Vatican in chaos, Vatican bank - "a haven of corruption"

[D1B]

And the pope's butler arrested. The catholic church is a joke. It just gets worse and worse. When they ain't fucking children, forcing an overpopulated third world not to use birth control or fucking over gay people, they're serving as a haven for tax cheats.

Gabriele, the pope's personal butler since 2006, has often been seen by Benedict's side in public, riding in the front seat of the pope's open-air jeep during Wednesday general audiences or shielding the pontiff from the rain. In private, he is a member of the small papal household that also includes the pontiff's private secretaries and four consecrated women who care for the papal apartment.

Lombardi said Gabriele's detention marked a sad development for all Vatican staff. "Everyone knows him in the Vatican, and there's certainly surprise and pain, and great affection for his beloved family," the spokesman said.

The "Vatileaks" scandal has seriously embarrassed the Vatican at a time when it is trying to show the world financial community that it has turned a page and shed its reputation as a scandal plagued tax haven.

Vatican documents leaked to the press in recent months have undermined that effort, alleging corruption in Vatican finance as well as internal bickering over the Holy See's efforts to comply with international norms to fight money laundering and terror financing.

The Vatican in July will learn if it has complied with the financial transparency criteria of a Council of Europe committee, Moneyval — a key step in its efforts to get on the so-called "white list" of countries that share financial information to fight tax evasion.

Anderson acknowleged that the events of the last week certainly haven't cast the Holy See in the best light. And he said the bank's board appreciated that the ouster of its president just weeks before the expected Moneyval decision could give the committee pause.

"The board considered that concern and decided that all things considered it was best to take the action at this time," Anderson said. "These steps were taken to increase the IOR's position vis-a-vis Moneyval."

The Vatileaks scandal began in January when Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi broadcast letters from the former No. 2 Vatican administrator to the pope in which he begged not to be transferred for having exposed alleged corruption that cost the Holy See millions of euros in higher contract prices. The prelate, Monsignor Carlo Maria Vigano, is now the Vatican's U.S. ambassador.

Nuzzi, author of "Vatican SpA," a 2009 volume laying out shady dealings of the Vatican bank based on leaked documents, last weekend published "His Holiness," which presented a trove of other documents including personal correspondence to the pope and his secretary — many of them painting Benedict’s No. 2, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in a negative light.

Nuzzi has said he was offered the documents by multiple Vatican sources and insisted he didn't pay a cent € to any of them.

Gabriele was in Vatican custody and unavailable for comment. No known motive has come to light as to why Gabriele, if he is found to be the key mole, might have passed on the documents. Nuzzi declined to comment Saturday on whether Gabriele was among his sources.

Bertone, 77, has been blamed for a series of gaffes and management problems that have plagued Benedict's papacy and, according to the leaked documents, generated a not inconsiderable amount of ill will directed at him from other Vatican officials.

"For some time and in various parts of the church, criticism even by the faithful has been growing about the lack of coordination and confusion that reign at its center," Cardinal Paolo Sardi, the former No. 2 official in the Vatican secretariat of state, wrote to the pope in 2009, according to the letter cited in "His Holiness."

Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/V ... z1w2Xqnq8l" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/V ... z1w2X5HQWt" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Gil Dobie]

I thought you were head to Europe to do an intervention with the Pope.

[D1B]

I thought you were head to Europe to do an intervention with the Pope.

They need more than me. The whole cabal needs to be raided and then shut down.

[D1B]

JPMorgan just closed an account with the Vatican Bank worth 1.2 billion euros.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/2 ... 45058.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Bunch of fucking criminals - laundering money and financing terrorism.

[D1B]

More on the Vatican bank. What a joke. Criminals. How can anyone be proud to be a part of this criminal empire?

