Render Unto Rome_ The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church - Jason Berry [71]
So, Feuerherd asked Follieri, do you plan to use the low-income housing tax credit at 4 percent or 9 percent? Raffaello had no idea, but cheerfully waved off his inexperience—he had staff to handle that. He’s a huckster, thought Joe Feuerherd.9 Nevertheless, his article showed restraint.
There were two initial factors motivating the company’s interest in U.S. church real estate, Raffaello Follieri told NCR. First, he said, “The [sex abuse] scandal in America [where] dioceses were paying a lot of money to pay [off] the lawsuits” would necessitate the sale of church property. Next, he said, the changing demographics of the church—from North and East to West and South and from city to suburb—mean that “a lot of the schools and churches that were full of people in the beginning” are now largely unused …
For competitive reasons the real estate industry is hyperdiscreet. Only when a deal is consummated—a process that can take months as prospective purchasers arrange financing and conduct environmental and other land and structural analysis—do sales records become public.
Even then, in some jurisdictions, religious institutions are exempt from some disclosure requirements. Dioceses and religious orders, meanwhile, are notoriously reluctant to discuss their business dealings, especially when senior Vatican officials are involved.10
“This thing smells in my opinion,” a religious order official told Feuerherd, his name withheld. “I wouldn’t get close to these people.” Translation: in the small tent of church politics, you don’t want your boss knowing you’ve scoffed at a pitchman in the person of Cardinal Sodano’s nephew.
“I have worked for the Follieri family for the past fifteen years as an engineering consultant,” Andrea Sodano told Feuerherd by e-mail. “My involvement long predates the Follieri Group’s interest in the States. The Follieri Group’s long and successful track record in real estate speaks for itself.”11
Melanie Bonvicino, a former Vogue model and a New York publicist with many celebrity clients, helped Raffaello in the start-up phase. She calls Andrea Sodano “very calculating, restrained, and absolutely gay. He looked upper class. He sits there, the nephew of the cardinal—what do you think Americans are going to think? It’s the image. Raffaello was like an actor cast in the lead of a movie. He was not particularly intellectual. He was a provincial young man from southern Italy, humble beginnings, but the accent, his good looks, and the clothes helped. He had very good manners, which goes a long way for most people. The entire business was predicated on associations, a veneer of something. He was charming, charismatic. He made people feel good … [Anne Hathaway] was reading blogs all the time. He made her dazzling, he made her interesting.”12
Richard Ortoli, a Manhattan attorney who drew up the incorporation papers, was so impressed with Raffaello Follieri that he invested close to $100,000; he let Raffaello sleep for a time in his spare room and hosted a party to launch the Follieri Group at the elite, wood-paneled University Club. As Michael Shnayerson reported in Vanity Fair, Cardinal Sodano circulated, shaking hands, smiling, his mere presence a Vatican show of support. Through Andrea Sodano, Follieri met princes of the American church to help gloss his image. Vincent Ponte, a restaurateur and TriBeCa developer took note when New York Cardinal Edward Egan gave Raffaello the grand hello in Filli Ponte restaurant. After conversations with Raffaello, Ponte invested $300,000 in the Follieri Group and lent Raffaello a white Mercedes with a driver.13
In 2004 Raffaello fell in love with the twenty-two-year-old Hathaway. She would become a bigger star as the ingenue magazine secretary in The Devil Wears Prada. Her celebrity status boosted his as he opened doors. Philanthropy was a calculated part of his plan. Although the