The Institute for Works of Religion (Italian language: Istituto per le Opere di Religione - IOR) commonly known as Vatican Bank is located inside the Vatican City. It is run by a professional bank CEO who reports directly to a committee of cardinals, and ultimately to the Pope (or the Cardinal Camerlengo during a sede vacante). Since its assets are not considered property of the Holy See, it is not overseen by the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, and it is listed in the Annuario Pontificio together with foundations such as the John Paul II Foundation for the Sahel, which provides funds for training people to fight drought and desertification in nine African countries. The current President is Angelo Caloia.
The Institute was involved in a major political and financial scandal in the 1980s, concerning the 1982 $3.5 billion collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, of which it was a major share-holder. The head of the Vatican Bank from 1971 to 1989, Paul Marcinkus, was under consideration for indictment in 1982 in Italy as an accessory of the bankruptcy.
The Bank Identifier Code of the Vatican Bank is IOPRVAVX.
The Istituto per le Opere di Religione was founded on 27 June 1942 by Pope Pius XII. It absorbed the Amministrazione delle Opere di Religione (Administration of the Works of Religion), which was in no sense a bank, having been established by Pope Leo XIII on 11 February 1887 to manage the much reduced funds at the disposal of the Pope after the complete loss of the Papal States in 1870; these funds were greatly increased as part of the settlement of the Roman Question by the Lateran Pacts of 1929.
The purpose of the Istituto per le Opere di Religione is "to provide for the safekeeping and administration of movable and immovable property transferred to entrusted to it by physical or juridical persons and intended for works of religion or charity".
It is thus not a department of the Roman Curia, and is therefore not among the departments of this central administrative structure of the Roman Catholic Church listed in that section of the Holy See Web site.
Nor is it a central bank responsible for a country's monetary policy and for maintaining the stability of a currency and money supply.
It is unlike a normal bank also in that any profit it makes does not go to shareholders, which in this case do not exist, but is used instead for religious and charitable purposes.
According to the norms of its present statutes, which came into effect in 1990, the IOR is directed by a supervisory council and by an oversight commission of cardinals.
The Cardinal Commission for the Supervision of the Institute for Works of Religion is composed of:
The supervisory council is composed of:
The oversight commission is composed of five cardinals headed by Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone. Since February 2008, the other cardinals are Attilio Nicora, President of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See; Jean-Louis Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue; Telesphore Placidus Toppo, Archbishop of Ranchi; Odilo Pedro Scherer, Archbishop of São Paulo.
The Vatican Bank is said to be a successful and profitable bank. By the 1990s, the Bank had invested somewhere over US$10 billion in foreign companies. In 1968 Vatican authorities hired Michele Sindona as a financial advisor, despite Sindona's questionable past. It was Sindona who was chiefly responsible for the massive influx of money when he began laundering the Gambino crime family's heroin monies (taking a 50% cut) through a shell corporation "Mabusi". This laundering was accomplished with the help of another banker, Roberto Calvi, who managed the Banco Ambrosiano. Both Calvi and Sindona were members of the P2 Lodge.