After the allegations surfaced, the Vatican released an official press release. It noted that it continues to have "full trust" in Ettore Tedeschi, the head of the bank, which is officially known as the Istituto per le Opere di Religione. It also firmly rejected the claims, noting that simple administrative errors could be to blame. While the statements and explanations were reassuring, one continuous challenge surrounds the verification of facts. According to banking experts, the Vatican Bank is "the most secret bank in the world, and it is extremely difficult to find out how much money it controls, the scope of its financial operations, and its transaction history. Like many religious institutions, the Vatican Bank has no obligation to open its operations to external scrutiny. With this fact, it is virtually impossible to find out how much money the Vatican bank controls, or how it is using it. One item that few disagree on is the scope of the bank's assets, particularly physical assets. The Vatican's sources of income include its vast real estate holdings, and no single listing is available that consolidates the value of those land holdings. Over the next couple of weeks, it will be interesting to see how this saga unfolds, particularly as the Vatican and the Pope face increased pressure stemming from the child abuse scandal that has recently resurfaced. Moreover, one critical source of ambiguity regarding the investigation is jurisdiction. As was eluded to earlier, it is not entirely clear how much legal authority Italian officials have over the Vatican Bank, since the Vatican is technically a sovereign state. In fact, in 2009, an effort by Holocaust survivors to sue the Vatican Bank in the United States failed when a U.S. court ruled that the Vatican Bank had "sovereign immunity" and was not subject to lawsuits filed in the United States. According to Vatican history, the Bank was created by an order of the pope "to carry on activities that are for pious causes." It accepts deposits only from top Catholic Church officials and entities, and uses its funds "for designated pious purposes" and is "an autonomous pious foundation." Unfortunately, what those designations mean, and what causes are pious, remain undefined. The bank is ultimately overseen by a commission of five cardinals -- the top position in the Vatican hierarchy below the pope -- which is headed by the Vatican secretary of state. Currently, despite operating as a separate state, Italian authorities continue to subject the bank to anti-money laundering regulations. These regulations exist because Italian law does not consider it to be operating within the European Union.

http://www.justmeans.com/Black-As-Sin-V ... 31884.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Cap'n Cat]

Man, the Catholic Church needs some better PR people.

[blueballs]

The leadership has been corrupt financially since the day it acheived power... no reason to think anything is going to change now after hundreds of years.

[D1B]

The leadership has been corrupt financially since the day it acheived power... no reason to think anything is going to change now after hundreds of years.

It's corrupt morally too. They use the same sovereign immunity and secrecy afforded to it by the world community to avoid class action lawsuits and accountability for covering up child sexual abuse. For eons, they gave unfettered access to children to known pedophiles, rapists and sadists. Tens of thousands, Perhaps millions of children, could have been spared the trauma of abuse if the Vatican actually cared about them more than they care about their money.

It's time for the nations of the world to demand transparency and hold the catholic church accountable for it crimes - past and present. It's time for the church to recognized for what it is - a business that sells salvation to people. No different than Enron or IBM. They should be taxed and monitored.

[kalm]

They're lucky Geoge W. Bush isn't still in power.

[JoltinJoe]

Man, the Catholic Church needs some better PR people.

Pretty much true, because even with all this media talk about "scandal," the only thing these articles say is that the bank is "secretive."

I now return you to the normal anti-Catholic hysteria/bigotry which prevails in these parts ...

[JoltinJoe]

The leadership has been corrupt financially since the day it acheived power... no reason to think anything is going to change now after hundreds of years.

It's corrupt morally too. They use the same sovereign immunity and secrecy afforded to it by the world community to avoid class action lawsuits and accountability for covering up child sexual abuse. For eons, they gave unfettered access to children to known pedophiles, rapists and sadists. Tens of thousands, Perhaps millions of children, could have been spared the trauma of abuse if the Vatican actually cared about them more than they care about their money.

It's time for the nations of the world to demand transparency and hold the catholic church accountable for it crimes - past and present. It's time for the church to recognized for what it is - a business that sells salvation to people. No different than Enron or IBM. They should be taxed and monitored.

Same old hyperbolic crap you've read on the internet somewhere. Tool.

[youngterrier]

The words Vatican, bank, and corruption are somewhat synonymous aren't they?

couldn't resist

[BlueHen86]

Man, the Catholic Church needs some better PR people.

[CID1990]

More on the Vatican bank. What a joke. Criminals. How can anyone be proud to be a part of this criminal empire?

