Today's Washington Post includes an Associated Press story about the Vatican's reluctant entry into financial transparency. The back story is unsavory, largely thanks to the Roman Catholic sovereign state financiers' consistent willingness to work with criminal underworlds and rogue money. In essence, the Vatican is an ambiguous wild card in the finance world, with its ability to bridge legit institutions and shadow players.
This positioning reminds one of the Riggs Bank scandal, in which a Washington, D.C.-based bank became a significant money laundering enterprise, with CIA "blessing." Well, the Riggs episode does make clear that the Vatican apparently has not cornered the market on selling blessings.
The Associated Press story also notes the Holy See's reluctance to embrace financial transparency is being conflated with the thesis that the Vatican stored art looted
by the Nazis during World War II. Holocaust survivors represented by attorney Jonathan Levy are pressing this case.
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