Rent Scandal in Rome Diocese Properties: From Shelter for Elderly Priests to Unauthorized Hospitality Ventures [INVESTIGATION #1]
A property donated to the Vicariate of Rome has changed its purpose: from a shelter for elderly priests to a luxurious space for non-hotel-related activities. This property, covering more than three thousand square meters with stunning porticos and terraces, is located at Via delle Zoccolette 17 in Rome, between Via dei Pettinari and Lungotevere dei Vallati. It was originally donated to the Vicariate of Rome with a noble mission.
The building was intended to serve as a refuge for elderly priests, a place to welcome young people for catechism, and to host foreigners in need. However, over time, this original mission was gradually abandoned, and the property ended up being rented to a company specializing in non-hotel activities and food and beverage services.
Pope Francis, in his Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium”, addresses the thorny contemporary issue of evangelization in relation to charity. He aims to discuss some fundamental issues related to evangelizing action, reminding us of the context in which we live and operate: “It is the gaze of the missionary disciple that is nourished by the light and strength of the Holy Spirit.” In the Crisis of Community Commitment, Pope Francis asserts that just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit to ensure the value of human life, today we must say “no to an economy of exclusion and inequality.” This economy kills.
It raises questions about how it is possible that the death of an elderly person, frozen to death on the street, doesn’t make news, while within the Palace of the Vicariate of Rome, which claims to pursue the interests of the Church and the poor, important ecclesiastics seem to follow goals that clash with the fundamental values of hospitality and humility that Pope Francis himself has emphasized from the beginning, starting with the worn-out shoes he wore to send a clear message: simplicity and closeness to the poorest.
The words of Jesus are eloquent on this matter and remain relevant today: “My house shall be called a house of prayer. But you have made it a den of thieves” (Luke 19:46).
The Director of the Legal Office of the Vicariate of Rome, Don Renato Tarantelli Baccari, who is responsible, along with his office, for protecting the Diocese of Rome and its associated entities, managed to secure the signing of a new 20+9-year lease contract between the ecclesiastical entity “OSPIZIO ECCLESIASTICO DEI CENTO PRETI,” legally represented by His Excellency Monsignor Baldassare Reina, and the company “WELLINGTON POLO FASHION SRL.”
The legal representative of this company, “WELLINGTON POLO FASHION SRL,” is Paola De Angelis, wife of Eduardo Salvador Safdie, a well-known real estate developer. Thus, for many, the company and its actions are driven by the duo Eduardo Salvador Safdie and Dario Di Domenico.
This event took place on July 19, 2024, when the parties met at the Legal Office of the Vicariate of Rome, in the presence of the notary Carlo Cavicchioni, who authenticated the signatures of the contract with repertory 84248 and collection 21309, which was then registered with the Revenue Agency of Rome 1 – TRASTEVERE on 6/8/2024 under number 023701 series 1T and transcribed in the Conservatory Provincial Office of ROME – Territorial Real Estate Advertising Service of ROME 1 on 7/8/2024 under General Registry number: 103467 and Particular Registry number: 77654.
Despite the original agreement (the previous contract was signed in 2017), the company accumulated arrears of around 1.5 million euros, but this did not prevent the striking renegotiation with the Diocese in July 2024. Not only were the accumulated arrears written off, but the Vicariate of Rome also granted an additional 1,000 square meters to the lessee company. This renegotiation, which involved significant changes, does not appear to have been supported by solid surety guarantees, raising further doubts about the management of the entire operation.
This newspaper, “L’Osservatore d’Italia,” has been informed that the Holy Father is aware of this operation but has not raised any objections.