After the allegations surfaced, the Vatican released an official press release. It noted that it continues to have "full trust" in Ettore Tedeschi, the head of the bank, which is officially known as the Istituto per le Opere di Religione. It also firmly rejected the claims, noting that simple administrative errors could be to blame. While the statements and explanations were reassuring, one continuous challenge surrounds the verification of facts. According to banking experts, the Vatican Bank is "the most secret bank in the world, and it is extremely difficult to find out how much money it controls, the scope of its financial operations, and its transaction history. Like many religious institutions, the Vatican Bank has no obligation to open its operations to external scrutiny. With this fact, it is virtually impossible to find out how much money the Vatican bank controls, or how it is using it. One item that few disagree on is the scope of the bank's assets, particularly physical assets. The Vatican's sources of income include its vast real estate holdings, and no single listing is available that consolidates the value of those land holdings. Over the next couple of weeks, it will be interesting to see how this saga unfolds, particularly as the Vatican and the Pope face increased pressure stemming from the child abuse scandal that has recently resurfaced. Moreover, one critical source of ambiguity regarding the investigation is jurisdiction. As was eluded to earlier, it is not entirely clear how much legal authority Italian officials have over the Vatican Bank, since the Vatican is technically a sovereign state. In fact, in 2009, an effort by Holocaust survivors to sue the Vatican Bank in the United States failed when a U.S. court ruled that the Vatican Bank had "sovereign immunity" and was not subject to lawsuits filed in the United States. According to Vatican history, the Bank was created by an order of the pope "to carry on activities that are for pious causes." It accepts deposits only from top Catholic Church officials and entities, and uses its funds "for designated pious purposes" and is "an autonomous pious foundation." Unfortunately, what those designations mean, and what causes are pious, remain undefined. The bank is ultimately overseen by a commission of five cardinals -- the top position in the Vatican hierarchy below the pope -- which is headed by the Vatican secretary of state. Currently, despite operating as a separate state, Italian authorities continue to subject the bank to anti-money laundering regulations. These regulations exist because Italian law does not consider it to be operating within the European Union.

http://www.justmeans.com/Black-As-Sin-V ... 31884.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hey JSO #2.....

how's about lay off the War and Peace?


Also Sodomy

[D1B]

Man, the Catholic Church needs some better PR people.

Pretty much true, because even with all this media talk about "scandal," the only thing these articles say is that the bank is "secretive."

I now return you to the normal anti-Catholic hysteria/bigotry which prevails in these parts ...

The bank is also under investigation, fired its president, arrested your homosexual pope's lover/butler for releasing documents, major deposit holders are pulling their fundd . What's it like in "Catholicland"?


Oh, poor Joe. Sorry we're giving perverts, pedophiles, criminals and just plain evil people a bad time.
You're doing a great job making up for and defending them. You should be proud.

[D1B]

It's corrupt morally too. They use the same sovereign immunity and secrecy afforded to it by the world community to avoid class action lawsuits and accountability for covering up child sexual abuse. For eons, they gave unfettered access to children to known pedophiles, rapists and sadists. Tens of thousands, Perhaps millions of children, could have been spared the trauma of abuse if the Vatican actually cared about them more than they care about their money.

It's time for the nations of the world to demand transparency and hold the catholic church accountable for it crimes - past and present. It's time for the church to recognized for what it is - a business that sells salvation to people. No different than Enron or IBM. They should be taxed and monitored.

Same old hyperbolic crap you've read on the internet somewhere. Tool.

Joe, open your eyes, this is everywhere - major newspapers and news sources. It's not tucked away in some obscure atheist website - it's front page news.

You're in a cult.

[D1B]

The words Vatican, bank, and corruption are somewhat synonymous aren't they?

couldn't resist

[D1B]

More on the Vatican bank scandal. Here's an article from 2010 where the Vatican strenuously defends the guy they just sacked and are now grooming, Stalin-style, as the scapegoat.

Police intervention

Rome magistrates are looking into claims that Mr Gotti Tedeschi and the bank's chief executive Paolo Cipriani violated laws that require banks to disclose information on financial operations.
Continue reading the main story
Vatican Bank

Set up by Pope Pius XII in 1942
Based in Vatican City, has no other branches, operates as offshore institution outside EU rules
Headed by professional banker overseen by commission of cardinals
No shareholders, no policy-making functions
All profits set aside for charitable or religious works

The BBC's David Willey in Rome says the Bank of Italy's financial intelligence unit tipped off Italy's tax police last week, after two suspicious transactions were reported between the Vatican Bank and two different Italian banks.

The tax police seized 23m euros that the Vatican Bank had tried to transfer from a small Italian bank called Credito Artigianato.

Some 20m euros was destined for JP Morgan in Frankfurt, with the remainder going to another Italian bank, Banca del Fucino.

Reports say the Vatican Bank had failed to inform the financial authorities where the money had come from.
Past scandal

In a statement, the Vatican strongly defended its record.

"The Holy See is perplexed and astonished by the initiatives of the Rome prosecutors, considering the data necessary is already available at the Bank of Italy," the statement said.

And the Vatican also gave its backing to the two officials under investigation.

