The Vatican is thinking about selling the London property at the center of a financial scandal at the Secretariat of State, which lost an estimated $100 million in the building’s purchase.
Bloomberg reported this week that the Vatican is considering selling the former car showroom of the Harrods department store, located at 60 Sloane Avenue in the ritzy Chelsea neighborhood of London.
The Secretariat of State began to purchase the building seven years ago as an investment property intended for development into luxury apartments.
According to Bloomberg, sources in the Vatican said that the London property is valued at about $369.1 million. The Vatican confirmed to Bloomberg that, while there is no rush to decide, selling is one of the options being considered.
The circumstances surrounding the property’s purchase have come under investigation, as the Vatican alleges that businessman Gianluigi Torzi, brought in by the Vatican to broker the final part of the building’s sale, was part of a conspiracy to defraud the secretariat of millions of euros. Torzi denies the claim.
The secretariat bought the property at 60 Sloane Avenue in London in stages between 2014 and 2018 from Italian businessman Raffaele Mincione. Torzi earned millions of euros for his role in the final stage of the deal.
Torzi sold the secretariat the 30,000 majority shares in Gutt SA, the holding company through which the London property was purchased, while he retained the 1,000 shares with voting rights.
The Secretariat of State has since claimed that Torzi acted with dishonesty and secrecy about the shares, while Torzi says his actions were known and agreed to with the knowledge of Secretariat of State superiors.
In March, a British judge sided with Torzi in a ruling which reversed a seizure of Torzi’s accounts requested by Vatican prosecutors.
This month, an Italian judge issued an arrest warrant for Torzi based on an investigation by police in Rome into suspected fraudulent billing, money laundering, and other financial crimes in collaboration with three of his associates.
Torzi is currently located in the United Kingdom and has not been served with the warrant.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/247333/report-vatican-considering-sale-of-london-property-at-heart-of-financial-scandal
Catholic Church is reported to be the largest real estate owner in the whole world when all its properties in all the countries are added up. So much so, even if the faith is lost its real estate will continue to earn money for the establishment. Clever management. No one can beat Kerala’s Syro Malabar Church in this respect. They have invested wisely in schools, colleges, hospitals and commercial properties all across Kerala, India and abroad. How much of the benefits accruing out of them goes to the community is a mystery.
Money, wealth, properties are the “real strength” of the Roman Catholic Church. Vatican thrives on the “earthly riches”. This is the bitter truth.
Poor carpenter’s son Jesus of Nazareth has “no place” in the church. If He were alive today He would say, “the popes have their palaces and hierarchies their wealth, but I have not a place within the church.”
A former pope was taking a Marxist friend around the Vatican treasures and jokingly said “Like Peter I cannot say – Gold and silver I have none”. The Marxist retorted “That is why like Peter you also cannot say – take up your bed and walk”. The irony should not be lost on us.
Since when did the church become a real estate investment agency?