Probe highlights Vatican legal system's limited protections

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A criminal investigation into a Vatican real estate investment is exposing weaknesses in the city state’s judicial system and a lack of some basic protections for those accused — highlighting the incompatibility of the Holy See’s procedures with European norms.

The Vatican has never been a democracy, but the incongruity of a government that is a moral authority on the global stage and yet an absolute monarchy is becoming increasingly evident. The pope is supreme judge, legislator and executive, who holds the ultimate power to hire and fire officials, judges and prosecutors and make and waive laws and regulations.

One longtime papal adviser who quit all his Holy See consulting roles to protest what he considered grave human rights violations in the probe of the 350 million-euro London real estate investment spelled out his reasoning in emails to the Vatican's No. 2 official that were obtained by The Associated Press.

If nothing is done, wrote Marc Odendall, “the Holy See will no longer be able to integrate itself in the system of civilized countries and will return to a universe reserved to totalitarian states.”

The investigation burst into public awareness on Oct. 1, 2019, when the pope’s bodyguards raided the Vatican secretariat of state — the offices of the central government of the Holy See — and the Vatican's financial watchdog authority, known as AIF. Pope Francis personally authorized the raids after a trusted ally alerted Vatican prosecutors of suspicions about the investment.

The investigation has been portrayed as a sign that Francis is cracking down on corruption. And there is evidence of at least financial mismanagement by Vatican officials, since they agreed to pay Italian middlemen tens of millions of euros in fees.

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