ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Jun. 19, 2012 NCR Today

ROME — If a report in Italy’s leading daily is accurate, it’s a rare bit of good news lately for the Vatican: Apparently, the Vatican is poised to pass a looming European anti-money laundering evaluation, touted by friends and foes alike as the first real measure of whether Benedict XVI’s financial reforms are for real.

According to the June 19 story in Corriere della Sera, evaluators from Moneyval, the European anti-money laundering task force, are set to give the Vatican a score of only “partially compliant” or “non-compliant” on just eight of its 16 “key and core” benchmarks. That’s enough for the Vatican to avoid being considered a problem state, which requires low scores on ten of the standards.

If a country drops below that threshold, it typically faces a more rigid review for…