VATICAN CITY
The Daily Beast
Barbie Latza Nadeau
When Cardinal Georgie Pell went to Rome to oversee the bank, Australians thought he was fleeing the pedophile scandals that plagued him at home. They still do.
VATICAN CITY—Last year was an exceptional one in the church business, if the Holy See’s balance sheet is any indicator. The 2014 annual report released Monday shows the Vatican’s bank, officially known as the Institute for Religious Works or IOR, turned a profit of more than $72 million—more than 20 times more than it made in 2013. And that sounds like good news, but there are several dark sides to this story.
The bank has been, for decades, embroiled in unseemly scandals that have run the gamut from allegations of money laundering to backchannel Mafia ties. The bank’s credit card capabilities were briefly shut down in 2012 due to noncompliance with European Union money laundering standards, which meant that tourists had to dole out cash to visit the Vatican museums or buy holy trinkets on the premises.
All that changed under Pope Francis, who vowed to clean out the bank’s dead wood and offer greater transparency. In the last year alone, 4,614 accounts were closed, either because they had been dormant for years or because the account holders didn’t meet the new standards set by IOR’s crack team of reformers. Another 2,000 accounts face closure this year.
“I want to know what it will take to keep you quiet.”
A lot of the profits made in 2013 went to external auditors who set up temporary shop in the bank’s medieval tower headquarters inside the fortified walls of Vatican City to comb through the murky bookwork. Based on the 2014 final report, it was money well spent. “The main focus is on fundamentally improving our overall client service standards and further professionalizing our asset management services,” IOR chief Jean-Baptiste de Franssu said in a statement.
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