"Vatican Bank"... The mere view of the unofficial name of the Istituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR-Institute for Religious Works) brings alive hundreds of conspiracy theories, mostly linked to the undeniably shady period, in the 1970s and early 1980s, during which the IOR was guided by American Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, recently deceased.
Today -- after the changes promoted by Pope John Paul II and many years after the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars to those who had been affected by the schemes of the bankrupt Banco Ambrosiano, of which the Vatican Bank had been a major stockholder in the Marcinkus years -- the IOR, which is the manager of the financial assets of the Holy See and of other ecclesiastical entities, is once again solid, under the guidance of Italian financier Angelo Caloia, generally considered a reliable manager.
Nevertheless, for some undisclosed reason, the current IOR bureaucracy did not please the Pope entirely, and Vaticanist Andrea Tornielli reports in this Thursday's edition of Il Giornale that "ten middle-high level employees of the IOR have been forced into 'early retirement' in the past week". The [early retirement] "did not only cover employees past the 65-year-old mark, but even younger" ones. The changes are significant considering the fact that the IOR itself is a very small structure.
Tornielli believes that the changes in the Vatican Bank are probably related to the general idea of "rationalization of the Curial offices" and the reduction of their bureaucracy, old ideas of Pope Ratzinger.
Or maybe the changes involve other issues.
Today -- after the changes promoted by Pope John Paul II and many years after the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars to those who had been affected by the schemes of the bankrupt Banco Ambrosiano, of which the Vatican Bank had been a major stockholder in the Marcinkus years -- the IOR, which is the manager of the financial assets of the Holy See and of other ecclesiastical entities, is once again solid, under the guidance of Italian financier Angelo Caloia, generally considered a reliable manager.
Nevertheless, for some undisclosed reason, the current IOR bureaucracy did not please the Pope entirely, and Vaticanist Andrea Tornielli reports in this Thursday's edition of Il Giornale that "ten middle-high level employees of the IOR have been forced into 'early retirement' in the past week". The [early retirement] "did not only cover employees past the 65-year-old mark, but even younger" ones. The changes are significant considering the fact that the IOR itself is a very small structure.
Tornielli believes that the changes in the Vatican Bank are probably related to the general idea of "rationalization of the Curial offices" and the reduction of their bureaucracy, old ideas of Pope Ratzinger.
Or maybe the changes involve other issues.
