Passaparola – The Pope’s not paying for Saturday - with Gianluigi Nuzzi
Passaparola - The Pope’s not paying for Saturday
(09:45)
(09:45)
”France has about 500 billion euro in Italian public bonds. Italy has in its territory a priceless good that costs it a lot: the Vatican. There’s the opportunity for a fair exchange: the priests against the elimination of the debt. France would get matchless prestige. It’s not even necessary to build new buildings for the ecclesiastics. They’re already ready at Avignon, without paying the ICI tax, the Papal Palace which was the residence of seven official popes and 2 schismatic ones. The Middle Ages were great times for Italy . "Sur le pont d’Avignon/ L'on y danse, l'on y danse/ Sur le pont d’Avignon/ L'on y danse tous en rond
Passaparola with Gianluigi Nuzzi, author of Vaticano spa
The ICI game
Special greetings to all the friends of Beppe Grillo’s blog. We’re meeting up again after some time. We met up when the book Vaticano spa was launched. This blog was one of the few media platforms that had the courage to bring Vaticano spa to the Internet, to the general public. Vaticano spa has made 250 thousand copies.
Reading what happens in the Vatican helps us to understand Italian politics, especially today when it is in the hands of technocrats. I’m saying this because three ministers are an expression of the Catholic world. Some were directly persuaded to embark on the road of politics by the Vatican itself. I’m thinking of the rector of the Catholic Universities who a few days before accepting Monti’s invitation to become the Minister of Culture, had a secret interview in the “piano nobile” of the sacred palaces that was decisive in his agreement.
Then there’s the leader of the Community of Sant’Egidio, Riccardi. The Community of Sant’Egidio is not well known to the general public but it has a very strong network of international relationships especially in Africa, in the Far East and in Asia. Understanding what is happening in the Vatican helps us to understand Italian politics. Now the Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone is a falling star, whereas Bagnasco, the head of the CEI is gaining more and more power, and it was he that a few days ago said: “Yes, we can have another look at the ICI tax on those properties of the Church that have mixed use, that is commercial and religious.” Some read this position taken by Cardinal Bagnasco as a positive, as an opening towards the Vatican. I am fairly diffident. I think that it is instead something different, that it is a media opening especially in this moment of economic crisis that we are going through. ICI will be paid only for those activities that are obviously commercial and the Guardia di Finanza has not had the wherewithal to be able to do a census and to see how many properties of the Church are really for religious purposes and how many have a commercial use and how many have commercial activities of a third party, for exercises, for Sunday schools, for education of the clergy and for various related things.
I’m saying that because it’s useless letting ourselves be taken for a ride. They don’t want this census to be done because the ICI tax would increase the amount that the Vatican and related entities would have to pay. If you start this discussion you are accused of anticlericalism, but it’s not true. We are economists and we find news and publish it. The news may every so often be pleasing to the Right, every so often it can even displease Grillo, but this doesn’t mean that we don’t provide the news, because otherwise we would be doing another profession!
An important date for ICI, to see what structures connected to the dioceses will pay it is April. In April there’ll be the verdict on a case presented to the European Union by Emma Bonino’s Radicals, against the Italian State, for the special terms relating to the tax on real estate. These special terms were conceded by the Italian State to the CEI { Conferenza Episcopale Italiana = Italian Bishops Conference}
Sant’Apollinare, the church where there’s the body of the murdered Renatino De Pedis, the boss of the Banda della Magliana. The investigations into the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi have given us to believe that it is essential to open that tomb because it turns out from the investigations that that tomb could have an important role. This is a news item. The error was in the interpretation. I declared that there were some problems there because the Police, the prosecutors’ offices and the magistrates cannot do so because it is on extraterritorial land, outside the territory of the Italian State. Well, I made a mistake. The resting place of Renatino De Pedis could be visited by the magistrates tomorrow morning. There’s no problem. It does not belong to the Vatican. It is Italian territory. And even though that tomb should be opened up as soon as possible to understand what happened, this is not being done. You could imagine the effect that news like this could have on the world. Perhaps many of you can say “But what do I care, I’m just interested in the truth“ unfortunately State thinking, relations between States, at times prevent the verification of the truth and this can be to the detriment of many people, to the detriment of the relatives of Ms. Orlandi but to the detriment of all of us.
The Vatican is among us
That tomb is not being opened, perhaps it will happen one day. However, the magistrates don’t have the courage, or perhaps they are being prevented from doing so. However is it always like that? No. It’s not always like that. While we Italians are afraid of uncovering the Vatican secrets, to get involved in Vatican affairs, it’s not the same the other way round.
The Vatican often enters our everyday world. It would be interesting to open up dossiers in the offices, in the archives of the Rome police forces and we would discover that at times the Pontifical Gendarmerie, thus the police internal to the Vatican, has carried out police operations, police investigations in Italian territory and this should not be happening. Imagine if English police officers were to come to Rome, to Milan, to your city to carry out investigations. There’s the sovereignty of nation States and no police officer can take action in a foreign State, unless in accordance with directives and by giving notice to and operating with the police of the country where they want to operate. I am doing further investigations for the next episode of “Gli Intoccabili” on La7 in mid-January. We became aware of covert operations carried out by the Pontifical Gendarmerie in Italian territory. In “Vaticano Spa” we had already identified a couple of these operations, even searches. I find this to be scandalous because it’s not a matter of form, because the Police cannot act in a foreign State. This is not done! But this doesn’t mean being against the Church, against religion, it means being Italian. If it were the French or the Americans with Abu Omar that took away Abu Omar, there’d be an uproar, wouldn’t there? The CIA agents that took away Abu Omar were convicted because they did a covert operation. They took away the presumed terrorist with the planes of the secret services. The problem is interference in the laws, interference in the hour of religion, a daily interference that instead needs blocking up in the relations between these two States. We’ll need to see if this change of step in the men of power and thus in the relationships, because to every man of power corresponds a relationship, if this change of step with the descent of Bertone and the rise of Bagnasco much stronger in having a dialogue with Monti’s technical government, will bring changes.
I am pessimistic very simply because the Church is thousands of years old and thus it sees human things in a far off way, without apparently participating, changing this logic of power, these equilibriums, takes time. What’s important is to get the information for ourselves! The problem is that we have difficulties in getting information about the pressures, the relationships of our government with foreign governments. If you go to any bookshop, you’ll find hagiographic books about the Vatican. They depict it as the Institute of Light in the twenty year period of Mussolini’s rule, or they are anticlerical and thus you shatter against the wall of bias of prejudice and of ideology.
Because to be anticlerical when you are reporting the news, when you are carrying out a professional activity, leads nowhere, then one can be anticlerical as a personal opinion, but we are on different levels between opinions and facts and so what happens? It happens that one becomes aware that the information about the Vatican leaves oodles of news items, of facts that are not investigated. Thank you and be sure to spread the word if you think like me.
 | Silenzio si ruba {Silence, there’s thieving}, by Marco Travaglio. |
Posted by Beppe Grillo at 06:59 PM in Information
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