Institute for the Works of Religion

The Istituto per le Opere di Religione, short IOR (German Institute for Religious Works ), commonly known as the Vatican Bank, is a privately -law institution in possession of the Holy See. It has its headquarters in the tower Nicholas V in close proximity to the Apostolic Palace.

The Institute was in the past because of the lack of transparency in its financial statements, and numerous anonymous numbered accounts, which have been associated with money laundering for the Mafia and tax evasion, as " an offshore paradise in Europe ."

Since February, 2013, with the establishment of the new president Ernst von Freyberg, the Institute pursues a strict " zero tolerance " policy against any and all forms of financial crime.

• 3.1 Situation 2011/2012
• 3.2 Situation in 2013
• 3.3 Situation in 2014

History and mission of the Institute

With papal Constitution of February 11, 1887, Pope Leo XIII. the formation of the Commissione ad pias causas (German Commission for religious purposes ), which was renamed in 1908 by Pope Pius X in per le Opere di Amministrazione Religione ( AOR) (German Administration of Religious Works ) and the Statute on 17 March has been adopted in 1941 by Pope Pius XII. The AOR was at first no more than a kind of collection and administration office for the papal remaining assets and the compensation that had granted the young Italian monarchy of the Holy See for the loss of national territory of the Papal States. Moreover, the Pope received by the Italian state until the signing of the Lateran Pacts in 1929 a yearly appanage, which was a fortune for that time. All this was Leo XIII. know centrally managed. However, the AOR was not a bank and also did not occur as such in appearance. By 1942, the existence of this administration, which was directly subordinate to the Pope was hardly known. "

On June 27, 1942 constituted Pope Pius XII. by Chirograph ( Acta Ap.Sedis n 217, 1942) the " Istituto per le Opere di Religione " ( IOR ) with its own legal status, which allow the " Opere di Amministrazione per le Religione " absorbed.

According to its statutes, the purpose of the Institute is " for the maintenance and administration of movable and immovable property to ensure that the IOR has been transferred or entrusted by physical or juridical persons and intended for religious or charitable works. "

The IOR is not part of the Roman Curia and therefore not part of the central administration structure of the Roman Catholic Church. There is also no central bank, which would be responsible for the monetary policy of the Vatican City. This function is regulated by an agreement between the European Union and the Vatican City State. The implementation and monitoring of this Agreement shall be conducted by the Authority di Informazione Finan, short AIF ( Vatican Financial Regulator), which was founded by Papal Motu Proprio on December 30, 2010.

In contrast to the profit - banking the excess of the IOR is also available to the Holy See. The Institute was in 2012 at a total of about 55 million euros. In addition, the IOR does not lend of their deposits and is no collateral for resale or other financial products.

The gold reserves of the IOR, built by Bernardino Nogara in the 1930s, there were, according to the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See in January 1992 from 235 765 troy ounces in what was then the equivalent of around 83 million U.S. dollars. The end of 1992 there were only 139 302 troy ounces and the IOR had the end of 1993 only 47 772 ounces of gold in his books. Cardinal Castillo Lara 1994 quantified the deposits of the IOR with 7 trillion lire, which at the time amounted to around 4 billion U.S. dollars. The net revenues were loud Lara in the same year around 70 billion lire, or about 40 million U.S. dollars. According to the former president Angelo IOR Caloia the assets of IOR end of November 1987 was ( the equivalent of about 3.5 billion EUR ), which was created primarily in foreign securities at DM 7 billion. Among other Caloia cited as important assets of IOR shares in five banking houses without mentioning this though.

On 1 October 2013, the IOR published for the first time in its history, a balance sheet, which is available on the freshly launched in July 2013 IOR website for download. Then the current total assets of IOR is nearly 5 billion euros, its capital amounted to 769 million euros. As deposits and asset management of the Institute have been entrusted to a total of 6.3 billion euros. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described the release as a " revolution."

Structure of the IOR

The IOR is according to its statutes in 1990 from a five-part structure.

Commission of Cardinals

The Pope appointed for a period of five years Cardinal Commission ( Commissione Cardinalizia ) consists of five cardinals. The Cardinal Commission shall appoint the five -member Supervisory Board and on the recommendation of the Supervisory Board the Director General and the Deputy Director General. It is responsible for reviewing major business processes and strategies, which are presented to it by the President of the Supervisory Board. On January 15, 2014 it was announced that Pope Francis has appointed four new members to the Commission of Cardinals. The only remaining member of Cardinal Jean- Louis Tauran.

• Santos Abril y Castelló (President)
• Pietro Parolin
• Jean -Louis Tauran
• Thomas Christopher Collins
• Christoph Schönborn

Prelate

The prelate appointed by the Commission of Cardinals, with the approval of the Pope. He acts as secretary at the meeting of the Commission of Cardinals and participates in the meetings of the Supervisory Board.