"The Holy See wants to express the maximum confidence in the president and in the chief executive of the IOR," it said.

Mr Gotti Tedeschi, who is an expert on financial ethics, has been in charge of the bank for a year. He was formerly head of Spanish bank Santander's Italian operations.

The Vatican Bank was last mired in scandal in 1982 when its governor Archbishop Paul Marcinkus was indicted over his involvement with the collapse of what was then Italy's largest private bank, Banco Ambrosiano.

Although he was never arrested, the fallout from that scandal took a darker turn when two of its top executives, one of them its chairman, Roberto Calvi, were murdered.

Calvi, known as God's Banker because of his close ties to the Vatican, was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge in London.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11380628" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Vatican is the headquarters of a criminal empire.

[JoltinJoe]

More on the Vatican bank scandal. Here's an article from 2010 where the Vatican strenuously defends the guy they just sacked and are now grooming, Stalin-style, as the scapegoat.

Police intervention

Rome magistrates are looking into claims that Mr Gotti Tedeschi and the bank's chief executive Paolo Cipriani violated laws that require banks to disclose information on financial operations.
Continue reading the main story
Vatican Bank

Set up by Pope Pius XII in 1942
Based in Vatican City, has no other branches, operates as offshore institution outside EU rules
Headed by professional banker overseen by commission of cardinals
No shareholders, no policy-making functions
All profits set aside for charitable or religious works

The BBC's David Willey in Rome says the Bank of Italy's financial intelligence unit tipped off Italy's tax police last week, after two suspicious transactions were reported between the Vatican Bank and two different Italian banks.

The tax police seized 23m euros that the Vatican Bank had tried to transfer from a small Italian bank called Credito Artigianato.

Some 20m euros was destined for JP Morgan in Frankfurt, with the remainder going to another Italian bank, Banca del Fucino.

Reports say the Vatican Bank had failed to inform the financial authorities where the money had come from.
Past scandal

In a statement, the Vatican strongly defended its record.

"The Holy See is perplexed and astonished by the initiatives of the Rome prosecutors, considering the data necessary is already available at the Bank of Italy," the statement said.

And the Vatican also gave its backing to the two officials under investigation.

"The Holy See wants to express the maximum confidence in the president and in the chief executive of the IOR," it said.

Mr Gotti Tedeschi, who is an expert on financial ethics, has been in charge of the bank for a year. He was formerly head of Spanish bank Santander's Italian operations.

The Vatican Bank was last mired in scandal in 1982 when its governor Archbishop Paul Marcinkus was indicted over his involvement with the collapse of what was then Italy's largest private bank, Banco Ambrosiano.

Although he was never arrested, the fallout from that scandal took a darker turn when two of its top executives, one of them its chairman, Roberto Calvi, were murdered.

Calvi, known as God's Banker because of his close ties to the Vatican, was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge in London.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11380628" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Vatican is the headquarters of a criminal empire.

And what precisely is the wrongdoing you are alleging??

Let's see. A 2010 investigation in which funds were frozen and later unfrozen with no further action??

[JoltinJoe]

Pretty much true, because even with all this media talk about "scandal," the only thing these articles say is that the bank is "secretive."

I now return you to the normal anti-Catholic hysteria/bigotry which prevails in these parts ...

The bank is also under investigation, fired its president, arrested your homosexual pope's lover/butler for releasing documents, major deposit holders are pulling their fundd . What's it like in "Catholicland"?


Oh, poor Joe. Sorry we're giving perverts, pedophiles, criminals and just plain evil people a bad time.
You're doing a great job making up for and defending them. You should be proud.

(1) The bank is under investigation you say? For what?
(2) It fired its president over leaks of confidential information. Ok, big deal.
(3) JP Morgan Chase closed an account. Big deal. JP Morgan was a primer mover in the sale and marketing of the derivatives which caused the last global recession, and made a bundle while the world economy suffered. Good riddance.

What precisely is the wrongdoing? Spit it out, Spanky.

[JoltinJoe]

This story is a prime example of the anti-Catholic bias in the media.

The scandal is that a close confidant of the pope leaked confidential material to the media, even though the bank president was blamed and took the fall earlier.

But throw the word "scandal" into the headline and let the feeble minded run wild with it.

[CID1990]

That's right boys, all we got left is the Catholics. Cain't go after the nigras anymore, they's pertected.


