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Revisiting the Follieri Group
Last year, I put up a brief blog entry about a company called the Follieri Group, whose apparent mission is buying and selling real estate of the Catholic Church being discarded by dioceses. I also noted that the group claims to have excellent connections in the Vatican and that one of the principles is a nephew of Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican Secretary of State and number two man at the Holy See.
Since then I have received many emails, mainly from reporters looking for more information on this group. It looks like Joe Feuerherd of the National Catholic Reporter has beaten the rest of them to the punch with a lengthy investigation into the company and its goals and practices. He even quotes my blog entry, although the quote doesn’t add anything of substance to the story.
How well wired is the Follieri Group? In early 2005, Catholic blogger Domenico Bettinelli, editor of the Catholic World Report, summed it up: “Unless [Andrea Sodano’s] name was Wojtyla, you couldn’t get a better connection.”
I think it’s a good line, but maybe if you quote the editor of the “far right-wing” Catholic World Report you can show that there’s no conservative-liberal dividing line on this, or something.
Regardless, it seems that Follieri is making the most of its connections.
Technorati Tags: parish-closing, vatican
On Nov. 9 at the Met Life Building’s Sky Club restaurant in Manhattan, more than 200 prominent Catholics gathered for an evening fundraiser to support the Path to Peace Foundation, the charitable arm of the Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations. The night’s honoree, winner of the Foundation’s Path to Peace Award, was Fra’ Andrew Bertie, Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Previous winners of the award include former U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros Gali and his successor, Kofi Annan, former Phillipine President Corazon Aquino, and former Polish President Lech Walesa.
The Follieri Group was one of two “benefactors” of the event, the highest level of giving noted in the event’s program. Seated at Pasquale Follieri’s table were Jean-Pierre Mazery, Grand Chancellor of the Knights of Malta, who accepted the award for Bertie; Archbishops Celestino Migliore, the Vatican’s permanent observer at the UN, and Gabriel Montalvo, then the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States; and Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
The following week, Raffaello Follieri and Andrea Sodano visited the Capitol Hill Hyatt Regency Hotel in Washington, site of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops annual meeting. An escalator ride up from the general assembly meeting room, the Follieri Group maintained a hospitality suite for bishops. At that meeting, by a vote of 222-2, the bishops agreed to seek Vatican approval for an amendment to church policy that would allow large dioceses (those with more than 500,000 Catholics) to sell or mortgage properties for up to $10.3 million without Rome’s prior consent. The previous $5.1 million limit, said those supporting the change, was increasingly cumbersome in the go-go real estate market affecting U.S. dioceses nationwide.
Meanwhile, the Follieri Group is among the groups that sponsor the annual conference for Catholic facility managers. The company hosts exhibits at events that attract church real estate professionals, including meetings of the National Association of Treasurers of Religious Institutions and the Conference of Major Superiors of Men.
This isn’t to say that there’s anything unethical or immoral about all of this. The real estate is going to be sold, and Follieri’s connections don’t appear to be helping it unduly. The diocesan sources quoted by NCR say that the Vatican connection may get them meetings with bishops, but it doesn’t help them make any sales.
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COMMENTS
Well, the fact that he is a Page 6 guy means the Vatican needs to shut this down immediately!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/27/06 at 12:02 PM In my experience with Church real estate, there is a competitve market to purchase Church properties. There really isn’t much exclusion from the bidding process, other than lack of funds.
Here is a list of Chicago area Church real estate For Sale or Lease, and you don’t have to be the nephew of the Vatican Secretary of State to pick up the phone and lease what you need.
http://www.archchicago.org/departments/financial_services/pdf/r_estate/available_for_lease.pdf
JBP
Nothing unethical? If this business endeavor involved Donald Trump and not Princes of the Church, words like influence peddling, arm-twisting and kick-backs would be bandied about.
What’s even more abominable is the part of the article describing the “Catholic Path to Peace Foundation’ not only hobnobbing with the reprobates of the UN, (of which the Church is now a permanent observer), but giving awards to the chief con man and scammer, Kofi Annan. Christ is the Path to Peace - not that bunch of self-promoting thieves in the UN.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/27/06 at 08:53 PM Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
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