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BBC News - Whiff of scandal clouds Pope ceremony in Vatican
Nepotism is a word charged with heavy meaning inside the Vatican. For centuries popes were accustomed to appoint their own nephews as cardinals, sometimes when they were only in their teens.Archbishop Vigano's letter was leaked by an Italian investigative journalist during a TV transmission on the independent Italian Channel La Sette. The Vatican has not contested that the letter is genuine.Another leak concerns attempts by the Holy See to combat suspicions of money-laundering by the Vatican Bank.Published by the Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano, which has consistently reported on alleged suspicious transactions at the bank, the document bears the signature of Cardinal Attilio Nicora. He heads a new internal committee tasked by the Pope with helping the Holy See comply with international banking regulations, aimed at combating international financial crime.The letter suggests serious divisions of opinion inside the Vatican over how best to prevent it becoming a fiscal paradise, a tax haven for dodgy commercial operations run by nominees who have no right to hold accounts at the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR).Whistleblowers criticisedDuring the 1980s the IOR - the formal name of the Vatican Bank - was at the centre of a major international financial scandal which resulted in a loss for the Vatican of $250m (£158m). Vatican Bank accounts are supposed to be held only by religious orders and members of the clergy.