Don Renato Tarantelli Baccari has thus been given free rein, and it is striking how much power and how many appointments have been attributed to this person over the years: Director of the Legal Office, Interim Administrative Director, President of the Entities Commission, President of the Heritage Commission, DPO, Member of the C.D.A.E., Member of the Disciplinary Commission, Whistleblowing Officer, and as he announced, he is soon to be appointed as Episcopal Vicar for the legal and administrative domain of the Vicariate of Rome, effectively going against what was established in the Apostolic Constitution “In Ecclesiarum Communione,” published only on January 6, 2023, and the subsequent General Regulations of the Vicariate of Rome approved by Pope Francis on December 21, 2023.
It is surprising that the drafting of the new lease contract, see the latest minutes of the CDAE of 2/7/2024, was entrusted by the Vicegerent His Excellency Monsignor Baldassare Reina to the same legal office, which was then practically prepared by the legal office staff member Ms. Emanuela Santelli, who had also prepared the contract signed in 2017, and in which significant gaps emerged in the protection of the lessor, causing the Vicariate to lose over a million euros.
Can we tolerate the fact that food is thrown away when people are starving? This is inequity. Today everything is subject to the game of competitiveness and the law of the strongest, where the powerful eat the weak. As a result of this situation, large masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without prospects, without a way out. The human being is considered as a consumer good, to be used and then discarded. We have initiated the culture of “waste,” which now seems to be exercised even within the Church, at the highest levels.
The excluded are not “exploited,” but waste, “leftovers.” Pope Francis highlights in his synodal reflection: “One of the causes of this situation lies in the relationship we have established with money since we peacefully accept its dominance over us and our societies. The financial crisis we are experiencing makes us forget that at its origin there is a profound anthropological crisis: the denial of the primacy of the human being! We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf” (cf. Ex 32:1-35). Pope Francis speaks well, but perhaps forgets that the Church and its representatives (i.e., the men promoted by the Pope) are before the judgment of history, “So it is with faith; if it does not have works, it is dead in itself.” But the most evident crisis emerging from this current chapter in the history of the Vicariate, as in the Vatican and the Church, is that the main features of the deviations of bad shepherds turned in incompetent managers are well documented by the prophet Ezekiel: Woe to the shepherds of Israel, who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with wool, you slaughter the fat sheep, but you do not feed the flock. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness, you have ruled them.
With documentary rigor and the passion of faith and love for the Church, one must not consent to the evil in which religious people who feel untouchable navigate, whose ecclesiastical privileges must be exposed so that the hidden mechanisms of what can be called the “expropriation of the poor’s goods” may end.
Little or nothing is said about this contract, like others that may happen in other diocesan realities, almost as if to protect the interests of the powerful and the rich. All this wounds the credibility of the Church and the rights of the poor who have neither credit nor voice.
The aforementioned lessee company “WELLINGTON POLO FASHION SRL” had already been granted the lease of a part of the prestigious palace in Rome with access from Lungotevere dei Vallati 1 in May 2017 at a rental rate 50% below market values, and which was granted discounts for the first four years, again on the particularly favorable rate.
Despite this, the company has not made any payments since 19/11/2020 (almost four years have passed), accumulating to date more than €1,200,000.00 in arrears. Adding all the discounts granted, the expenses incurred, the taxes paid, and the lost income if the property had been vacated and leased to others, the Diocese has lost about €5,000,000.00 over these years.
Furthermore, it seems that Eduardo Salvador Safdie (along with his accomplice Dario Di Domenico) committed a building abuse, which is under investigation by both the Prosecutor’s Office and the Building Police of Rome. This is at least what emerges from the due diligence conducted in 2022 at the behest of the then General Secretary of the Vicariate of Rome.
So why insist in this way? What is really going on? It is also found online that Safdie and Di Domenico have been called out by a UN agency because they evicted defaulting tenants from homes that were once public housing.
(https://www.romareport.it/2022/03/04/a-roma-per-bloccare-gli-sfratti-ci-vuole-lonu/).
