VATICAN CITY
WSAV
Updated: Jun 15, 2013
By NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press
VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Francis took his first major step in reforming the troubled Vatican bank on Saturday by tapping a trusted prelate to help oversee its management, in a sign he wants to know more about its activities.
Francis signed off on naming Monsignor Battista Mario Salvatore Ricca as interim prelate of the Institute for Religious Works.
It’s a key job that has been left vacant since 2011: The prelate oversees the bank’s activities, attends its board meetings and, critically, has access to all its documentation. The prelate reports to the commission of cardinals who run the bank and is currently headed by the Vatican No. 2. That gives Ricca a virtually direct line to the pope.
Ricca is currently director of the Vatican hotel where Francis lives and other Vatican-owned residential institutes for clergy. They include the Domus Internationalis Paulus VI, the central Rome residence where the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio always stayed on visits to Rome and where he famously paid his bill and bid farewell to the staff the day after he was elected pope.
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