Growing Vatican bank scandal threatens church image
Jul 10, 2012
This article gives an overall report on the growing scandal of mafia money-laundering and bribes paid to Italian politicians through the Vatican Bank. It shows also the role that JPMorgan played in assisting the Vatican Bank via accounts in Milan and Frankfurt. A few months ago JPM was forced to close the accounts or risk being dragged down with the Vatican.
Several high-ranking officials within the Curia viewed the bank, officially known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), as something akin to a trust company for clandestine monetary transactions that is not only used by the Church, but allegedly also by the mafia as well as corrupt politicians and companies. In one of the seized Gotti Tedeschi memos, he wrote: "I've seen things in the Vatican that scare me."
It is a clear turning, one which transforms the so-called "Vatileaks" affair into a financial scandal that could seriously damage the reputation of the Holy See. Internal correspondence dated May 22 from a member of the bank's supervisory board to the Vatican's Secretariat of State notes that the Vatican bank is presently "in an extremely fragile and precarious position" and that the situation had reached "a point of imminent danger."
God's Transparency Rule: There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed and shouted from the house tops.