Their names also appear in relation to the Medesia Bank of which there are no further news and something about the Veneto Bank (that of the famous scandal). At this point these gentlemen, instead of being considered defaulting, are rewarded by obtaining: a new lease agreement comprehending the addition of a 1,000 square feet leading to a total surface of 3,300 square feet more or less; the permission to install a chimney flue; the lease of three commercial premises on the street level behind the Caritas center (which really will deliver a great picture, also concerning the history of the Palace), without taking into consideration that these premised have been authorized for the administration of alcohol (so much for all the campaigns that our diocese brings forward to combat alcohol addiction). Furthermore, only an insurance surety has been required rather than a bank one seen that at the Article 14 of the new lease contract the deliver of a bank and/or insurance surety is required “WITHIN 90 DAYS OF SIGNING THE CONTRACT” (Mr. Tarantelli, the Director, within the CDAE meeting of the 2nd of July, 2024 had assured that the surety was going to be equally divided in bank surety (50%) and insurance surety with Generali insurance company (the other 50%) but this provision has not been written in the contract that was then signed, therefore the lessee could only issue the insurance policy without anyone being able to object.
However, it should be emphasized that the Director of the Legal Office Don Renato Tarantelli Baccari has long been asking for a bank guarantee to be provided in the new leases to be signed with the various lessees of the Diocese and other related entities, while for this specific lease it seems to be not needed?!
Lastly, as a final gift, the icing on the cake was the write-off granted for the great part of the debt accrued in recent years; always in these years, the position with respect to the other arrears was that first it was necessary to pay off the arrears and then it was possible to make new agreements and, eventually, remain lessees.
Well, with respect to the lessee company “WELLINGTON POLO FASHION SRL” the Director of the Legal Office Don Renato Tarantelli Baccari has never taken any action to get back the delinquency and possession of the property always defending the goodness of the contract at the time drafted by his office and trying to meet Safdie and, having found the best agreement, since July 2023 the jurist also expert in economics has tried to get the CDAE to approve in all ways the signing of a new lease at a significantly lower rent. Of course, all signed with the addition of other benefits only for the lessee! For what reason? As chance would have it, Mrs. Emanuela Santelli lives near the villa in Formello where Mr. Safdie resides.
For the director of the Juridical Office Don Renato Tarantelli Baccari, the task was not easy: His Excellency Mons. Benoni Ambarus resigned and so did Dr. Fabio Meloni. Tarantelli, in fact, after at the meeting of the C.D.A.E. on Feb. 6, 2024 always at the miscellaneous and eventual tried to get the approval of the new lease agreement without ever having shared it and pressed by His Excellency Mons. Benoni Ambarus and Dr. Fabio Meloni, managed to say everything and the opposite of everything without then answering any of the precise and timely questions that were asked of him. Then it was the turn of Cardinal Vicar His Eminence Monsignor Angelo De Donatis transferred to the Apostolic Penitentiary without appointing His replacement at the gates of the Jubilee and in a situation in which the Diocese of Rome appears completely abandoned to itself to this day still without a pastoral program, but that is another story….
Finally, the director of the Legal Office Don Renato Tarantelli Baccari allegedly “exasperated” the only two lay members of the CDAE who were truly competent in economic and legal matters and from outside the Vicariate and who tried until the end to do the good of the Diocese: Dr. Alessandro Filippi and Prof. Cesare Mirabelli (former president of the Constitutional Court). Both voted against the new lease. However, the majority of the other members approved because they all went along with the “Tarantelli thought,” thus Vice-gerent Mons. Baldassare Reina, the newest member Mons. Michele Di Tolve, the director of the Administrative Office Mrs. Cristiana Odoardi (also eventually resigning after just a year after her hiring on August 31, 2024, she will leave the Vicariate of Rome after diligently accomplishing all that was asked of her by those who had chosen her) and the director of the Office of Worship Buildings Arch. Emanuele Pozzilli always in line.
