The ruling by the Vatican court signaled the church’s desire to get its financial house in order following past scandals.
A Vatican court on Thursday convicted a former senior official at the Vatican bank and his lawyer of embezzlement and money laundering, sending a strong signal that the church was determined to get its financial house in order. The defendants — Angelo Caloia, the president of the Vatican bank for two decades, and his onetime lawyer Gabriele Liuzzo — had been accused of embezzling millions of euros through shady real estate deals between 2002 and 2007. Sentenced to eight years and 11 months in prison apiece, the defendants were ordered to pay the Vatican bank damages of more than €20 million, or $24 million. The court also ordered “the confiscation of sums totaling approximately 38 million euros” from the defendants, the Vatican said in a statement accompanying the sentence, which the press office of the Holy See released shortly after the court ruling. The two were fined €12,500 each as well. Mr. Caloia, who served as bank president between 1989 and 2009, is the highest-ranking Vatican official to be convicted of a financial crime. The Vatican said the convictions were the product of legislation enacted in 2018 to bring it up “to international standards for combating money laundering, corruption and other serious crimes.” The Vatican bank, whose official name is the Institute for the Works of Religion, wanted to send a message “that certain practices are no longer tolerated, are not acceptable, and there is zero tolerance,” said Alessandro Benedetti, one of its lawyers. “For the Vatican bank, the important thing was to have justice,” and “to have the truth emerge,” he added.
