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.

The last year Ettore Bernabei – one of the major exponents of the world in State bodies, since he has been president of the Rai (the Italian national television) – interpreted the pedophilia scandal as the last attack moved from masonry to Catholicism in Italy. Catholics, he explained, were heading Italy’s economic boom during the Sixties. Catholic ideas were the “engine” of this economic boom. Bernabei – by explaining to «pour Cognac down to children» – outlined a sort of war scenario between Masonry and Catholicism, between lay and Catholic finance (but some call it «Finanza Bianca», white finance). The winner of this war seemed to be the exponents of lay finance. Ettore Gotti Tedeschi – a banker who proclaims himself as a true Catholic and at the same time is a follower of laissez-faire theories – is now the president of the I.O.R., even if one could notice that recently Benedict XVI instituted the Authority for Financial Information to control several Vatican and Holy See bodies, included the I.O.R.; Giulio Tremonti is the Italian Minister of Economy: he was one of the engineers of Otto per mille and he devotes himself to appear faithful of the Church. In the past, he theorized the need of a tax cut, then he wrote a book (La paura e la speranza) to underline – on the contrary – that the person comes before the numbers. Among the great bankers, the last exponent left of the so-called “Finanza Bianca” is Giovanni Bazoli, president of Intesa San Paolo and friend of Romano Prodi, former Italian Prime Minister: Prodi brought Italy into “euro area” and then criticized Fazio for doubting the economic keeping of Italy. While Cesare Geronzi – who had been for years at the top of Bank of Rome and of the Unicredit Bank, with good Vatican relationships reinforced even by sponsoring the World Youth Day in Cologne in 2005 – is now out of the games. Geronzi was one of the first to abandon Antonio Fazio when the former governor was put under investigation. Today, Fazio’s thesis about preservation of the Italian bank system are shared by the people who succeeded him. It is too late.

The reinforcement of Italian banking system was one of the key points of the Fazio’s economic job. He felt the risk that the possible indiscriminate takeover of Italian banks by big international banks would eventually let fall the “architecture” of Italian economy, made up by the little credit institution promoted by don Luigi Sturzo. The system gave birth to several credit institutions: Banche Popolari (Popular banks), Casse di risparmio (mutual savings banks) and Casse Rurali. All of these institutions were attentive to the small companies and anchored to the real economy.

Let’s make some step behind, and see what the financial scenario was before the Fazio’s case. During the spring of 1999, two Public Exchange Offers are launched: the first one is launched by Unicredit Bank to Banca Commerciale Italiana, the second one is launched by San Paolo Imi toward the Bank of Rome. The Bank of Italy do not reject the offers. But nor Unicredit, nor Intesa San Paolo preventively informed Bank of Italy of the offer. According to the regulations – estabilished by the then governor Antonio Fazio together with the Cicr (the government interministerial committee for credit and savings) and become part of the regulations – if one want to control the majority stake of one bank has to inform bank of Italy at least seven days before the board of administration of the bank would eventually meet and launch the offer. Since none of the two banks has followed this rule, the Public Exchange Offers failed. «Fazio uses the supervision as an instrument of power», critics complain.

Then, the Cirio and Parmalat cases are brought to light. Since the manager involved in the cracks are Catholics, a scenario of “Catholic managers” helped and sustained by “Catholic bankers” is easily outlined. Even bank of Italy has to weather the storm, since it is accused that its vigilance failed. The trials will eventually absolve all the banks involved, proving that Bank of Italy correctly carried out its job. But, in the midst of the trials, many newspapers trace back the network of friendships of Calisto Tanzi, the head of Parmalat, and underline that he is very close to Opus Dei and to the circles of Finanza Bianca. Yet, just a few remember that Ettore Gotti Tedeschi was briefly part of the Parmalat Trial: he was who that enlisted Parmalat in the stock exchange, and he seated in the Parmalat board for about one year.

