The emergence of an abyss of a billion and a half in debts of San Raffaele, the hospital founded by don Luigi Verzè that the Holy See is trying to save from bankruptcy, is causing growing concern within the Italian church and also in the palaces beyond the Tiber.
The hospital in Milan, with adjacent universities, in recent years has become one of the most highly regarded health care centers because of the quality of its service and research.
And it is known how the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi chooses this hospital for his health care. Don Verzé, the founder, is a priest-manager who believes he can extend by a considerable amount the average life of human beings.
But, also because of bad investments and grandiose expenses not directly related to hospital work (a personal aircraft, hotels, plantations in South America), San Raffaele is on the verge of bankruptcy.
Early this summer, Don Verzè had preferred to engage the Holy See in the rescue operation, instead of relying on the consortium of the Lombard health care entrepreneur Giuseppe Rotelli, who was also interested in assisting the hospital.
The management (bankruptcy management, economically speaking) of San Rafael for several weeks now has been in the care of the expert team assembled by Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, whom Don Verzè has placed on the hospital's Board of Directors; this team has been entrusted with the effective reins of command of the hospital.
The Board of Directors, which meets again today, is composed of prominent personalities, all close to Bertone and of proven managerial capacity, such as the President of the IOR (Institute of Works of Religion, better known as the Vatican Bank), Ettore Gotti Tedeschi; Health manager Giuseppe Profiti; the former Justice Minister under Prodi, Giovanni Maria Flick; the Genoese entrepreneur Victor Malacalza. These men have entrusted Enrico Bondi with the task of clarifying the financial situation by September 15.
It has not yet been communicated how much the Vatican Bank's financial committment will be: there is talk of a figure that ranges from 250 to 400 million euros, with the aim of covering the most urgent debts that San Raffaele has contracted with pharmaceutical companies.
A truly substantial sum, if confirmed, especially at this time of global economic crisis which finds even the Holy See's finances in a fix.
Behind the initiative of Cardinal Bertone, the project would create a large medical center of excellence, bringing together the San Raffaele Hospital with the Bambin Gesù Hospital in Rome and the House for the Relief of Suffering in San Giovanni Rotondo (the latter two are already managed by the Vatican).
But the pole would include also the Agostino Gemelli University Polyclinical Hospital, which belongs to the Catholic University, the University at which the Secretary of State launched a takeover bid to get control of its "coffers" – the Toniolo Institute - even at the cost of changing the statutes. And there are those who say that the great health network of Vatican may also include Genoese hospitals Galliera and Gaslini, chaired by the Archbishop of Genoa.
Many people ask whether it is really a specific task of the Holy See to create, manage and control health centers of excellence. We are not looking at an investment to bring in funds to earmark for other purposes: health is an area usually at a loss.
And at the moment, there is no obvious ethical motivation, such as saving a shabby hospital in Africa, or constructing new healthcare standards in forgotten third-world areas where one dies from a lack of the most basic care. Initiatives which the IOR, the Institute for Works of Religion, already supports, far from the spotlight.
Why is the Holy See, at a moment that is not easy for the Church's life - just think of the ongoing international crises, from Ireland to China, as well as the obvious problems in curial government - committing itself in such a risky initiative, seeming ready to use hundreds of millions of euros of Church assets whose end is "worship, evangelization and charity"?
There is a second problem that worries many, and concerns the content of teaching and experimentation at the San Raffaele hospital, which has never been a "Catholic" hospital, that is, in line with the Church's teaching on bioethics.
By the time the final transition into the hands of the Vatican administration will be formalized, the new directors will be forced to take this into account, while the faculty of the university hospital founded by Don Verzè has already made it known that they consider their freedom of teaching and research to be "non-negotiable".
Even on this terrain, the road seems all uphill.
One will have to wait until the coming weeks to know what answers will be given
to these questions, as well as the reaction - if any - of some important bishoprics around the world, that provide the more consistent revenues to the Holy See.