Render Unto Rome_ The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church - Jason Berry [73]
An FBI investigation later determined that Follieri wired $387,300 to a layman who worked as an administrator in the Vatican, one Antonio Mainiero. Mainiero’s day job was on the staff of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. His role, as the FBI determined, was to help cultivate church officials, “show the gardens of the Vatican to Follieri and his guests, and arrange for guided tours of a museum at the Vatican to make it falsely appear that Follieri’s ties to the Vatican provided him with the right of first refusal” on church properties.20 But to appear as if Follieri had a right of first refusal was an image of mutual design. Follieri’s bank wire transfers to Mainiero in the Vatican spotlight an enterprise whereby Vatican-connected operators profit off U.S. church sales. On November 2, 2005, Follieri wired Mainiero $25,000; on March 1, 2006, a wire for $140,000; on May 16, 2006, a wire for $70,000; on June 30, 2006, a wire for $52,300; and on November 17, 2006, a wire for $100,000.
On March 8, 2006—one week after the largest payment sent to Mainiero in the Vatican, $140,000—Cardinal Sodano sent a letter of complaint to Follieri. “I feel it is my duty to tell you how perturbed I am,” he wrote,
to hear that your company continues to present itself as having ties to “the Vatican,” due to the fact that my nephew, Andrea, has agreed on some occasion to provide you with professional consulting services.
I do not know how this distressing misunderstanding could have occurred, but it is necessary now to avoid such confusion in the future.
I do, therefore, appeal to your sensibility to be careful with respect to this matter. I shall accordingly inform my nephew Andrea as well as anyone else who has asked me for information regarding your firm.
I take this opportunity to send you my regards.21
The letter is clearly in response to Feuerherd’s long article of March 3 in National Catholic Reporter. In the course of sending intelligence to its government, the Vatican embassy in Washington undoubtedly alerted the secretary of state of the Holy See to unflattering news references to himself, his nephew, and the “this thing smells” quote from a religious order official. Cardinal Sodano’s natural instinct was to cover his tracks. Although Andrea was milking the business, Cardinal Sodano—having lent his sacred office to greeting the potential backers and clients at Follieri Group’s Manhattan launch—feigned ignorance. Ties to the Vatican? A “distressing misunderstanding.” How much clearer could the Follieri brochures have been on the Vatican ties, or the sales calls with Andrea in his role? But as Iago prodded Othello to his fate and then withdrew, Andrea, who lived in Italy, could readily cut bait on Raffaello.
Behind the cardinal’s underlining of “necessary … to avoid such confusion” looms the cold mien of power, warning the flamboyant Follieri sotto voce, “Be careful.” One could infer he also meant, “We won’t guard your back.” For as Raffaello Follieri trumpeted his ecclesial connections to potential investors and church sellers, his braggadocio extended to telling people he was the chief financial officer of the Vatican! As the tailwinds of Follieri’s hubris wafted back to the Apostolic Palace, Cardinal Sodano sensed trouble. Still, his letter’s ambiguous language of chastisement begs a question: why didn’t the cardinal send Follieri a cease-and-desist message? But to do that would have gored the golden calf servicing sweet meat for Andrea, Antonio Mainiero, Monsignor Carrù, if not the cardinal himself.
Four months after the cardinal’s letter, with Burkle and company feeding money into Yucaipa Follieri Investments