VATICAN CITY
The New York Times
By JIM YARDLEY
JULY 9, 2014
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis continued his efforts to modernize and reorganize the Vatican finances on Wednesday, by appointing a new leadership for the scandal-tainted Vatican Bank, streamlining other operations and signaling future changes to the church’s global media operations.
“Our ambition is to become something of a model in financial management rather than a cause for occasional scandal,” Cardinal George Pell, the pope’s recently appointed prefect on economic affairs, said at a news conference on Wednesday.
The most prominent move, rumored for weeks, was the appointment of Jean-Baptiste de Franssu as the new president of the Vatican Bank, officially known as the Institute of Religious Works, or I.O.R. Mr. de Franssu, a Frenchman who was formerly head of European operations for the investment management company Invesco Ltd., had been serving on an economic advisory council that Francis created in March. He replaces Ernst von Freyberg, a German industrialist appointed last year.
Cleaning up the Vatican’s murky finances has been a top priority for Francis, especially after many of the cardinals who elected him as pope in March 2013 spoke openly about their displeasure with the Vatican’s financial operations.
In recent years, the Vatican Bank has been under growing pressure to comply with international practices to fight money laundering and meet other global norms. In 2010, Italian prosecutors temporarily seized $30 million from two accounts at the bank as part of a financial investigation.
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