Interview with IOR President, Ernst von Freyberg

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The Vatican’s Institute for Religious Works, known by the acronym of its Italian title IOR, is not a bank. It neither lends money nor makes direct investments and all of its clients are named.

The mission of its newly appointed president, Ernst von Freyberg, is to restore its reputation as a transparent financial institution in line with international norms at the service of the Holy Father and its 19 thousand customers worldwide, most of whom are nuns and clergy. He believes communication is a key part of this mission and members of the Church and the society at large must be informed of the IOR’s activities.

In an interview with Vatican Radio’s Fr. Bernd Hagenkord S.J., von Freyberg dispels some myths about the IOR and reveals the challenges facing the institute, which has attracted keen media attention in recent years. And he confesses to having a ‘dream’: “My dream is a very clear one. My dream is that our reputation is such that people don’t think of us any more, when they think about the Vatican, but that they listen to what the Pope says.”

My first question: Do you like your job, coming from Frankfurt down to Rome, working inside the Vatican?

“It is a great privilege to work here; it is the most inspiring environment you can imagine: working at the Vatican. And it is a great challenge to serve the pope in re-establishing the reputation of this institute.”

What did you imagine your work to be, prior to starting here?

“Different from what it is. When I came here I thought I would need to focus on what is normally described as cleaning out and dealing with improper deposits. There is – until now – nothing I can detect. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything, but it means that it is not our biggest issue.
Our biggest issue is our reputation. Our work – my work – is much more communication than originally thought. And it is much more communication inside the Church. We haven’t done enough of that in the past. It starts a home, with our own employees, with those who work for the Church in Rome, with those in the Church around the world. To them we owe first of all transparency and a good explication of what we do and how we try to serve.”

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