Former Vatican auditor seeks legal appeal and papal audience
The former auditor general of the Vatican is requesting an audience with Pope Leo XIV to discuss his wrongful termination lawsuit and share his concerns about Vatican financial institutions.
In a series of press conferences in Rome on July 30, Libero Milone told journalists that he had already made an informal request to meet the new pope through the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, but would be making a formal appeal for a papal audience in the near future.
The auditor told journalists that he is “not looking to blackmail anyone,” while confirming his possession of documents that he said prove he uncovered systematic corruption in the curia prior to his departure from office in 2017, including the misappropriation of 2.5 million euros intended to build a new hospital wing.
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Speaking in the offices of his legal team in Rome on Wednesday, Milone described his experience of Vatican justice and governance as “Orwellian,” and warned that Pope Leo could not trust his closest curial advisers on financial matters.
“I want to speak to the pope,” Milone said, “but the pope needs to speak to me, not because I am clever or anything [but] because he is surrounded by people who will never tell him what actually happened.”
“There is a level of self-protection in the Vatican which was there before by a group of people centrally who will never tell the pope the true story,” Milone continued. “And the pope, who seems to be a very serious person, who seems to want to be successful, needs to know the truth.”
Citing a recent report from The Pillar regarding an investigation and report into a “potentially illegal” system of changing financial transaction records by APSA, the Holy See’s sovereign asset manager, Milone said: “We [the Office of the Auditor General] did that analysis but there are many others like that.”
Milone said the matter was flagged directly to Pope Francis, and he told the pope that “we have to act quickly because somebody in the Vatican will stop us getting the papers.”
“We saw what was happening. We saw that they were making payments and the payments they were making were not to the people that were on [file] in the first [entry] of the SWIFT transfer system,” he said.
“I have a copy of a piece of paper which says how [APSA] can operate the SWIFT banking system and it says specifically [they] can change the name and [they] can change the amount or [they] can change the IBAN account.”
Asked by journalists if he could identify specific instances of criminal activity or money laundering linked to the APSA system, Milone said “We have at least one example, yes,” but declined to make the information public.
Milone initially filed his lawsuit for wrongful dismissal in November 2022 after years of seeking an out-of-court settlement with the Vatican. Milone said Wednesday that he was still open to such a resolution, and that his primary aim was to clear his reputation so he could resume work.
He said that his work within the Vatican, from 2015 until 2017, was hampered because he “was being confronted systematically by people telling me lies,” despite his office producing documentary evidence of what he called a “prevailing” culture of money laundering in some Vatican financial institutions and inaction on the part of authorities.
“In most companies [as an auditor] you don't find any money laundering and if there is money laundering, it's normally very selected,” said Milone. “Here, it was prevailing.”
“I wrote 15 reports to ASIF [the Vatican’s internal financial watchdog] and the [Office of the] Promoter of Justice denouncing a number of issues. On how many did they act? None.”
The auditor said he was seeking a meeting with Pope Leo because he believes that corruption is likely an ongoing issue within the curia. Asked by journalists if he thought the numerous policy and legal reforms issued by Pope Francis during his pontificate would have addressed the issue, Milone expressed skepticism.
“The laws are different. But are you sure that they're being enforced? I have a doubt because I know how they work,” Milone said. “There’s a people problem there.”
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Milone also took aim at the ongoing legal setbacks he has faced in his bid to sue the Vatican Secretariat of State for wrongful dismissal.
Milone left office in 2017, after being detained and interrogated for hours by Vatican City gendarmes under the orders of Cardinal Angelo Becciu, then the sostituto at the secretariat, who confirmed his actions publicly at the time.
Two different Vatican courts have now ruled that the Secretariat of State is not liable for Becciu’s actions, reasoning that if he committed illegal acts they were of their nature not official. Milone’s legal team have disputed this reasoning and argued the secretariat, which has not brought any case against Becciu over his treatment of Milone, bears responsibility for what was done by Becciu while in office.
Becciu was subsequently convicted in a separate Vatican financial crimes trial in 2023, the verdict of which he is currently appealing.
Milone also noted Wednesday that he and his legal team had been effectively barred from bringing evidence they say proves his contention that he was forced from office for conducting legitimate auditing work — work that Becciu called “spying” on the private financial affairs of senior Vatican officials.
Vatican judges previously ruled that presenting evidence of Milone’s work to uncover Vatican corruption would harm the “good name” of those implicated.
Milone said he is appealing to the Vatican City Court of Cassation in the hopes of being allowed to “really present the whole case from the beginning. Now will it take them six months or a year? We don’t know, but we're going to do it. But in the meantime I want to speak to the pope.”
In his efforts to see Pope Leo, Milone said he had initially sought help from Cardinal Parolin, but had now become disillusioned with the cardinal’s expressions of good will.
“I have to say is that I trusted maybe the wrong person in this whole exercise,” Milone said, claiming Parolin discussed the circumstances of Milone’s ouster and attempts to seek a settlement for his case with him “17 or 18 times.”
“So we went through all this procedure and we never got anywhere except for extending the time period. So I made a mistake, I trusted the wrong person and he led us along the garden path,” Milone said.
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Throughout the press conference, Milone declined to release the documents which Vatican City courts have blocked him from presenting as evidence, despite previously indicating he would be willing to do so if his lawsuit was blocked by the Vatican courts.
“I'm not trying to blackmail anybody,” Milone said. “I think the legal process has to be followed through. But I have evidence and I know what I did and I'm absolutely sure what we did was correct — and so do 95% of the people in the Vatican, by the way, I'm sure.”
While reiterating his desire to meet with Pope Leo, Milone said he would not speculate on what he might do if the pope would not receive him and if the Vatican courts continue to dismiss his case.
“At the end of the day, the best thing is for two people to sit down in front of each other and talk this through,” Milone said. “I have nothing to hide.”
“My concern is that the Church has to continue existing and the only way to exist is to get its house in order. They are talking about ‘donations going to go up’ and ‘the Americans are going to give money’ — if I were in America or any future donor, and there is no credibility to the system, would I give money? No, I'd wait for the credibility to come back.”
While insisting that he was not prepared to release details of specific instances of corruption while his legal process remains ongoing, Milone did give what he called “a very superficial example” of the behavior his office uncovered.
“We had the documentation to say that somebody had contributed 2.5 million to build a new hospital ward. So we searched for the ward. We didn't find it […] but we did find a plaque on a wall which said ‘This is a new hospital ward.’”
“We checked where the money went and it didn't go for a hospital ward. I won't tell you where it went, [but] I have the details,” Milone said.
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