VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider
Father Lombardi answers those who cast doubts over the Vatican’s will to be transparent.”We are working together with Italian authorities”. The Public Prosecutor office in Rome says “ several millions euro have been transferred abroad”
Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City
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.
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