The issues of the Vatican Bank’s management and the Holy See’s
finances have resurfaced following the scandalous arrest of a prelate
employed as an accountant in the Administration of the Patrimony of the
Apostolic See (APSA), a Vatican unit that deals with property owned by
the Holy See.
Pope Francis’ decision to set up a surprise
commission of inquiry into the Vatican bank’s activities can now be
understood in a different light.
The decision shows Francis does not
intend to blindly believe the words of reassurance addressed to him
after the election.
The prosecutors will verify the extent of Nunzio
Scarano’s involvement in an alleged money-laundering operation.
600
thousand Euros in cash are said to have left one of Mgr. Scarano’s two
IOR bank accounts in 2009.
The prelate is under investigation by
prosecutors in his native city of Salerno, southern Italy and now,
prosecutors in Rome have ordered his arrest, after accusing him of
organising a daring operation to smuggle twenty million Euros into
Italy, on board a jet from Switzerland.
Holy See authorities have said
they will cooperate fully with investigators. Prosecutors described how
the prelate transferred huge sums of money with complete nonchalance:
the Vatican Financial Information Authority which monitors Vatican
finances had been keeping track of the cash transfers made from Mgr.
Scarano’s accounts but the decision to suspend him from his position was
taken after the findings of the inquiry carried out by the Italian
prosecutors.
In 2010 Pope Benedict XVI called the Church to a
new path of transparency, to bring the IOR and all Holy See institutions
in line with international anti-money laundering standards.
A path that
ended up being filled with obstacles.
It is evidently impossible to
boil everything that is going on down to a number of small isolated
cases, glossing the situation over with a series of operations that give
a good image of the IOR, restoring public credibility.
There is no doubt that the Institute for Works of
Religion (IOR) has done and continues to do a great job in supporting
numerous Church bodies in poor countries, even thug this positive aspect
of Church history always goes unnoticed.
But what is also clear is that
a number of problems to do with management, staff and attitude have
accumulated.
Anti-money laundering and transparency regulations need
people to actually implement them to ensure that some over-confident IOR
account holders doesn’t start thinking illicit actions will go
unpunished.
Only those who weren’t listening or who pretended
not to listen to the messages Pope’ Francis has been repeatedly sending
out in the first months of his pontificate could have thought that the
management of the Vatican’s finances could go on unchanged.
The phrases
used by Francis: “St. Peter didn’t have a bank account” and “the IOR is
necessary but only to a certain extent” were not just said for effect.
Bergoglio’s is not just a falsely rigid approach.
The Pope has not used the media to save the face of the institution.
The quiet strength of his approach lies in his
belief that even in situations like these, what comes through is nature
of the Church itself and the adequacy of its actions.
The Church must
now finish what Francis’ predecessor started, “in order to allow the
Gospel’s principles to permeate into economic and financial activities.”