On the 8th of February, a few minutes before the La7 TV-channel aired an episode of the talk-show “The untouchables” (Gli Intoccabili) the first half of which was dedicated to the IOR (Institute for Works of Religion) commonly called the “Pope’s bank”, The Vatican intervened to disclaim some information published in last few days, in particular an article of the newspaper L’Unità (The Unity).
Father Federico Lombardi in a note that included the name of the journalist responsible declared that “The article entitled ‘Money laundering. Four priests under investigation. The Vatican keeps quiet about the checks’ shows a serious lack of diligence in the research done by the author”.
L’Unità, discussing the cases of priests investigated by the Italian judiciary system for mobilizing large sums of money which were held in Italian bank accounts linked to the Ior, claimed (just like the La7 talk show did in the evening of the 8th) that the AIF, the Vatican internal information authority for the inspection of financial activities, created by the Vatican itself to comply with the new European laws against money laundering and headed by Cardinal Attilio Nicora, did not give any answers to the Bank of Italy, except in one case.
The case discussed the most is that of Don Emiliano Messina, priest of the Camerino diocese.
Apparently, the Ior carried out transactions amounting to 300.000 euro through his account, with the help of a woman under the false name of ‘Maria Rossi’.
The woman apparently showed up at the bank counter of an Italian branch, introducing herself as the mother of a lawyer appointed by Don Messina to manage his account.
All this would have happened with the approval of the Ior Director General Paolo Cipriani. According to current evidence the Director General would have vouched in writing for the identity of the woman, the false Maria Rossi. The investigation will uncover whether he did it in good faith or not.
“ The Institute for Works of Religion cooperated with the Italian Authorities repeatedly in every possible way, as the documentation open to both the Vatican and Italian officials shows and the Italian authorities are well aware of” the Vatican spokesman said.
He added, “The Ior collaborated both in the judiciary context with the relevant Authorities and in the administrative context with its Italian counterparts”.
Lombardi after disclaiming with unusual starkness the accusations which he defined ‘slanderous’ and calling into question the professionalism of the journalists who published the news, assured that “the Ior had given information, even outside the formal channels, before the Vatican Financial Information Authority was even formed”.
In regards to the debated issues, Lombardi reminded “the cooperation of the Ior’s Director General, Paolo Cipriani, was reported in documents of some Italian officials as being immediate and thorough”.
The director of the press Office of the Holy See made it known that he verified with the Aif three specific facts :“It is not true that the IOR did not give information to the AIF on the issues at hand. It is also not true that the AIF did not send this information to the Italian Financial intelligence Unit”.
Finally, talking about Don Messina, one of the people mentioned in the L’Unità article and then also in the La7 talk-show, father Lombardi said that the “Italian Authorities have not put forwards any requests to the AIF concerning Don Messina”, the Aif therefore could not have answered to its Italian counterpart, since there had been no questions asked.
“All these points concerning the AIF and its Italian counterpart are documented in files complete with registration numbers kept by the AIF” said Lombardi. He then complained about the report that “ charges had been brought forward against” the President of the Ior, Professor Ettore Gotti Tedeschi and the Director General, Doctor Paolo Cipriani.
“Neither have ever been charged, just put under investigation” Lombardi said.
The note read by Lombardi branded the information published by L’Unità “recycled” and questioned whether the article was not some sort of publicity stunt to promote the evening show ‘The untouchables’ on La7.
In truth on that very 8TH of February, the Italian news agencies revealed, citing the Public Prosecutor in Rome as a source, that for a year now the Ior has no longer been a client of Italian banks and has transferred a good part of its activities to Germany.
This was one of the topics discussed in the evening by “The untouchables” TV-show which also analyzed a private document, already published on the 31st of January by the Italian paper “Il Fatto Quotidiano” (The Daily Events).
The document is a ‘memo’ which proves the existence of an internal conflict within the Vatican regarding the way the Ior should react to the demands of the Vatican Financial Information Authority, in turn under pressure by the Italian investigation authorities.
According to ‘Il Fatto Quotidiano’ and the TV-show, the memo apparently shows that the high ranking Vatican authorities, in spite of the public declarations of transparency, share together the desire not to collaborate with the Italian justice for what concerns the activities of Ior up to April 2011, when the new regulations against money laundering that will bring the Holy See in the OCSE’s ‘white list’, a record of financially and economically virtuous countries, became effective.
The truth is that the memo is a snapshot of only one passage of an internal discussion involving the heads of the Ior, the Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone and the president of the Aif, Attilio Nicora.
Even though legally the law on transparency is not retroactive, one would hope that this discussion carried on beyond what is described in the memo and that at the end all those involved agreed to the possibility, under certain conditions, of complying with the demands of the Aif even concerning the years before the new regulations became effective.
In his declaration father Lombardi assured that this was indeed the case and such agreement was reached even before the implementation of the new law on transparency which was formulated by the Vatican, following the wishes of Benedict XVI, in order to join the ‘white list’, a record of financially virtuous countries.