Why does the Catholic Church have a bank?

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Why after 1,942 years did the Church decide that it was a good idea to hold money? Was there an event that took place that led to such action?

Was there some necessity that previously didnt exist?
 
TEPO said:
Why after 1,942 years did the Church decide that it was a good idea to hold money? Was there an event that took place that led to such action?

Was there some necessity that previously didnt exist?
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Yes, lawyers. 😛
 
TEPO said:
Why after 1,942 years did the Church decide that it was a good idea to hold money? Was there an event that took place that led to such action?

Was there some necessity that previously didnt exist?
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Are you saying that the church has only had to worry about money in the last 72 years?

The Vatican is actually a city state. An independent Country It makes sense that it would have a financial institution. What I have a hard time with is why it was not following international rules and regulations more closely to avoid any criminal activity.

🤷
 
…also, what is the reason why there have been depositors whose names have been withheld from overseeing bank administrations as well as the public and governments.

Why on earth would this information need to be shielded?

Has the information been made public yet, and if not, will it ever?
 
ProdigalSun said:
Are you saying that the church has only had to worry about money in the last 72 years?

The Vatican is actually a city state. An independent Country It makes sense that it would have a financial institution. What I have a hard time with is why it was not following international rules and regulations more closely to avoid any criminal activity.

🤷
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No, my question is why there became a necessity to go into banking, specifically, after 1942 years of not being in that business. Was there a specific incident or circumstance that led to it?
 
TEPO said:
No, my question is why there became a necessity to go into banking, specifically, after 1942 years of not being in that business. Was there a specific incident or circumstance that led to it?
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Well considering that that money and property has always been an issue for the church I’m sure banking or some form of it has been a “business” in the church since the beginning. I think it is only prudent that the church would need to update how it manages its finances and property in a proper way.

I guess it could go back to having a big a@# vault piled high with gold and paper with a little guy behind a desk with a quill stuck in his ear.

It makes sense that an independent country would have it’s own bank. The bigger question would be the guarding against any criminal activity. The bank should be following any international regulations to prevent against improper behavior.
 
If its a private donor based private institution, then why has it taken steps to become more transparent? Do those very steps not lead to suspicion, acting as reparation for misconduct? Like an admission to guilt…?

Why also was the Italian government able to legally seize 20 million Euros from the Church and return them only after the Vatican Bank made changes… How was that legal?
 
From what I understand, a large portion of its endowment came from the reparations Italy paid for the unjust seizure of the papal states.
 
TEPO said:
…also, what is the reason why there have been depositors whose names have been withheld from overseeing bank administrations as well as the public and governments.

Why on earth would this information need to be shielded?

Has the information been made public yet, and if not, will it ever?
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The depositors are religious orders, dioceses and other specifically catholic groups that like ALL organizations, need to utilize money to survive. Bill Gates does not have a secret Vatican Bank account. That’s not what it’s about.

Why? You need to ask why the Sisters of Charity need to be private about their finances when the sisters routinely walk about in kidnap / ransome -prone third world countries doing their ministry? If all it took was a google search to determine which order had saved up almost enough to start their new apostolate in Zimbabwe, you don’t suppose that would put a target on them for rapacious lawyers, kidnappers and other sorts of extortionists? Might influence people towards phony vocations to attempt to access and control significant assets?

What good does it do for that information to be public?
 
Well since Matthew isn’t around anymore to carry it in his money purse, we have to put our cash somewhere.
 
very funny, 1ke…

on a more serious note…
The commission established by Leo XIII in 1887 was the successor to whatever banking functions the Vatican used in administering the Papal States. The Vatican was sovereign over the territory covered by the Papal States for over 1000 years before the last of it was absorbed into modern day Italy in 1870. Being sovereign implies that like other countries, it relied on banking functions to carry out its business of governing temporally as well as spiritually, and may have had its own bank (my knowledge doesn’t go that far). The Vatican, in fact, had no territory of its own at all from 1871 until Mussolini granted sovereignty to the Vatican City State in 1929. Before the creation of the Papal States throughout the 700’s, the Church had become one of the largest private landowners on the Italian peninsula since the conversion of Constantine. That function and the conflict with the Lombards and the Byzantines eventually led to the recognition by Charlemagne in 781 of the Papal States. A fascinating bit of history should one look it up.
 
