Ex-Vatican children’s hospital chief used donations to renovate cardinal’s flat

A Vatican court on Saturday convicted the former president of the pope’s children’s hospital of diverting some US$500,000 in donations to renovate a cardinal’s flat and gave him a one-year suspended sentence.

The original charges against ex-hospital president Giuseppe Profiti had been embezzlement. But the court convicted him of a lesser offence of abuse of office after the defence argued the money was intended as an investment to benefit the hospital.

The three-judge tribunal absolved Bambino Gesu Paediatric Hospital’s former treasurer, Massimo Spina. Notably, neither the cardinal who benefited from the renovation nor the contractor who was apparently paid twice for doing the work were charged.

More than anything, the trial exposed how Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s former secretary of state, bent Vatican rules to get his retirement flat ready after Pope Francis was elected in 2013 and named a new secretary of state.

It also revealed the “opacity, silence and poor management” in the handling of Vatican assets, prosecutor Roberto Zanotti said in his closing statements.