Robert Moynihan has the background on the firing of the Vatican head of police, Domenico Giani: It is said to be connected with the “raid” of Vatican financial offices on October 1, 13 days ago.
Computers and documents were collected from several offices, and five relatively low-ranking people — as Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò suggested to me at the time — were accused of having acted improperly, and were suspended from their jobs.
Then, on October 2, a kind of digital poster was drawn up by the Vatican police (notionally under Giani’s direction) which showed the faces of all five suspended workers, stating that these five people (one a woman, the mother of young children) were not to be allowed into the Vatican except to visit the health services for medical care (one of the five, the only monsignor of the group, who has for years been highly respected for his serious and honest work, continues to live in the Domus Santa Marta, while suspended from his job).
This sort of “wanted poster” was sent out as a PDF by email to all Vatican police and all Swiss Guards, evidently so the police and guards could stop any of these five from visiting or moving around Vatican City.
But this PDF was also, somehow, sent out of the Vatican by someone anonymously to several press agencies, and photos of the PDF were published in several places on the internet.
This publication seemed to cast a “dark cloud” on the names and reputations of these five workers, though they had not ever been tried or convicted of anything.
The Osservatore Romano even wrote an article saying that the five were suffering from a “media lynching” (“gogna mediatica“).
So a type of raid occurred, but the handling of the news of who was raided and then suspended from their posts was immediately criticized within the Vatican itself.
When Pope Francis heard this “wanted poster” had been published, he said it was like a “mortal sin” to ruin the reputation of these individuals.
The fairly new director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni, confirmed that, after the publication of the photos of the suspected people, “an investigation has begun, at the behest of the Holy Father, on the illicit distribution of a document for internal use of the forces of security of the Holy See, whose gravity, in the words of Pope Francis, is comparable to a mortal sin, since it is detrimental to the dignity of persons and the principle of the presumption of innocence.”
But it appears that Giani has not managed to discover who forwarded the PDF of the poster to the press outside the Vatican — and this failure is said to have irritated the Pope, to the point that, in a meeting with Giani, he has asked for his resignation. (Another post will be found for him elsewhere to ease the transition, the Italian press is reporting.) It is said that his likely replacement at the head of the Vatican’s security forces will be his vice-commander, Gianluca Gauzzi Broccoletti, who was named to the post in December by Pope Francis.
The former head of the “Second Section” of the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, commented today that what was occurring is “a struggle for potere” and that, in the curia, the “sense of loyalty” is “growing less.” (link)
So, with regards to the Vatican’s efforts to end financial corruption, this case of the five low-level workers whose offices were “raided” two weeks ago seems to have widening repercussions…