VATICAN CITY
Sky News
Tim Marshall
Foreign Affairs Editor
Whoever takes over from Pope Benedict next month has an almighty financial mess to clear up.
Most coverage of the Pope’s achievements, or lack of, centred on matters of faith and doctrine. He came out with a mixed score partially dependant on judgement of those slippery concepts. If you measure the success of his tenure in a financial way, the balance sheet is more negative.
The Vatican is a state and a business as well as a religious organisation. The state has investments, GDP, and a bank with 33,400 accounts. If you were generous you might describe its accounting system as opaque. The European Parliament has called for it to be more transparent.
Four years after he came to power, Benedict XVI, the de facto CEO of the Vatican, reacted to a string of accusations of financial irregularity by its bank, the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR). He created a supervisory body – the Financial Information Authority.
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