Father Lombardi on the new banking rules

The Director of the Vatican Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, says the new legislation announced by the Holy See for preventing and combating financial crime and money laundering is a significant move that has a wide ranging moral and pastoral impact.

In a statement released at noon on Thursday, Father Lombardi explained that the new rules will apply to all organisations connected to the Catholic Church, the Vatican City State and the offices of the Roman Curia. He said from Thursday all these various bodies will sign up to the framework of principles and juridical norms that the international community is setting up with the aim of guaranteeing a fair and honest cooperation in our increasingly globalised world where, he said, “unfortunately it is not rare” for the economic and financial sectors to harbour illegal activities such as the laundering of proceeds from criminal activities and for the financing of terrorism.

Describing this as a real danger for justice and peace in the world, Father Lombardi said Pope Benedict wholeheartedly confirms that the Holy See fully backs this drive by the international community to combat this problem. He also “intends to fully apply the rules” passed in this regard to prevent and combat these terrible activities.

Father Lombardi said these criminal elements have long demonstrated great skill in infiltrating the economical and financial sectors but their growing global reach and their use of new technologies has made it easier for them to become ever more pervasive and capable of concealing their activities. In order to defend oneself in such a scenario, Father Lombardi said it had become “extremely urgent” to set up new framework of checks and information sharing between the various bodies that have been set up to combat these criminal activities.

He went on to say that it would be “naïve” to believe that those who are in charge of this illegal financial activities are not attempting to take advantage of “the weak points” that sometimes exist in the current international system to enforce these anti-money laundering norms and to infiltrate inside this system. Father Lombardi said the new rules announced by the Vatican respond to the moral need for transparency, honesty and responsibility in this field and by enforcing them the Vatican and Church organisations will be less vulnerable when faced with “the continuous risks that are inevitably entailed when handling money.” In this way, he said they will be able to “avoid those errors” that so easily become a reason for “scandal” on the part of public opinion and among the faithful and the Church will be “more credible” in the eyes of the international community. By signing this somewhat unusual document says Father Lombardi, the pope and the Church are taking a concrete step towards transparency and credibility.
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