Nunzio Scarano
Interesting article today from the Christian Science Monitor about a priest at the Vatican, Rev. Nunzio Scarano, who was caught along with two cohorts trying to smuggle 26 million dollars in cash on a plane going from Switzerland to Italy. The money was owned by a family that has a shipping company in Naples. He was apparently going to "privately" deposit the money into a Vatican bank either to help the family avoid paying taxes on it, or perhaps to launder it in the case that it might have been illegally gotten money.
What caught my attention more than anything was the fact that all three men met through their membership in the Constantine Order of St. George, a society of ecclesiastical knights who's history is sketchy at best. The article also mentions the last great Vatican banking scandal in the 1980s when the chairman of an Italian bank in which the Vatican was the primary shareholder was found hanging dead under the Blackfriars Bridge and five members of the Italian Mafia were tried for his murder, but all were acquitted for lack of evidence.
In short, I think it's great that Pope Francis is doing his best to straighten out the Vatican banking mess, but if big money and the Mafia are involved, he's going to have a very difficult undertaking ahead of him. We may start seeing dead priests hanging from bridges in the near future.
The article is here.
I am beginning to think that the Church entire is a sham. Maybe not so different than in St. Paul's time as one reads his letters. I'm having a crises of faith in my own mainline Protestant church. One has to wonder are there any churches anywhere following Christ? This is a most disturbing article, Bill. So many suffering all over the world and the Vatican consciences 7 billion? And corruption beyond all reckoning! May God have mercy upon us all!
ReplyDeleteThe church a sham? I've always thought so Ann, but you already know that. It's why I'm not a joiner. I'm much happier that way. Religion is an individual thing. That's why everyone has to work out their own salvation.
DeleteThere are some big changes on the horizon I think. I doubt that people from our generation would recognize the church 100 years from now. Either the face of Christianity will change considerably and people will begin to view God in a brand new way, or religion will die altogether.