The Vatican Bank is undergoing yet another series of reforms in an effort to shed the scandals of the past. Jules Gray looks at the history of the Catholic Church’s troubled financial arm
Cardinal George Pell during a sermon at the Papal Basilica of St Paul’s Cathedral in Rome, Italy BANKINGAuthor: Jules GraySeptember 5, 2014
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Perhaps more than any other, the Vatican Bank should be expected to maintain the highest of moral standards in the way it conducts its business. However, despite its saintly links, the bank that acts on behalf of the Catholic Church has developed a reputation for corruption, scandal and mismanagement over the last few decades.
Murder, bribery, suspicious deaths, money laundering, and many other nefarious acts have been linked to the bank that is officially known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR).
However, when Pope Francis began his term as leader of the Catholic Church in early 2013, he made it clear that one of his goals was to reform the way the Vatican Bank is run, bringing about a series of reforms that would restore confidence and trust in the financial arm of the church. But seeing through the changes to such a secretive institution was always going to prove a difficult task, and one that has been unsuccessfully attempted previously.
Past scandals
Like the Catholic Church, the Vatican Bank has been steeped in mystery for much of the time it has been in operation. Founded in 1942 as a means to manage money on behalf of the Catholic Church, its main purpose was to ‘provide for the safekeeping and administration of movable and immovable property transferred or entrusted to it by physical or juridical persons and intended for works of religion or charity.’ It was plunged into disrepute in the late 1970s after many years of rumours about money laundering on behalf of the mafia.
When Pope John Paul I died in 1978 in apparently mysterious circumstances, many conspiracy theories suggested it might have had something to do with his desire to clean up the affairs of the Vatican Bank. The scandal intensified a few years later, when in the early 1980s a bank that it had a majority stake in called Banco Ambrosiano hit the news for all the wrong reasons.
Its leaders were accused of transferring money out of the country into shady overseas banks, as well as being linked to an illegal masonic loge known as Propaganda Due (P2), which had ties to the mafia. Banco Ambrosiano was investigated and its Chairman, Roberto Calvi, was arrested, trialled, and sentenced to four years in prison. After being released on appeal, Calvi fled Italy, before being discovered hanging under London’s Blackfriars Bridge shortly after. It marked a dark period in the history of the Catholic Church, leading to the scandal forming the basis for the plot of the third instalment of the Godfather trilogy.
Pope Francis
After the shocking resignation of Pope Benedict XVI in February 2013, the Catholic Church set about a frantic search for a new leader after what had been a deeply troubling few years. Child abuse scandals had been in the headlines for all of Benedict’s reign, but there had also been plenty of trouble with the Vatican’s financial affairs. Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was selected as the church’s first non-European leader in 1,272 years, becoming Pope Francis I. Born in Buenos Aires in 1936, he has been praised for his dedication to modernising the church and attempts to restore
its reputation.
Ettore Gotti Tedeschi
As the Vatican Bank sought to draw a line under the corruption scandals of the past, it installed a series of directors to oversee reform. Italian economist and banker Ettore Gotti Tedeschi was installed in 2009 as the head of the IOR, alongside other directors that included banker Paolo Cipriani. It was hoped that they would install a series of reforms at the bank, but they were both soon embroiled in scandals themselves. Tedeschi was investigated in 2010 or money laundering, although no charges were brought. In May 2012 he was replaced after a vote of no confidence, while Cipriani followed in July 2013.
Ernst von Freyberg
The Vatican Bank replaced Tedeschi in June 2012 with Ernst von Freyberg, initially to serve as an interim leader, before appointing him as President of the Board of Superintendents in February 2013. Born in Geneva in 1958, the German banker founded the finance house Von Freyberg in 1991, before a series of senior management roles at German firms. He quickly set about opening up the Vatican Bank and making it more transparent, as well as adopting a zero tolerance approach to suspicious activities. However, by July Jean-Baptiste de Franssu had replaced him, with little explanation as to why.
