VATICAN CITY
CBC News
News that German industrialist Ernst von Freyberg will take over as the new head of a financial body called the Institute for Works of Religion made a splash recently in the world’s media.
Under normal circumstances, the attention might seem misplaced. After all, the Institute for Works of Religion, known by its Italian acronym IOR, is a relatively small financial body with just 33,000 accounts and only $7.6 billion in assets — less than some Canadian credit unions.
But the IOR is no ordinary financial institution. It is better known by its unofficial name — the Vatican Bank.
Von Freyberg’s appointment to the top job came as the beleaguered institution struggles to regain credibility after decades of financial scandals that have seen the secretive institution being probed more than once for alleged money-laundering and other questionable financial matters.
Most recently, it has been trying to address findings that its banking standards — especially in the transparency department — aren’t up to the job.
Bitter infighting
So bitter has been the infighting that internal critics say they have been shuffled out in a bid to silence them and shield the bank’s inner workings from prying eyes.
Von Freyberg’s appointment fills the void left by the ousting of the bank’s previous head, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. The bank’s board of directors fired him last year for failure to carry out “the primary functions of his office,” according to a Vatican statement.
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