Pope Francis addresses an audience of ambassadors at the Vatican. The new… (Tony Gentile, Pool Photo )
VATICAN CITY — As he begins work, Pope Francis will find a pile of files in his in-tray on sex abuse and squabbling
cardinals. But he will also come across a thick dossier on the Vatican's secretive bank, which his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, tried to drag into the
daylight after years of suspicion that it was a haven for money launderers.After struggling to get the Vatican onto a coveted European "white list" for
clean banks, Benedict suffered a setback last year when his top manager, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, was fired by the bank's board, officially for incompetence. Gotti
Tedeschi saw things differently, contending that "an honest person [at the bank] who wants to do good is ousted!"
Then, in January, the Vatican was humbled into using a Swiss firm to process credit card payments after the Bank of Italy warned Italian banks not to do business
with the Holy See, temporarily forcing visitors queuing at the Sistine Chapel to pay cash if they wanted to get in.
It was the latest in a series of mishaps at the institution that prompted Italy's biggest-selling Catholic magazine, Famiglia Cristiana, to urge the Vatican to
dump the bank altogether.
The Institute of Religious Works "is not essential to the ministry of the pope, who is the successor to St. Peter," said Cardinal John Onaiyekan of Nigeria,
adding, "I don't know if St. Peter had a bank."
"Cardinals have been talking about how to bring the bank out from under its rock," said Father Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and Vatican expert, "and some are
saying, 'Do we need a bank?'"
John Thavis, a Vatican watcher and author, said Pope Francis' focus on helping the poor when he was Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina would make him an
outspoken opponent of Vatican corruption and the right man to look into the inner workings of the bank, known as the IOR.
"He lived in an apartment, rode the bus, cooked his own meals — I think he will bring a simplicity to the Vatican, which has acted like a royal court," Thavis
said.
In fact, during a conference with assembled reporters after his election, Francis said with a sigh: "Oh, how I would like a church which is poor, and for the
poor!"
Set up in 1942, the bank has 33,000 accounts and $7 billion in assets, all run from a former Vatican prison building. It is intended to serve priests, dioceses
and religious orders, but its high volume of cash transactions, global activity and limited information about account holders have set off several alarm bells.
And the IOR's record is far from glowing.
A former bank governor, U.S. Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, was indicted in 1982 when the bank was implicated in the collapse of Italy's Banco Ambrosiano, in which
the IOR held a stake. Roberto Calvi, then the chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, was found hanged to death under London's Blackfriars Bridge. Investigators alleged
the death was a homicide and linked the case to purported money laundering by the Mafia.
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