Former Vatican auditor Ferruccio Panicco dies of cancer

Ferruccio Panicco had accused the Holy See of seizing his medical records and refusing to release them, which he believed delayed his cancer diagnosis.

Pope Francis is greeted by Libero Milone (R), the Vatican's auditor general, during a meeting at the Vatican, April 1, 2016. Picture taken April 1 2016. Osservatore Romano/Handout via REUTERS

The Vatican’s former deputy auditor-general, Ferruccio Panicco, has died at his home in Turin after a battle with cancer.

Panicco, 63, had accused the Holy See of seizing his medical records and refusing to release them, which he believed ultimately delayed his cancer diagnosis and treatment, and led to a terminal prognosis.

Panicco, a forensic financial specialist, worked as No. 2 to the Vatican’s first auditor-general, ­Libero Milone, appointed by Pope Francis in 2015 to work alongside the late cardinal George Pell in his campaign to clean up Holy See ­finances. However, Milone and Panicco were marched out of their offices by Vatican guards in 2017, accused of spying.

Both men worked behind the scenes for years in an effort to understand the reasons for their sacking but last year announced they would sue the Secretariat of State in the Vatican for wrongful dismissal and would seek €9m in compensation for lost earnings and reputational damage.

Ferruccio Panicco, the Vatican’s deputy auditor-general and former Fiat senior financial officer.

An estimated €3m was sought by Panicco in material damages in the wake of the removal of his personal medical records, which showed heightened PSA levels, markers for prostate cancer, which then led to delayed treatment and a final diagnosis of terminal cancer.

Announcing their decision to sue, Panicco said he believed “they – the Vatican – are guilty, not maliciously, of sentencing me to death for no reason, after a slow and significant suffering”.

Milone and Panicco both said they had uncovered evidence of financial corruption at the most senior levels of the Vatican and were fired simply to stop them continuing their investigations.

They also believed Pell had been “victim of a real, villainous conspiracy aimed at derailing a clean-up of the Holy See finances” and raised questions about a mysterious payment sent to Australia in 2017, authorised by Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who is currently facing trial on charges of embezzlement and abuse of office.

Court filings last year revealed that the then head of the Vatican Corps of Gendarmes, Domenico Giani – accused of his own financial misconduct – and Cardinal Becciu had forced their sackings. The Pope suspended Cardinal Becciu in September 2020, ­stripping him of the privileges of his office.

In his later years, Pell said he had “under estimated” those who had opposed and resisted his decision to reform the Vatican’s sclerotic financial systems and that they “didn’t like change and didn’t understand what was being proposed”.