So, brought home the great opinion “shared by all remaining members of the CDAE,” the director of the Legal Office Don Renato Tarantelli Baccari had a meeting on the run of the “College of Consultors” on Thursday, July 11, 2024 without considering that at the previous meeting it had been decided to avoid meetings in July and August when parish priests have summer camps and some would have a well-deserved time off (although we know that there is little to do in parishes and parish priests have a lot of free time). But if that were not enough, the college was convened with only one item on the agenda: which one? “opinion on the amendments to the Wellington contract”; clearly without sending any material on the issue, all locked up in the chancery where Dr. Maria Teresa Romano sits, granting only to the consultants the possibility of going to the legal office to consult the documentation (again because it is well known that parish priests have so much free time to do so!).
Don Renato Tarantelli Baccari was of course present at the meeting, explaining the contract in five minutes and cashing the approval of those present at the signing of the new contract without anyone objecting to anything, in primis the auxiliary bishops.
It is important to remember that the project of the Legal Office of the last two years, to go back to the pre-2019 situation when the Legal Office was the only office managing all the real estate of the Diocese, has almost been carried out to conclusion without any of the superiors doing anything to prevent it.
On the 20th of January of 2023 in the meeting of the Patrimony Section of the Vicariate among other things it was said:
1. Presentation of the team work;
Mons. Pedretti presents the team work to the Vicegerent.
2. Mission of the Patrimony Section and Modus operandi.
For the benefit of the Vice-gerent, Monsignor Pedretti presents the work carried out by the teamwork over the past two years, focusing on the problems that have emerged in the management of the Diocese’s real estate assets, with particular reference to:
The need for a transversal involvement of the various technical offices of the Vicariate and the overcoming of the concentration of management in the hands of a single [legal] office and a single employee;
The urgency of addressing the critical issues that have emerged:
a) lack of asset mapping;
b) off-market rents of existing contracts;
c) contractual instruments lacking protection for the Vicariate;
d) lack of validated procedures and practices.
In these two years, this activity was dissolved, the Prelate Secretary Mons. Pierangelo Pedretti being sent away, after trying, among other things, to eliminate the concentration of the management of all the real estate assets in the exclusive hands of Ms. Emanuela Santelli. It was then necessary to change the director of the Administrative Office by putting another person in charge of the Legal Office; then having the director of the Patrimony Office dismissed without just cause directly by the Holy Father, Pope Francis, after only 4 months of his employment; then providing in the new regulations that the Patrimony Office can be left in existence without the need for its director; also, emptying the existence of the Enlarged Patrimony Section of its meaning; then forcing the bursar of the diocese, don Francesco Galluzzo, to resign before the end of his term of office and without a serious reason as prescribed by the Code of Canon Law, except saying that he was sick and needed to be treated. The Vicariate’s historic accountant employed by the Administrative Office Rag. Roberto Liso has also been replaced so that the appointment will be filled with a person who will continue to take care of the entire accounting aspect leading to all the crucial decisions of the bursar of the Diocese of Rome taken by the next episcopal vicar for the administrative and legal spheres, the ubiquitous director of the Legal Office don Renato Tarantelli Baccari.
Following this lead, the role of the bursar of the diocese will be completely disempowered and emptied disregarding the current Code of Canon Law, but it is known that the sources’ hierarchy is not a well-known subject. This is the same man who announced his imminent appointment as episcopal vicar in the presence of the vice-gerent and all employees of the Administrative Office last July 24.
To end on a high note, it seems that pressure has begun on the only surviving employee of the Patrimony Office Dr. Davide Adiutori; it will only remain to drive him to exasperation and have him also decide to leave so that the Patrimony Office will de facto cease to exist and the situation will return to 2019 when the Legal Office and its employee Ms. Emanuela Santelli will be able to do everything as well as she has done all these years!
In the meantime, the poor remain discarded, the rich helped, the donors deceived, and the fanfares promoted.
Now yes that is a good example to follow. Giving to the rich and taking from the poor, a stone’s throw from Caritas….