreign country – Italian ones included – must submit a request internationally,forwarding the request through diplomatic channels to the Holy See as a foreign state, to question one of its employees. More. The president of the body of a country cannot be questioned from a judicial authority of another country but renouncing his immunity. Otherwise, his personal choice would imply to the a de facto demission to the immunity of the body itself. Gotti Tedeschi’s choice is something incomprehensible in terms of international relations.

This is one of the topics in discussion within the Authority for Financial Information, headed by card. Attilio Nicora (former president of the A.P.S.A., a sort of “central bank” of the Vatican) and leaded by a directive council that enlists among his members Giuseppe Dalla Torre, one of the most authoritative and trusted people of the Holy See. Excepted Nicora, Dalla Torre and an internationalist jurist come from other charges within the Holy See, many members of the Authority for Financial Information come from Italian banks and from Bank of Italy, where they were not appointed in important charges. Is the composition of the board coherent with the universality of the Holy See, whose employees are traditionally chose internationally? The imbalance to Italy is considered by many Vatican insiders a sign of weakness and source of risks, more than of opportunity, since the troubles of the Holy See came from a request of the Bank of Italy headed by Mario Draghi (now president of the European Central Bank).

On September, 14th 2011, Holy See delivered to European Union a preliminary paper, in order to illustrate the normative and institutional framework of the Holy See and of Vatican City State, and to explain the initiatives issued to adequate the regulations to the international standards. At the end of November, the advisors of the European Council made an on-the-spot investigation. Contrary to expectations – maybe especially to Bank of Italy’s expectations – it seems that the I.O.R. has been found healthy regarding international standards.

At the half of 2012, MoneyVal – the body of the Council of Europe that ensure that its member states have in place effective systems to counter money laundering and terrorist financing and comply with the relevant international standards in these fields – will discuss the report on the Holy See and on the State of Vatican City. In the meantime, the reformation of Vatican finance is intensively in progress. The game is not yet over, and no one knows how it will end.

On September 6, the I.O.R. ordered Credito Artigiano to make two money transfers from an account of the I.O.R. deposited with the Italian bank: one of 3 million to an account at Banca del Fucino in Rome, and another of 20 million to a JP Morgan account in Frankfurt. Both of the recipients were identified only by their IBAN codes. On September 15, the office of financial information at Bankitalia notified Roman authorities about a possible violation by the IOR of the norms against money laundering. On September 20, the court of Rome ordered the preventive seizure of the entire sum deposited in the account of the IOR, and issued two notices of investigation of the president and director general of the Vatican bank, for omission of procedures against money laundering. The money are frozen, the I.O.R. is in the storm.

One year before, in September 2009, Rome Public Prosecutor investigated on money transfer o fan I.O.R. account deposited with a branch of Unicredit Bank based in via della Conciliazione, close to Saint Peter Church. The investigation led nowhere, but it was a signal that the “bank of the Vatican”, had more difficulties than in the past to make money transfers.

In fact, the I.O.R. is not a “true” bank, and it deposits accounts with branches of several banks all over the world to make money transfers. There are some privileged relationships, e.g. the ones with the Jp Morgan Bank and Unicredit. Since the last investigation, Unicredit strengthen the regulation, and asked to specify in a fairer way from who and why the money are deposited or moved in the account and to clarify even the bank check movements. Is the proverbial Vatican bank privateness going to collapse?

Many worried about the possible collapse of the Vatican privateness when  Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, president of the I.O.R., together with Roberto Cipriani, general director of the bank, agreed to be questioned by the magistrates of Rome. Their deposition filled 91 pages of transcripts, portions of which were leaked to the press.

It was a level of cooperation unprecedented in the history of the Vatican bank. In 1993, when he was called for questioning by the magistrature of Milan, Angelo Caloia, at the time  president of the I.O.R. , got the magistrates to submit a request internationally, with the request forwarded through diplomatic channels to the Holy See as a foreign state.  At that point, the I.O.R, responded with a written deposition, also forwarded through diplomatic channels. It delivered the proof of malfeasance – concerning Enimont “payoffs” of about 45 million euros – and received general approval in the press for having cooperated with the legal system. But his spontaneous deposition, Gotti Tedeschi did not succeed his goal, since the magistrates did not deem satisfactory the clarifications given, and responded “no” to the request to release the confiscated 23 million euros.

The goal had been reached with the the law no. 127 of the Vatican State, that adopts four new laws in implementation of the monetary convention – among the ones the Law concerning the prevention and countering of money laundering and of the financing of terrorism – and that regulates the competences of the Authority for Financial Information.

