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Nepotism?
A reader sends a link to the web site of a company called The Follieri Group. According to the site, the company was formed in 2003 for the express purpose of buying church properties, renovating them, and re-selling them. That wouldn’t be especially noteworthy, except for one thing.
The site says: “The members of The Follieri Group’s management team are Pasquale Follieri, Raffaello Follieri, Richard Ortoli, Vincent Ponte and Andrea Sodano.” Is that last name familiar? The page goes on: “Because of the Follieri family’s deep commitment to the Catholic Church and its long standing relationships with senior members of the Vatican hierarchy, The Follieri Group understands very well the imperatives of the Church and is sensitive to its needs.”
“Long standing relationships.” Longstanding is right: Andrea Sodano is a relative of Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, the number 2 man in the Church’s hierarchy in matters of governance. Unless his name was Wojtyla, you couldn’t get a better connection.
So here we have a company seeking relationships with American dioceses to buy up and dispose of closing properties. Meanwhile, a relative of one of the principals is the man ultimately in charge of the appeals process for parishes being closed.
Hey, I’m the strongest proponent of the idea that the Archdiocese of Boston needs to close parishes, but the process should be fair and everyone should be on a level playing field. This has at least the appearance of improriety. If the Boston archdiocese is smart, they’ll keep the Follieri Group at arm’s length, and other dioceses should too. Otherwise, they’re going to get killed in the media and in court.
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COMMENTS
“It’s not personal. It’s business.”
Posted by Patrick Sweeney on 01/4/05 at 10:48 AM “We’re gonna make them an offer they can’t refuse.”
Posted by on 01/4/05 at 11:12 AM Check out the link for “Our Team”. Not only is there a relationship with Sodano, team members are active in the Italian government and in Italian real estate. Colleen may be more right than we want to believe! Didn’t see any Marcinkuses on the list, though.
Alright, I’m picky.
“...one of the principles..."SHOULD BE: “one of the princiPALS...”
You know--real person vs. axiom.
This may well be the story of the new year yet!. My own initial web search has turned up a series of interesting and provocative connections between various principals of this new company and organized crime both here in Italy and in New York. Shades of Godfather III!!!!!
Posted by on 01/5/05 at 11:52 AM Great! All we need now are real estate kickbacks/frauds. Arrrgh. All together now--can we think of anything else to make the general population think we’re all crooks, child molesters and idiots??
One more interesting fact to add to the mix: “Nepotism” is derived from the latin word for “nephew.” And guess what? Andrea Sodano is the NEPHEW of the eminent Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano. Seems His Eminence is a “tradionalist” in some things after all.
Posted by on 01/10/05 at 01:02 PM Is there any more information about The Follieri Group’s business either in Europe or America? John1885c
Posted by on 06/25/05 at 07:40 AM Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
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