• Monsignor Battista Salvatore Ricca, ad interim (November 2013)

Board

The Supervisory Board is composed of four to six times per year. It defines the strategy of the IOR and provides operational supervision safely. The mandate of the current members will expire in 2015.

• Ernst von Freyberg (President)
• Ronaldo Hermann Schmitz (Vice President)
• Carl A. Anderson
• Antonio Maria Marocco
• Manuel Soto Serrano

General

The Directorate General shall be appointed with the approval of the Commission of Cardinals by the Board and is responsible for operations.

• Rolando Marranci (Director )

Auditors Committee

The three auditors are appointed by the Supervisory Board for a maximum period of three years.

• Massimo Spina ( President )
• Rodolfo Molinuevo Orue
• Pierluigi Bernasconi

Pontifical Commission

On 24 June 2013 Pope Francis appointed also by Chirograph a Pontifical Commission to report on the IOR a work out proposals for the nature of the IOR and to report to the Pope directly. This five -member commission consists among other things of two cardinals and the Harvard professor Mary Ann Glendon.

• Cardinal Raffaele Farina (President)
• Cardinal Jean- Louis Tauran Pierre
• Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta Ochoa de Chinchetru (coordinator)
• Monsignor Peter Bryan Wells ( secretary )
• Professor Mary Ann Glendon

Controversies

In the late 1970s there was a scandal over dubious practices, in which allegedly the IOR, the largest Italian private bank, Banco Ambrosiano and the Mafia were involved. The IOR was the main shareholder in Banco Ambrosiano and was under, because of the special status in international law of the Holy See itself but not the Italian banking supervision. This allegedly took advantage of the Mafia lawyer Michele Sindona and Roberto Calvi Ambrosiano General Manager, with the support of the then IOR Director Archbishop Paul Casimir Marcinkus for embezzlement and money laundering of Mafia money and transferred millions of dollars to Switzerland and to the Bahamas. The death of Roberto Calvi († June 17, 1982 in London) as well as his secretary and confidant Graziella Corrocher ( † 17 June 1982) was also blamed on Vatican circles in the wake of these allegations. The then President IOR Marcinkus could temporarily the Vatican did not leave because in Italy existed an arrest warrant against him.

It is also believed that on the Banco Ambrosiano had been held a secret financing of the Solidarity movement in Poland.

The collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano and the investigation surrounding this bankruptcy, the alleged murder of Roberto Calvi and John Paul I developed a real threat not only to the IOR, but for the reputation of the Vatican per se. These events and the death of John Paul I are picked up The Godfather III (1990 ), including in film and interpreted cinematically. Evidence of the fact alleged connections are, however, not before.

For the renovation of the IOR, which was in the course of this affair on the edge of ruin, appointed by the Vatican in 1982, a four-member advisory committee of financial experts, including prominent bankers retired as the Swiss Philippe de Weck and the former head of Deutsche Bank Hermann Josef para After negotiations between the Italian State and the Holy See accepted the Vatican to pay 250 million dollars to the receivership of the old Banco Ambrosiano.

In the 1990s the Vatican was also allegedly involved in the corruption scandal Enimont, which was uncovered in the investigation of Mani pulite in Italy.

In 1990, a restructuring of the IOR by John Paul II According to Article 4 of the Statute, the IOR has since then over to the following organs (see section structure of the IOR ): a supervisory commission of five cardinals, the prelate, the supervisory board, the management and the auditors.

2003 left Monsignor Renato Dardozzi be in Switzerland applied the secret archive of nearly 5000 documents of the Vatican Secretariat of State and papers of the Vatican Bank to the Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi. The documents justified the suspicion of money laundering in the service of the Mafia, the blockade of corruption investigations of bribery scandals and secret numbered accounts, which contained allegedly about the money of the seven-time Ex - President Giulio Andreotti of the former Catholic People's Party Christian Democrats. Nuzzi excited with the release of it based the book " Vatican AG - A Secret Archives reveals the truth about the financial and political scandals of the Church" on the financial management of the Vatican Bank in the years 2009/2010 a great sensation. The then president Angelo Caloia occurred after the book publication after twenty years back at the top of the Vatican Bank. The " Financial Times " has this far-reaching decision of the Papal States to the revelations of the book " Vatican Ltd " is returned.

On 21 September 2010, the Italian financial police seized 23 million euros from an account of the Institute and initiated against the then president Ettore Gotti Tedeschi and the then Secretary General of the Institute Paolo Cipriani investigation on suspicion of money laundering one. Tedeschi dismissed the allegations vehemently. The investigation against him were discontinued in 2012 An Italian court rejected initially in October 2010, the demand of the IOR for the release of a month earlier seized 23 million euros.

Earlier, the European Union had imposed a monetary agreement with the Vatican, which entered into force on 1 January 2010 and the Monetary Agreement between the Vatican and the Italian government added in 2000; in the Vatican obliged to take over the EU laws against money-laundering and counterfeiting.

In December 2010, Benedict XVI issued. also a so called Motu proprio with which then the corresponding supervisory authority was introduced to combat illegal activities on the financial and monetary system field, the Vatican's Financial Information Authority Authority ' di Informazione Finan (AIF ). Since early April 2011, money laundering will be punished terrorist financing up to 15 years imprisonment up to twelve years in the Vatican City State. In June 2011, the blocked 23 million euros were released due to this newly created supervisory authority.

The IOR is now working with its own assets and its own account on behalf of each Pope, who, legally speaking, the sole owner of the IOR is.

Situation 2011/2012

Pope Benedict XVI. appointed Cardinal Attilio Nicora on 19 January 2011 President of the Board of Directors of the newly created Financial Services Authority Vatican AIF ( Authority ' d' informazione finanziaria ). The AIF was installed to control the IOR and other financial institutions of the Vatican. In November 2012, the Swiss anti-money laundering specialist René Brülhart was appointed Director of the AIF. Brülhart was formerly among others working for the Financial Intelligence Unity (FIU ) in Liechtenstein and also Vice - Chairman of the Egmont Group, a global network of national central offices for allegations of corruption, money laundering and terrorist financing.

In February 2012 affair were under the " Vatileaks " again details on alleged dubious practices of IOR public: Thus came about a letter from Cardinal Attilio Nicora, president of the Vatican's financial regulator AIF, to the media, in which he complained that the new control rules were not stringent enough. The letter was addressed to the bank manager and to the Secretary of State, but was leaked along with other documents of the left-wing daily newspaper "Il Fatto Quotidiano ".

The highlight of the Vatileaks affair was in May 2012, the resignation of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi as IOR - President, after the Supervisory Board of the Institute had him allegedly unanimously pronounced mistrust. Speculation about bullying against Tedeschi were in Raum.Daraufhin was appointed Ronaldo Hermann Schmitz, Retired Board Member of Deutsche Bank, as President of the IOR until 15 February 2013.

In March 2012, the Vatican City has been classified by the State Department of the United States, together with Ireland, Poland and Hungary in a list of countries whose financial system corresponds in terms of their potential vulnerability to money laundering in the intermediate category ( concern).

In July 2012, also published MONEYVAL, the Council of Europe Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of measures to combat money laundering, the results of its review of the Vatican State, which had been carried out on Vatican's request. In nine out of 16 key aspects of the city-state met international requirements. It called for further reforms. The aim of the Vatican is the inclusion in the so-called " white list " of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which are incorporated in countries that comply with international standards to combat tax fraud and money laundering.

Situation in 2013

Between January and mid-February 2013, the credit and debit cards transport the Vatican was temporarily suspended. The Banca d' Italia, Italy's central bank and at the same time the supreme organ of the Italian banking supervision, had the Italian subsidiary of Deutsche Bank was prohibited as far handle the money and the card business of the Vatican Bank, as it was forbidden EU banks in non-EU countries to act without adequate anti-money laundering supervisory authorities. In February 2013 it was announced by the Vatican that the credit and debit payment was resumed and the settlement was transferred to the Swiss financial institution Aduno SA.

On February 15, 2013 Ernst von Freyberg was appointed Chairman of the Supervisory Board and appointed so that the new head of the Institute.

In June 2013, the prelates Raffaele Farina, Jean -Louis Tauran, Juan Ignacio Arrieta Ochoa de Chinchetru and Deputy Interior Minister Peter Brian Wells Vatican by Pope Francis Mary Ann Glendon was appointed reforms in the Pontifical Commission for Eruierung of basic IOR.

On June 28, 2013, the Italian courts have been arrested in connection with the IOR three individuals for fraud and corruption charges in the course of investigations. The case of former priest arrested with Monsignor Nunzio Scarano auditors of the administration of goods of the Apostolic See is said to have taken a leading role in the alleged illegal money transactions through the Vatican Bank. After the subsequent resignation of director general Paolo Cipriani and his deputy Massimo Tulli on 1 July 2013 Ernst von Freyberg took over on an interim basis the office of Generaldirektors.Anfang August 2013 presented the prosecutor of the Vatican because of the affair in the case Scarano for the first time in history a request for assistance to the Republic of Italy.

In April 2013, according to media reports, the international consulting firm Promontory Financial Group was commissioned to conduct a comprehensive investigation of all Institute activities on money laundering.

On 1 October 2013, the Vatican Bank put its balance sheet for the first time publicly and published its Annual Report 2012 on its official website www.ior.va.

Also in October 2013 found the external Promontory Examiner According to newspaper reports, more than a thousand accounts of owners who do not belong to statutory customers of the IOR. The Institute has denounced these customers then.

Situation in 2014

On January 21, 2014 it was announced by media reports that the Italian financial police wanted to search in the course of the investigation against the former Vatican auditors Nunzio Scarano also the premises of the Vatican bank IOR.