Also Sodomy

[D1B]

The bank is also under investigation, fired its president, arrested your homosexual pope's lover/butler for releasing documents, major deposit holders are pulling their fundd . What's it like in "Catholicland"?


Oh, poor Joe. Sorry we're giving perverts, pedophiles, criminals and just plain evil people a bad time.
You're doing a great job making up for and defending them. You should be proud.

(1) The bank is under investigation you say? For what?
(2) It fired its president over leaks of confidential information. Ok, big deal.
(3) JP Morgan Chase closed an account. Big deal. JP Morgan was a primer mover in the sale and marketing of the derivatives which caused the last global recession, and made a bundle while the world economy suffered. Good riddance.

1. Money laundering:

Bloomberg Business Report: "The Vatican bank, whose reputation took a blow over an investigation into money laundering, has fired Chairman Ettore Gotti Tedeschi after a tenure stained by a financial scandal."

Also:

The institute is no stranger to scandal. It was implicated in the fraudulent bankruptcy of Banco Ambrosiano in 1982. The bank’s former Chairman Roberto Calvi, dubbed “God’s banker,” was found hanged under London’s Blackfriars Bridge in June of that year. The Vatican paid $240 million to compensate Ambrosiano’s account holders without admitting any wrongdoing.

2. It fired it's president because is appears he was advocating for transparency. You can watch it happening right now as the Vatican has set the wolves on him and are grooming him as the scapegoat. They're also rapidly silencing people close to the case, just like they did and do with the ongoing child abuse scandal. You're seeing the true colors of the church again: We don't give a fuck about anything but our money and power.

www.irishtimes.com

With the ex-butler Mr Gabriele still in detention (in a Vatican gendarmerie holding room, since there is no Vatican prison), those winds continue to blow. Furthermore, as the international clamour makes itself more manifest, there were all the indications powerful figures in the Holy See were busily engaged in a Stalinist-style rewrite of history.

Firstly, a number of Holy See commentators have tried to suggest there is no link between the dismissal of the IOR president on Thursday and the arrest on Friday of the butler, accused of having stolen documents from the papal apartment. Yet one of the accusations levelled against Gotti Tedeschi on Thursday concerned his inability to explain “the dissemination of documents last known to be in the president’s possession”.

Secondly, various Italian media sources yesterday carried reports of the internal IOR memo drawn up after that Thursday meeting by board member Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus. In it, the sacked president, hitherto hailed as a radical reformer, is portrayed as erratic, uninformed, inaccurate, imprudent and someone who did not bother attending board meetings.

Did it really take the IOR board three years to discover Gotti Tedeschi was an idiot, or is it possible that someone, Stalinist-style, is trying to wipe him out of the IOR family album?

The Thursday memo accuses Gotti Tedeschi of “increasingly erratic” behaviour. Is that true, or was the real “erratic” nature of his behaviour his attempt to impose international, anti-money laundering norms at IOR?

3. Good riddance indeed. JP Morgan's move was brilliant. Who in their right mind would want their business connected with an entity as unsavory and corrupt as the Vatican. You know you're assholes when JP Morgan doesn't want's to have anything to do with you.

VATICAN CITY/MILAN, March 19 (Reuters) - JP Morgan Chase is closing the Vatican bank's account with an Italian branch of the U.S. banking giant because of concerns about a lack of transparency at the Holy See's financial institution, Italian newspapers reported.

The move is a blow to the Vatican's drive to have its bank included in Europe's "white list" of states that comply with international standards against tax fraud and money-laundering.

The bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), enacted major reforms last year in an attempt to get Europe's seal of approval and put behind it scandals that have included accusations of money laundering and fraud.

Italy's leading financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore reported at the weekend that JP Morgan Chase in Milan had told the IOR of the closing of its account in a letter on Feb. 15.

The letter said the IOR's account in Italy's business capital would gradually be phased out starting on March 16 and closed on March 30.

In Milan, JP Morgan Chase declined to comment and the Vatican also had no comment. It was not possible to contact IOR officials because Monday was a holiday in the Vatican.

Il Sole said JP Morgan Chase informed the IOR that the account was being closed because the bank's Milan branch felt the IOR had failed to provide sufficient information on money transfers.

[JoltinJoe]

Summary of the above without all the usual bloviating: nothing.

[D1B]

Summary of the above without all the usual bloviating: nothing.

How does it feel to be funding an organization that protects pedophiles, is responsible for the molestation of thousands of children, is currently involved in a child sex abuse and money laundering scandal, and discriminates against gay people?