ARGENTINA
National Catholic Reporter
by John L. Allen Jr. | Apr. 4, 2013
Buenos Aires, Argentina – A former top aide to Pope Francis said yesterday that a little-known aspect of his record as the archbishop of Buenos Aires lends credence to speculation that sooner or later, he may shut down the Vatican Bank.
On Tuesday, the Reuters news agency quoted two Vatican officials anonymously who said that closing the bank, formally known as the “Institute for the Works of Religion,” is an option Francis might consider.
Yesterday Federico Wals, a layman who served as the future pope’s spokesperson in Buenos Aires since 2007, told NCR he believes that may well be the case.
“I think he’ll move everything to the Bank of Italy, or something like that,” Wals told NCR, citing as a precedent a key decision made by then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio when he arrived in Buenos Aires in the late 1990s.
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