PopeWatch: Vatican Bank

The decision, announced yesterday, follows a breakneck transparency drive at   the bank, known by its Italian initials IOR (Istituto per le Opere di   Religione), which has been accused in the past of offering banking services   to mob bosses and tax dodgers.

Consultants have been brought in to comb through customer lists and dozens of   accounts have been shut down in recent months after years in which lay   customers with tenuous connections to the Vatican were allowed to open   accounts alongside priests and cardinals.

“The IOR will continue to serve with prudence and provide specialized   financial services to the Catholic Church worldwide,” the Vatican said in a   statement.

The announcement ends months of uncertainty over the bank’s future after Pope   Francis said last July: “I don’t know what will become of the bank. Some say   it is better that is a bank, others that it should be a charitable fund and   others say close it.” Francis has also remarked that “St. Paul did not have   a bank account.”

Go here to The Telegraph to read the rest.  PopeWatch hopes this will work out, but fears it will not.  PopeWatch would not bet his bank account against the proposition that some new scandal will arise at the Vatican Bank within the next five years.  Clerics running a Bank is rather like the late Colonel Sanders running a vegetarian restaurant, you just know a disaster is around the corner.