The prayer for peace led by Leo XIV on July 29 in the pontifical gardens of Castel Gandolfo served as the prelude to a private dinner the Pope held with major donors, mostly American, which included a private concert by tenor Andrea Bocelli. This is reported by the Dutch newspaper Nederlands Dagblad in an investigation published this Monday by its Vatican correspondent, Hendro Munsterman.
The public event: the “Canticle of Peace”
On the evening of July 29, at Borgo Laudato Si’, Leo XIV presided over the “Canticle of Peace,” a prayer and music gathering organized by the Laudato Si’ Center for Advanced Formation and the Andrea Bocelli Foundation as part of the eighth centenary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi. Bocelli and the ABF Voices choir—164 children and young people from the Holy Land, Uganda, and Italy—performed, among other pieces, the Panis Angelicus and Amazing Grace. The event was presented by Cardinal Fabio Baggio, director general of the Center, and broadcast live by Vatican News.
According to OSV News, around 500 employees from the dicasteries of the Holy See, the Governorate of Vatican City State, and the Roman Curia attended. Among those present was former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who briefly spoke with the Pope at the end of the concert. The same agency reported that, at sunset, “the cardinals and members of the Curia were invited to a reception dinner in the gardens.”
The ‘Nederlands Dagblad’ investigation
According to Munsterman’s reconstruction, behind the public event a secret dinner was held with wealthy donors, mostly American, accompanied by a private Bocelli concert. The gathering is said to have been organized by Father Manuel Dorantes, director of Borgo Laudato Si’, outside the Dicastery for Communication. Dorantes, born in Mexico and raised in Chicago—like Robert Prevost—is a personal friend of the Pope and was appointed to the position by Francis in November 2024.
The newspaper adds that coverage of the public event was granted to American television networks: NBC and Telemundo teams, with their presenters, traveled from the United States and were received by the Pope, as shown in the photograph accompanying the report. “Everything here is now done the American way,” notes a source cited by the Dutch newspaper. Neither the Press Office nor Borgo Laudato Si’ have commented on these reports so far.
The sponsorship of the Herrera Velutini family
InfoVaticana has also identified who sponsored the event. On August 14, the Banvelca Foundation issued a press release from New York attributing support for the “Canticle of Peace”: “The initiative was supported by the Banvelca Foundation and the Herrera Velutini family.” In the statement, the foundation’s president, Melanie Herrera Velutini, declares: “Supporting an initiative that brings together young people whose lives have been shaped by such different circumstances reminds us of the power of culture to create common ground.”
The Banvelca Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the family of Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan-Italian banker, founder of Britannia Financial Group and owner of the now-defunct Bancrédito International Bank of San Juan. Herrera Velutini was prosecuted in 2022 by the U.S. Department of Justice, along with former Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced and former FBI agent Mark Rossini, for conspiracy, bribery, and fraud. According to the indictment, the banker allegedly funded Vázquez’s 2020 campaign with more than $300,000 in exchange for the dismissal of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions who was investigating his bank.
In August 2025, following an agreement with the prosecution that dropped the most serious charges, the three defendants pleaded guilty to lesser offenses. On January 16, 2026, President Donald Trump granted them a full and unconditional pardon. The White House justified the measure by claiming it was a case of “political persecution.” According to public records cited by CBS News, the banker’s daughter, Isabela Herrera, donated $2.5 million to the pro-Trump political action committee MAGA Inc. in December 2024 and another million in July 2025; a White House spokesperson denied any connection between the donations and the pardon.
Six months after the pardon, the family sponsored the meeting with the Pope at Castel Gandolfo. The Banvelca statement does not mention the private dinner described by the Nederlands Dagblad, and it is not known whether the family participated in it.
From Francis to Leo XIV
The episode occurs in the context of a return of major American donors to the Vatican, as documented by the Italian press. Francis had cooled those relations: he canceled the annual audience with the Papal Foundation after a dispute over the destination of a $25 million check and eliminated private Masses for American donors, according to La Repubblica last July.
With the election of the Pope from Chicago, the flow has been reactivated: the Papal Foundation announced this year the addition of 25 new donor families and the allocation of more than $15 million to 144 projects, and the Rector’s Dinner at the Pontifical North American College was held in April with full attendance, 450 guests, according to the organizers themselves.
With information from Nederlands Dagblad, OSV News, Vatican News, La Repubblica, CBS News, and PRNewswire.