Pope’s bodyguard resigns over new financial leaks scandal

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican’s latest leaks scandal claimed its first victim Monday, as Pope Francis’ chief bodyguard resigned over the leak of a Vatican police flyer identifying five employees who were suspended as part of a financial investigation.

The Vatican said its police chief, 57-year-old Domenico Giani, bore no responsibility for the leaked flyer but resigned to avoid disrupting the investigation and “out of love for the church and faithfulness” to the pope.

The person who leaked the document to Italian newsweekly L’Espresso remains unknown.

20-year veteran

Giani, a 20-year veteran of the Vatican’s security services, has stood by Francis’ side and jogged alongside his popemobile during hundreds of public appearances and foreign trips. He also was the chief bodyguard for Pope Benedict XVI, and the Vatican took pains to stress his “unquestionable faithfulness and loyalty” to the Holy See.

Giani had signed the Oct. 2 police flyer after his agents raided two Vatican offices — the secretariat of state and the Vatican’s financial intelligence unit — as part of an investigation by Vatican criminal prosecutors into alleged financial irregularities surrounding a money-losing London real estate deal.

The raids and related suspensions were highly unusual for the Vatican and sparked fresh speculation about its Machiavellian turf battles, power struggles and score-settling.

That the alleged leaker remains unknown has added to the mystery surrounding the case, which has implicated high-ranking Vatican cardinals and recalls two previous “Vatileaks” scandals that resulted in headline-grabbing Vatican trials.

In this instance, officials have spoken openly of an institutional crisis, particularly over the raid on the financial intelligence unit, known as the Financial Information Authority. The office shares financial information with counterparts in dozens of countries as part of a global effort to crack down on money laundering, tax evasion and terrorist financing.

National financial intelligence units might be unwilling to share sensitive information with the Holy See if raids were executed without sufficient cause.

Vatican staying quiet

To date, the Vatican hasn’t said what, if any, evidence it has of the agency’s wrongdoing.

Giani’s Oct. 2 flyer was sent to all Swiss Guards and members of the Vatican gendarmes police force as an internal directive barring entry to the Vatican by the five employees, who were suspended from their jobs as a precaution.

L’Espresso and its daily newspaper, La Repubblica, published the directive and it was widely redistributed online and on social media.

In a statement announcing Giani’s departure, the Vatican said the publication of the document greatly harmed the employees’ dignity, as well as the image of the Vatican gendarmes. Giani himself said he was ashamed by the publication, and that he felt personally for the five employees.

“Having always said that I would be willing to sacrifice my life to defend the pope, I took the decision to resign with the same spirit, and to not in any way harm the image and activities of the pope,” he told Vatican media.

Giani joined the Vatican police force as the deputy police chief in 1999 after a stint in Italy’s financial police and the information department of the Italian premier’s office. He was named director of Vatican security services in 2006.

Giani said he was leaving at a difficult time, but was looking forward to spending more time with his wife and two children.