Wednesday 22 September 2010

Is it crying time again?

Please shed a tear or two for poor persecuted pope Maledict and his Vatican Taliban.

According to this, catholic church officials are "perplexed and amazed" that their private banking institution have come under criminal investigation. It is also reported that they are "in shock" because the state has frozen accounts.

An update:
The Vatican says the seizure by police of €23 million ($30 million) from a Vatican bank account and the investigation of two top bank officials is due to a misunderstanding that should be clarified quickly. [...] Italian financial police seized the money as a precaution Tuesday and Rome prosecutors placed the bank's chairman, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, and his director general, Paolo Cipriani, under investigation for alleged mistakes linked to violations of the norms.
Just a misunderstanding. Say, isn't that the same excuse used for decades to justify clergical obstructiveness with regard to preventing the criminal investigation of priests' pedophilia?

More:
[...] the Vatican bank had neglected to communicate to financial authorities where the money had come from. The reports stressed that Gotti Tedeschi wasn't being investigated for laundering money himself but for a series of alleged omissions in the transactions. [...] Gotti Tedeschi has said he was "humiliated and mortified" by the probe but that the transfers in question were for perfectly normal transactions.
It's simple. Just tell the secular authorities where the money originated, Gotti. Shouldn't the chairman of a financial institution, likely paid a 7 digit salary + benefits, know about such regulations?

1 comment:

Smartpatrol said...

Say, isn't that the same excuse that was used for decades to justify clerical obstructiveness with regard to the criminal investigation of priests' pedophilia?

Sing it!

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