The new statute of the Vatican Financial Information Authority (AIF) better aligns the Authority with new Vatican legislation, and with international standards. It also develops a new kind of Authority. Conceived by the drafter of the first Vatican money laundering law as a sort of «monocratic» authority (a Vatican dicastery presided by a [...]

How much money is there in the so-called «Vatican bank», the Institute for Religious Works (IOR) and how is it invested and used? Soon, this information will be in the public domain. The IOR will have an internet website, where its annual balance sheet will be posted. Although the IOR is a [...]

Just one day after the death of Pope Pius XI, on February 10, 1939, Msgr. Angelo Pomata stood in front of a cahier’s window at Religious Works (the “ancestor” of the Institute for Religious Works). The cashier was Massimo Spada. Pomata was dispatched there by Eugenio Pacelli – who, after the death of the [...]

With two changes to the anti-money laundering law, the Holy See has made its financial system even more open and transparent. The changes – approved by the Pontifical Commission of Vatican City State on December 14 and in effect since December 17 – allow the Vatican Authority for Financial Information to reach Memorandums [...]

Will Ettore Gotti Tedeschi have to stand trial before a Vatican court? The possibility is rather remote. If he will, it would be because of the documents the former president of the IOR. Board of Superintendence took from his office in Torrione Niccolò IV. Gotti Tedeschi probably is not in possession of  [...]

Benedict XVI had been defined «the last of Benedictins». As Saint Benedict, who in 529 founds the monastery of Montecassino and from there – with the ora et labora, the collections and copy of texts, founds a new civilizations, so Benedict XVI goes over the scandals and the human problems of the [...]

A persecutory judgment. That is how many people, inside and out the Vatican, considered the sentence to 4 years’ imprisonment and to 1.5 million euro fine to Antonio Fazio, former governor of the Bank of Italy. Fazio was compelled to resign in 2005, because of the alleged role of the Bank of Italy [...]

Vatican State is still not in the “white list” of the virtous states for money laundering legislation. After the Monetary Convention of 17 December 2009 between Vatican City State and the European Union, and the new Vatican legislation for the prevention and countering of illegal activities in the financial and monetary sectors, Holy [...]

Porta San’t Anna, Vatican City. It’s the 1st of April and a non-Catholic patriatch is crossing the border between the Italian and the vatican States. He is known there, and familiar with the environment. He is carrying a suitcase. Just after passing the Vatican Gendarmerie, he turns left towards the Torrione Niccolò V, the [...]