Pope Francis summoned Zanchetta to Rome for five days in October 2015. The bishop claimed that his phone and computer had been hacked, and that the accusations were motivated by ill-feeling towards the pope. The pope accepted the bishop’s explanation that his cell phone had been hacked.
The pope defended his decision-making regarding Zanchetta in an interview with the Mexican journalist Valentina Alazraki published in May 2019 by Vatican News. He said that he had continuously sought to clarify the accusations against Zanchetta.
After Zanchetta was charged in relation to his actions against two men in July 2019, Orán’s Economic Crime Unit raided offices in the chancery in November 2019. The raid was carried out to investigate Zanchetta’s alleged fraud against the state, according to the local newspaper El Oranense.
In addition to accusations of mismanaging Church funds donated by the faithful in the diocese, public records show that Zanchetta received more than a million Argentine pesos (around $10,500) from Salta Province to restore a rectory and for lectures at a seminary, which allegedly never took place.
Pope Francis defended his appointment of Zanchetta to APSA in his interview with Valentina Alazraki. He said that, although the bishop’s approach to economic management in Orán had been “disorderly,” the “vision is good.”
The accused bishop was suspended from his role as an assessor at APSA amid a canonical investigation, announced in January 2019.
In June 2020, the Vatican confirmed that Zanchetta had returned to work at APSA while “remaining available to the Argentine judicial authorities.”
A source working at APSA told CNA in June that the Argentine bishop had finished his service at the Vatican’s central reserve bank.
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