Jean-Baptiste de Franssu
The most recent person appointed to take the Vatican Bank forward is Frenchmanand former Invesco CEO Jean-Baptiste de Franssu. The sudden and unexpected announcement that von Freyberg would be replaced with Franssu in July has merely added to the sense that the job is a poisoned chalice that few are capable of seeing through. Whether Franssu has what it takes to steady the ship and restore faith in the Vatican Bank remains to be seen, but it is certainly a concern that concerns have already been raised over the fact that his son currently works for the organisation charged with investigating the IOR’s affairs.
The aftermath of the scandal rumbled on long after Calvi was found dead. Repeated attempts to prosecute individuals supposedly responsible proved unsuccessful. Bishop Paul Marcinkus, who led the Vatican Bank between 1971 and 1989, avoided prosecution, despite overseeing the darkest period in its history. Others included businessman Flavio Carboni, who was linked to the P2 lodge and mafia boss Pippo Calò. Both Carboni and Calò have been tried a number of times for the murder of Calvi, each time being cleared. They remain prominent figures in Italian business and politics, despite the controversies that have surrounded them.
History repeating itself
While the scandals of 30 years ago are yet to be fully put to bed, new ones have emerged in recent years that have sent the Vatican Bank back into the murky spotlight of before. In 2009 the bank was being investigated by authorities over money-laundering worth €180m. More allegations followed against then IOR President Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, leading to a police investigation, although charges were never brought.
Further allegations then emerged over money laundering – which led to US investment bank JP Morgan closing one of the Vatican Bank’s accounts – after it failed to provide sufficient information about the sources of the €1.8bn deposits. In response, Pope Francis established a new Pontifical Commission to study potential reforms for the bank, which later led to four senior cardinals being sacked.
Shortly before the shocking and unprecedented resignation of Pope Benedict XVI in February 2013, the Vatican Bank appointed a new President in Ernst von Freyberg as Tedeschi’s replacement. Tedeschi had been in the role just three years, but it was a period beset with scandal. He was eventually forced to step down in 2012 when a no-confidence vote among the board of directors was held, due to him failing “to fulfil the primary functions of his office.” However, after his departure, Tedeschi claimed that it was his push for greater transparency at the bank that led to his ousting, and specifically his looking into the accounts that were ‘non-religious’.
Von Freyberg, on the other hand, joined the IOR as a representative of an untainted new leadership that would help to transform its reputation. He called for a “zero tolerance” attitude to any transactions that were deemed suspicious, investigating all cases of potential tax evasion and money laundering. He also aimed to make the IOR much more transparent than it had ever been, opening it up to international regulatory standards.
Out with the old, in with the new
After Pope Francis took the reins of the Catholic Church there were many rumours that he would look to shake up the way it managed its finances. Rumours coming from the church hinted that changes were afoot for much of his first year in charge. They became true when Pope Francis made his first change in February, appointing Australian Cardinal George Pell as the Prefect for the Secretariat for the Economy, a newly created department that would oversee the annual budget of the Holy See and the Vatican.
Shortly after his appointment, Cardinal Pell told reporters there needed to be considerable work on reforming the Vatican’s financial arm. “There needs to be changes in the economic area – not just with the so-called Vatican Bank – but more generally there is work there to be done [and] a need to ensure that things are being properly done.” Other, bigger changes took a few more months to be announced. In somewhat dramatic fashion in June, Pope Francis began by sacking all five members of the board of the Financial Intelligence Authority, which regulates the Vatican’s finances. The entirely Italian board had been due to head up the regulator until 2016, but Pope Francis decided that a new batch of board members, from across the globe, would help to give it new impetus. New members included Juan Zarate, a former national security adviser to President George Bush, and Singaporean civil servant Joseph Pillay.
Vatican Bank in figures
Loans and receivables securities:
€250.9m
Debt securities
Available for sale securities:
€13.9m
Equity securities
Held to maturity securities:
€574.8m
Debt securities
Other assets held by IOR: