Comment: Ettore Gotti Tedeschi–head of the Vatican Bank [1]–espoused the free-market ideology [2] that led to the crash of 2008. Tedeschi has also advised then Cardinal Ratzinger [3] and helped him write an economic thesis. (Ratzinger became, of course, Pope Benedict.) Not surprisingly, Tedeschi is a member of Opus Dei, the fascist lay Catholic order that has been ascendant in Vatican politics.
Once again, the Vatican Bank has come under investigation [4] for money laundering. As noted in past posts, the lawyer currently assisting the Vatican in cases related to child molestation had previously defended the Vatican Bank [5] in a Holocaust-related lawsuit.
A primary investor in Nazi industry [6], the Vatican Bank has long been involved with financing fascism.
Excerpt: The Vatican, still picking up the pieces after the global paedophilia scandal, was yesterday rocked by news that the heads of its bank are under investigation in connection with a £20m money laundering probe.
Vatican Bank president Ettore Gotti Tedeschi and director-general Paolo Cipriani are being investigated following two transactions that were reported as “suspicious”, police sources said.
The transactions on 15 September are thought to involve €20m sent to the German bank JP Morgan in Frankfurt, and €3m sent to a central-Italian bank, the Banca del Fucino. The funds have been seized by Italian authorities. . . .
Mr Gotti Tedeschi is a member of the ultra-conservative religious movement Opus Dei, and an outspoken advocate of the need for greater morality in finance. [Italics are mine–D.E.] . . .
Yesterday’s revelations, which come just days after Pope Benedict completed his controversial tour of Britain, are only the latest in a series of incidents that have raised doubts about the financial integrity of the bank, however. . . .
The Vatican Bank, after a series of scandals stretching back to the fraudulent bankruptcy of Banco Ambrosiano in the 1980s, is under pressure to adopt new financial standards following a 2009 push by the G20 nations for greater transparency.
The IOR said it been working “for some time” with the Bank of Italy and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development “for the Holy See’s inclusion in the so-called White List” – an OECD designation for countries that apply international tax regulations. The Bank of Italy has declared that transactions with banks such as the IOR, which are not on the White List, will be subject to greater scrutiny. . . .