Money laundering is the process of blending illegitimate “criminal” money with legally obtained money. So then there was money collected illegally and criminally by “the Church”? Or not?
 
Ultimately, I dont have a problem with the Church holding currency. I just think its interesting that the world feels obligated to participate in the knowledge of whatever money exists. The tracking of every dollar in the world…

The importance of knowing details involving currency amazes me.
 
TEPO said:
Why is it, what are it’s goals for the future and where did it come from. Thanks.
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Stipends, gifts and funds given to The Catholic Church as steward by the Faithful are not given for commercial ventures. The Church does not have the authority to place its asserts in the hands of commercial enterprises such as banks.
 
OPRVAVX.

This is the SWIFT code for IOR. I’d say that if something has a SWIFT code, it is internationally recognized as a financial institution.

On paper, maybe.

In reality, it has been a public secret ever since Roberto Calvi’s “suicide” (which looked more like a Masonic ritual murder) that IOR laundered money. No hard proof of course, because all the paperwork was conveniently in the state of Vatican and thus inaccessible.

IOR finally got caught laundering money in 2012. This ultimately led to the head of the bank being sacked. And since other banks are forbidden by law to do any business with banks engaged in money laundering, the effect was that Vatican stopped accepting credit card payments.

Actually incorrect. The anti-money laundering regulations require that is bank A is transferring money to bank B, bank A has to disclose the source of the money to bank B, otherwise bank B is legally obliged to cease any business with bank A. Which is exactly what happened in 2012, when an audit inside JP Morgan found that IOR was transferring money to an account in Milan held by a third party, which at the end of the day was emptied and money transferred to an account in Germany held by… IOR. In other words, IOR (in Rome) was sending money to a third party (in Milan, Italy), who at the end of the day was sending money back to IOR’s account in Germany. This in itself was a suspicious operation: (1) why go through the trouble, when you can send money directly to Germany, and (2) why involve a third party… unless you want to hide from the German bank where the money comes from. So JP Morgan requested information on the source of the money from IOR – and IOR refused to provide this information. At this point, Italian banks were legally obliged to cease any business with IOR.

Once that happened (and IOR found itself unable to move money in and out of Vatican city), Vatican immediately promised that they will fix things and establish full transparency.
 
TEPO said:
So then there was money collected illegally and criminally by “the Church”? Or not?
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There is circumstancial evidence of IOR providing financial services for some not-so-nice people or for people moving funds for the not-so-nice people. Roberto Calvi’s manner of death is pretty telling.

Also, in 2012 IOR was caught conducting the sort of transactions which are done to hide the source of funds, i.e. launder money. A better question would be does IOR indeed have a legitimate reason to conduct this sort of transactions.
 
TEPO said:
Why after 1,942 years did the Church decide that it was a good idea to hold money? Was there an event that took place that led to such action?

Was there some necessity that previously didnt exist?
Click to expand...
The Church is not holding money. The Vatican Bank is. Although it resides in Vatican City, the bank is not part of the Holy See. It is officially known as the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR).
www.ior.va

It is a privately held institute situated exclusively on the sovereign territory of the Vatican City and run by a Board of Superintendence which reports to a Supervisory Commission of Cardinals and the Pope.
 
The bank serves as a source of funding for Catholic enterprises throughout the world. International Catholic operations go to the bank for financial help. Some International Catholic operations with surplus cash can depost sums of it in the Institute with the idea of earning a return on their money. How the Institute earns money on its deposits is controlled by the Superintendents.
 
Here are financial figures of the IOR for 2013. Notice that it had a net profit of 2.9 million euros and it had 17,400 customers.

Customers’ Assets
EUR 5.9bn
  • Deposits
    EUR 1.9bn
  • Asset Management
    EUR 3.3bn
  • Custody
    EUR 0.8bn
Equity
EUR 0.7bn

Net profit
EUR 2.9m

Number of customers
17,400

Employees
115
 
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