one can almost feel the Schadenfreude behind this report which seeks to reinforce public opinion - shaped and misinformed/disinformed by MSM - holds about financial chicanery in the Vatican, along the same lines that MSM painted the town red with the allegations made by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano about two months ago...
Vatican bank faces fresh controversy
By Nick Squires
March 19, 2012
ROME - Thirty years after it was entangled in a scandal involving the mafia, money laundering and the mysterious death of the man nicknamed "God's banker", the Vatican bank faces fresh controversy.
[The MSM persist in calling the IOR - Instituto per Opere Religiose - a bank, even if Fr. Lombardi clearly said the IOR, often called the Vatican bank, is not a bank but a foundation that undertakes financial activities for the purpose of raising money to support the Holy See's various charitable works. However, it does not perform all the activities of a regular bank, e.g., it accepts deposits but does not make loans or give out credit cards, to name two common banking activities.]
The
Vatican Bank [sic - the B iin bank is capitalize,d as though 'Vatican Bank' were a proper noun, i.e., the formal name of the institution] has had one of its accounts closed by JP Morgan after [reportedly] stone-walling requests for information.
The bank – formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion or IOR – has suffered the ignominy of having one of its accounts closed by JP Morgan after stone-walling requests for information.
The sanction came less than two weeks after the US State Department listed the Vatican as being potentially vulnerable to money laundering.
A Milan affiliate of JP Morgan said it will shut the account by the end of the month after revealing Vatican bankers had been "unable to respond" to requests for details about payments into the account.
A spokesman for JP Morgan in Milan declined to comment, citing client confidentiality.
The Milan branch had been seeking information since 2010,
when the Vatican bank was accused by authorities in Rome of contravening money-laundering regulations. [The actual 'charge' made in public was that IOR officials were being asked to explain the provenance of certain accounts that IOR held in a commercial Italian bank and used to purchase German bonds, for which reason Italian banking authorities sequestered some 24 million euros in the questioned account(s). But they have since released these funds after a few months, having received a presumably satisfactory explanation by IOR officials. It is typically MSM to mention an accusation against the Vatican without mentioning the outcome if it is favorable for the Vatican!]
In an unusual move, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, president of the Vatican bank, was placed under investigation and a judge in Rome ordered a freeze on €23m (£19.5m) held in one of the bank's accounts.
The scandal prompted the Vatican bank to initiate anti-money-laundering legislation, which is currently being debated by the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy. [That is a biased statement. Even before the sequestration, the Vatican was already taking steps to get into the European Union's White List of financial institutions deemed to comply with international standards against money laundering and the financing of terrorism. These efforts culminated in a landmark law signed by Pope Benedict XVI on December 30, 2010, to enforce transparency int he financial operations of all Vatican organisms, not just IOR, with an autonomous Authority for Financial Information to oversee enforcement. It was a historic measure which few in MSM even bothered to acknowledge as such - because it is contrary to their 'conventional' negative assumptions about the Vatican. The MSM, for obvious reasons - seeing the unfailing association in the public mind of financial activities and corruption plus scandal - has chosen to portray any financial activities within the Church as inherently suspicious, if not criminal.]
The Vatican has a chequered history on financial transparency and propriety. Its financial past has included, most notoriously, its involvement in the bankruptcy of Italy's largest private bank, the Banco Ambrosiano, in 1982.
Its president, Roberto Calvi, nicknamed "God's Banker", was found hanged beneath London's Blackfriars Bridge, with investigators unable to rule whether he had committed suicide or was murdered.
The Vatican bank was unavailable for comment.