The president of the Authority for Financial information is the Cardinal Attilio Nicora, who also remains president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See. Among the members of the board, there are Marcello Condemi and Giuseppe Dalla Torre. Condemi was the deus ex machina of the new Vatican legislation against money laundering, while Dalla Torre represents the “Vatican” branch inside the Authority, since he is also president of the Court of the Vatican State. The members of the board have the job to give an international warranty to the transparency of the Ior operation, by storing all the money transfer of the I.O.R. in an archive, in order to be able to control each money transfer operation in the bank. Right after the 23 million euro had been confiscated, the I.O.R. – whose accounts are attributed by codes, and not by names – asked his current account holder to fill a detailed schedule to bank more than 10,000 euros. This request has been formalized by the law no. 127. There are problems to apply this law, indeed. If a I.O.R. account holder  directs with an overnight bag to the Torrione Niccolò V – where the bank is based – the Vatican guards would eventually ask him if there is something to declare. But if this account holder declares that he is waited from a cardinal, and that he is bringing to him that overnight bag, no one would stop him at the customs house. Who can be sure that the cardinal who received the overnight bag goes afterward to the I.O.R. to bank the money?

These kind of problems has still not been solved. But the only presence of the law satisfied Italian magistrates, who revoked the seize of 23 million euros. The Holy See made an official statement, underlining its satisfaction, but Ettori Gotti Tedeschi did not. In fact, the new law his not part of the job of his administration, but it is a step a in process toward the I.O.R. transparency whose origins dates before Ettori Gotti Tedeschi presidency, and drove by the A.P.S.A.

Yet, in the past months, trying to un-seize the 23 million, Gotti Tedeschi spoke several times about the “23 million issue”, claiming that the Vatican bank glasnost began under his administration. And a “deep throat” told to Corriere della Sera, the main Italian news daily, that «in ten months, more has been done than in twenty years, there are decades of habits to be changed»: this statement has given flesh and bones to the black legend according to which the legal troubles of the current president of the IOR, Gotti Tedeschi, in office since September 23, 2009, can be attributed to the mismanagement of his predecessor Angelo Caloia, in office during the previous twenty years. Gotti Tedeschi insists that he never said or thought this, while Caloia has demanded that the Vatican secretariat of state make public reparation for the affront, or – at least – to have the opportunity to write an article for the Osservatore Romano.

On march, 12, 2011, Caloia would eventually ended the fouth five year-term as president of the Bank of the Vatican. It was replaced by Ettore Gotti Tedeschi in 2009, but he had already been victim of manoeuvres to be sostituted. In 1999, Hans Tietmeyer, former president of Deutsche Bank, was backed as new president of the I.O.R. from the “old guard” of Vatican Curia. At a conference given by Tietmeyer at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Caloia stood up to criticize his ultraliberal theses. The Holy See did agree with Angelo Caloia.

And Holy See still agrees, if one reads the Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate. But, on the other hand, the new president of the I.O.R. is a staunch proponent of a capitalism inspired by Christianity. Gotti Tedeschi is so ultraliberal to have signed, in 2007, a manifesto in 13 points, spearheaded by the former secretary of the highly secularist radical party, Daniele Capezzone. The manifesto proposed a single 20 percent “flat tax,” presidential government according to the American or French model, tax credits for health care and education, the requirement that the public administrator pay for all damages incurred, the changing of the retirement age to 65, tax exemption for overtime work, the abolition of professional associations and of the legal status of study certificates. When the Caritas in Veritate sketches were ready, Gotti Tedeschi – who was still not president of the I.O.R. – were writing articles on the Osservatore Romano about the creation of “a new economic bubble” to save the economy, and about the need to found a good bank to finance the developing countries – this latter proposal backed from the then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Then, Gotti Tedeschi gave his contribution in writing Caritas in Veritate, and now he brings out in several conferences the parts of the encyclical he agrees with, which are the parts considered more in continuity with the John Paul II encyclical Centesimus Annus. Centesimus Annus has never been seriously accepted by the hierarchy or by Catholics as a whole. It has been judged as too friendly toward the capitalist system.  Gotti Tedeschi, on the other hand, considers Centesimus Annus so important to launch the proposal to candidate John Paul II to the Nobel Prize for Economy.

What is the position of the Church? It is sufficient reading a Joseph Ratzinger conference of 1985, when he wrote that «the well-known remark made by Theodore Roosevelt in 1912: “I believe that the assimilation of the Latin-American countries to the United States will be long and difficult as long as these countries remain Catholic.” Along the same lines, in a lecture in Rome in 1969, Rockefeller recommended replacing the Catholics there with other Christians  — an undertaking which, as is well known, is in full swing. In both these remarks, religion — here a Christian denomination — is presupposed as a socio-political, and hence as an economic-political factor, which is fundamental for the development of political structures and economic possibilities».

Ratzinger quoted these theories to criticize them, and this is still is position. Religion is part of integral human development, that  passes through economy, but – firstly – from the human integrity. A “good bank” would not be sufficient. And the I.O.R. does not become a good bank filled with ethics just by changing the legislation. I.O.R. is going to became a “true” international bank. But its privateness criteria will eventually be similar to the Switzerland ones.