VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
May. 25, 2012
By Alessandro Speciale, Religion News Service
VATICAN CITY — In an unprecedented move, the board of the Vatican Bank on Thursday forced its president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, to resign.
According to a Vatican statement, the bank’s supervisory council unanimously passed a no-confidence motion in Gotti Tedeschi for his “failure to fulfill various primary functions of his office.” Carl A. Anderson, the supreme knight of the U.S.-based Knights of Columbus, is one of the council’s four members.
The Vatican’s chief spokesman, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, declined to give more details on the reasons for the dismissal, but analysts say the move should be read in the context of an internal Vatican struggle over controversial new rules for financial transparency.
Since 2010, Gotti Tedeschi, together with the bank’s director general, Paolo Cipriani, has been under investigation for alleged money laundering.
In the past, the Vatican Bank, which operates under the protection of the Vatican’s status as a sovereign nation, has been often accused of involvement in shady financial operations, such as money laundering for Italian politicians and even mafia bosses.
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