BishopAccountability.org
 
  Vatican Bank Names Tedeschi, Santander Head in Italy, As Chief

By Lorenzo Totaro and Flavia Krause
Bloomberg
September 23, 2009

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=afEUFfStoK9k

Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, chairman of the Italian unit of Banco Santander SA, has been appointed as the new head of the Vatican Bank.

Gotti replaces Angelo Caloia, according to a statement on the Vatican Web site. The Commission of Cardinals chose Gotti today to head the bank, which is known as the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR).

Set up in 1942 by Pius XII to manage the Vatican's finances, the IOR reports directly to the Pope. Caloia, 70, has been IOR's chairman for more than 20 years.

Candidates to succeed him included Hans Tietmeyer, a former head of Germany's Bundesbank, Antonio Fazio, ex-governor of Italy's central bank, and Roberto Mazzotta, former chairman of Banca Popolare di Milano Scarl, Italian daily la Repubblica reported on Sept. 18.

The institute was at the center of a scandal in the 1980s that led to the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, which had close ties to the Vatican, amid debt of $1.3 billion. The Vatican paid $240 million to compensate Ambrosiano's account holders without admitting any wrongdoing.

The IOR also used to own part of Societa Generale Immobiliare, developer of the Watergate complex in Washington, according to the Washington Business Journal.

Gotti, 64, is a professor of ethics and finance at Milan's Catholic University. He's the author of the book, "Denaro e Paradiso," or money and paradise, according to Italian news agency Ansa.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lorenzo Totaro in Rome at ltotaro@bloomberg.net

 
 

Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.