In 2005, Consob – the authority that controls Italian stock exchanges – denounces a hidden pact between the Italian raider of Banca Antonveneta. Both Banca Popolare di Lodi (Bpl) and the Dutch Bank Abn Amro are trying to take the Italian Bank over. Officially, Bpl owns the 30 per cent of the sharings of Banca Antonveneta, but – thanks to hidden friends who bought shares on behalf of Bpl – the bank is effectively controlling the 40 per cent of the sharings. Consob suspects that Fiorani eluded the law on the Public Purchase Offer. According to this law, one who gets to control more than 30 per cent of the sharing of a bank must launch a Public Purchase Offer. Bank of Italy inspectors make an investigation on Banca Popolare di Lodi and their report is extremely negative. They send the report to Claudio Clemente, head of the Oversight Services on Credit Institutions of Bank of Italy, and to Giovanni Castaldi. Clemente and Castaldi give a negative opinion on Banca Popolare di Lodi capability to launch a Public Purchase Offer on Antonveneta. Fazio nominates three expert coming from outside Bank of Italy, and they instead give a positive opinion.

The Public Purchase Offer can now be launched. The authorization to the Ppo is not signed by Francesco Frasca, head of Bank of Italy’s Vigiliance – substituted in the mean time as by internal regulations of Bank of Italy – but by Angelo De Mattia. Recently, De Mattia is again on the spot. He is considered by many a man of Geronzi, but he has been for years Fazio’s spokesman in Bank of Italy. Today, De Mattia is now a prominent commentator of economy. While Giulio Tremonti was preparing to hold his speech to the World Day of Savings by giving ethic lessons to I.O.R. account holders in the Vatican, De Mattia animated a debate on the future of the Foundations of Bank Origin. According to Amato-Carli law, the Foundations of bank origin are public holdings, able to manage the majority stake of a bank, but unable to make any banking activity. It is a subtle border. In 2001, Tremonti moved a sort of war to bank foundations, to bring them under a direct public control, in order to nominate the top of the boards and to manage the patrimony of the banks. Tremonti failed, but he did not fully lose the war. He just turned to less laissez-faire oriented position, in opposition to Antonio Fazio. And that’s ironic, since Fazio had always been cautious about free market and its consequences.

From those consequences, Fazio tried to defend the Italian bank system. It is true, he authorizes  to the Public Purchase offer launch by Giampiero Fiorani, head of Bpl. But he authorizes even the Ppos launched by Abn Amro toward Antonveneta and Bilbao Vizcaya toward Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (later, Bnp Paribas will take over to Vizcaya), even if these latter are considered hostile. He does not back Fiorani’s offer for personal interest. Fiorani, on the other hand, keeps Fazio unaware of the illicit part of his manoeuvrings. Fazio explains it when he is called to testify to the trial. On the other hand, Fiorani testifies that Fazio was aware of everything. This discrepancy of testifies would have brought to the Fazio’s condemnation.

Fazio is compelled to resign, and Abn Amro gets from Milan Public Prosecutor the shares of Bpl. But Abn Amro itself is then raided by other international banks and then dismembered. There is more: the Royal Bank of Scotland, a big international bank involved in the dismembering of Abn Amro, fails because of the toxic credits inherited from Abn Amro. The Dutch Bank is then acquired by Grupo Santander, whose board of Italy has among his members Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. In the end, Banca Antonveneta is purchased by Monte dei Paschi di Siena. The “white” (i.e. Christian oriented) fortress of Padua is at the end in the hands of a “red” (i.e. Commonist oriented) fortress. Is it a cross exchange between Masonic lobbies, from the Dutch Abn Amro to the Italian Monte de Paschi? It is even this. But it is just a superficial explanation of this operation. In a few weeks, Grupo Santander gained from Antonveneta 2.5 billion euro.

Antonveneta finally got back to Italy, while everybody now support the need of having Italian bank and institutions to preserve the banking system of Italy. In the midst of an unprecendeted economic crisis, given from an international financial turbulence, the Italian banking system kept his stability thanks to the action of Bank of Italy ruled by Antonio Fazio, and has not the need of Statal interventions (alike Greece). Paradoxically, Fazio was the only one to pay with an exemplar condemnation. Just notice that Francesco Frasca – former head of Bank of Italy oversight, who worked under Fazio’s guidelines – was fully absolved by the trial in Milan, while Fazio was sentenced to 4 year’ imprisonment. This virdict – just a first appearance one – is food for thoughts. Was just Fazio under attack, or was the vision of a catholic-oriented finance under attack?