Vatican to protect internal whistleblowers | CPT PPP Coverage

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Pope Francis has taken further steps to fight corruption within the Holy See and Vatican City State by issuing new norms to protect internal whistleblowers who report financial misconduct.

The new measures, published on January 24, stipulate that the Office of the Auditor General must protect the identity of individuals who report irregularities, whether in person or in writing, including by email.  

Anonymous letters are excluded

Even professional secrecy, particularly strict within the Vatican, is lifted if reports concern malfunctions that could pose a threat or “harm to the common good”. It may also involve irregularities in the awarding of public contracts, codified in the Vatican since 2020.

Among examples of irregularities, the explanatory document accompanying the new Vatican rules mentions “accounting irregularities” and “false statements”.

“Reports should not concern complaints of a personal nature” or “complaints falling under the discipline of employment relationships” with a hierarchical superior. Anonymous letters are also excluded, which, in fact, are not uncommon within the Vatican.

Disclosure to the Vatican’s justice system

In any case, according to the new norms, a whistleblower’s identity can only be disclosed to the Vatican’s justice system. A whistleblower can be any employee of Vatican City, the Roman Curia, or other institutions affiliated with the Holy See, such as pontifical institutes or, for instance, an entity like the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in Rome. A subcontractor working for the Vatican can also report irregularities.

With these very concrete measures, Pope Francis furthered his efforts at cleaning up the Holy See’s financial practices, a project that was actually begun by Benedict XVI, but is especially seen as a top priority of the Argentine pope. Francis, in fact, is the one who created the Office of Auditor General in 2014, specially entrusting its head with the task of fighting corruption.

The current Auditor General is Alessandro Cassinis Righini, a lay economist specializing in business administration and corporate strategy. He formerly worked for the Deloitte Group.

The publication of the new norms to protect whistleblowers comes a month after Vatican City’s civil court convicted nine individuals, including Cardinal Angelo Becciu, for fraud and embezzlement.

However, the vast majority of the charges in this lengthy trial, which occupied Vatican lay judges for over two years, were based on allegations made by the former head of the office responsible for studying the Vatican’s investments, Mgr. Alberto Perlasca. He was once considered a suspect by the Vatican’s justice system before ultimately being cleared, due to his key role as a witness in the case.