Pope Francis Is Hunting down the Vatican's Shady Bankers

By Charles P. Pierce
Esquire
November 3, 2015

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a39421/pope-francis-vatican-banks/

Getty Giulio Origlia

Ross Cardinal Douthat, primate of the Archdiocese of Dorkylvania, may still be creased because Papa Francesco is determined not to give him the authoritarian church of his dreams, but allowing divorced Catholics to return to the sacraments is small beer compared to what the pope has been doing about the Vatican's chronically corrupt—and bizarrely non-doctrinal—banking practices. There's an explosion coming very soon.

While most of the media focus of the Vatican's murky finances has for decades centred on its official bank, the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), a department called the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See (APSA), acted as its own financial powerhouse. APSA, a sort of general accounting office, manages the Vatican's real estate holdings in Rome and elsewhere in Italy, pays salaries of Vatican employees, and acts as a purchasing office and human resources department. One of its two divisions also manages the Vatican's financial and stock portfolio. The 33-page report suspects this division was used by an outsider for non-Vatican business, with possible complicity of APSA staff, in violation of its own regulations. The internal investigation is part of a drive by Pope Francis to give Vatican financial authorities free rein to dig deep, over-ruling some cardinals who would prefer to forget the past now that the Vatican has enacted major reforms and instituted controls to thwart irregular practices. Under Francis, the Vatican has overhauled its scandal-plagued bank, given more power to its Financial Intelligence Authority, appointed its first auditor-general and set up a new ministry to oversee economic activities of all departments, which previously ran their budgets with little or no control.

?The man means business.?