Britannia Radio

Vatican: Bank chief ousted after money-laundering scandal  

last update: May 25, 11:50

 

Vatican City, 25 May (AKI/Bloomberg) - The Vatican bank, whose reputation took a blow last year over an investigation into money laundering, has fired Chairman Ettore Gotti Tedeschi after a tenure stained by a financial scandal.

In a vote of no-confidence, the board of directors unanimously agreed to remove Tedeschi, a Banco Santander SA (SAN) banker who took the job in 2009, from his post for failing “to carry out various duties of primary importance,” according to a statement Thursday by Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi.

“I would rather say nothing otherwise I would only have ugly words to say,” Tedeschi told reporters in Rome.

The bank, which is formally called the Institute for the Works of Religion, said it’s now hunting for a replacement who can “restore” relations with the financial community. Set up in 1942 by Pope Pius XII to manage the Vatican’s finances, the bank, known by its Italian initials as the IOR, reports directly to the pope.

After barely a year in office, Tedeschi, who also teaches ethics in finance at Milan’s Catholic University, was taken by surprise when Italian prosecutors in 2010 seized 23 million euros (29 million dollars) from a Rome bank account registered to the IOR amid suspicions of money-laundering violations.

He and Director General Paolo Cipriani were placed under investigation for allegedly omitting data in wire transfers from an Italian account. The publication this month of confidential leaked documents in a book titled “Your Holiness” by journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi also painted a poor picture of Tedeschi as the man in charge of the church’s money.

The probe triggered calls to bring the city-state in line with European Union financial rules and become more transparent.

Tedeschi responded by saying the investigation was yet another example of the Catholic Church coming under “fierce attack.” At the time, Pope Benedict XVI was beset by allegations of sexual abuse of minors by priests.

The cardinals on the IOR’s governing council are to meet today to decide on the next steps, according to the Vatican statement.

The institute is no stranger to scandal. It was implicated in the fraudulent bankruptcy of Banco Ambrosiano in 1982. The bank’s former Chairman Roberto Calvi, dubbed “God’s banker,” was found hanged under London’s Blackfriars Bridge in June of that year. The Vatican paid 240 million dollars to compensate Ambrosiano’s account holders without admitting any wrongdoing.

 

http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/Aki/English/Religion/Vatican-Bank-chief-ousted-after-money-laundering-scandal_313339688036.html

........................................................................................

05/25/2012 

Vatican announces it has caught poison pen letter writer

Chaos explodes in the Vatican

The culprit is allegedly the Pope's butler, a layman. But doubts are growing in the Holy See

ANDREA TORNIELLI
vatican city

The Vatican Gendarmerie’s inquiry into the publication of secret documents “has allowed us to identify one person in possession of confidential documents.” Fr. Federico Lombardi stated this, explaining that this person “is now at the Vatican magistrate’s disposal for further questioning.”

 

The Vatican Gendarmerie, led by general Domenico Giani has allegedly identified the poison pen letter writer, who Italian newspaper Il Foglio has revealed is the Pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele: a layman working in Benedict XVI’s apartment, who had previously worked in the Pope’s anteroomfor for a number of years. He is currently undergoing a legal process.

 

The Vatican Gendarmerie found large wad of confidential documents in an apartment in Via di Porta Angelica, in Rome, where the Pope’s butler Paolo Gabriele lives with his wife and three children. This just over 40 year old man from Rome has been working in the Pope’s apartment since 2006, entering the Pope’s Family after a period serving Mgr. James Harvey, Prefect of the Papal Household.

But is he really a poison pen letter writer or just a scapegoat to save the skin of someone higher up? This is the question many in the Vatican are asking since rumours have been spreading regarding the inquiries into the leaked documents. The butler is in fact considered by many in the Holy See as a simple, good person who is devoted to the Pope.

 

Behind the document leak is a refined mind who is au fait with ecclesiastical policy. It was particularly strange how he conserved “confidential documents” after months of controversies surrounding the Vatileaks that were passed on to the press. In less that 24 hours, the Vatican seems to have caught at least two poison pen letter writers, allowing news about them to filter through: one was the President of the IOR Ettore Gotti Tedeschi and the other, the Pope’s butler. Both of them laymen.

Gotti Tedeschi has been accused of being careless enough to allow the leak of a document sent to him by e-mail, without even deleting his e-mail address. The former president of the IOR has announced he will take legal action against anyone who tries to link him to the poison pen letter writer. Meanwhile, the Pope’s butler allegedly held on to “confidential documents” for months after the Vatileaks scandal broke out, before letting them out into the open.

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/the-vatican/detail/articolo/vatileaks-15365/