Vatican financial control officer and four others suspended

VATICAN-RAID/ A general view of the Mass for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, led by Pope Francis at the Vatican | Reuters

Vatican police raided two offices at the Vatican yesterday, seizing documents and electronic devices as part of an investigation into suspected financial irregularities. This led to a suspension of five Vatican employees including two a monsignor and the second in command of the Pope's finances. Italian magazine L'Espresso published a picture of a police notice to guards at Vatican gates telling them not to allow in the five employees because they had been suspended. 

A Vatican spokesman refused to comment on the incident. 

The scandal, affecting two departments at the heart of the Vatican, was the first one 
post years of relative calm. Involvement in alleged financial irregularities was being investigated through the raids. 

The Vatican said the operation was a follow-up to complaints filed in the summer by the Vatican bank and the Office of the Auditor-General and were related to “financial operations carried out over time”. Since Pope Francis' was elected in 2013, the Vatican has tried to clean up its financial reputation. A former head of the Vatican bank and an Italian lawyer went on trial to face charges of money laundering and embezzlement through real estate deals last year. 

The Secretariat of State, the most powerful department in the Vatican, is the nerve centre of its bureaucracy and diplomacy and the administrative heart of the worldwide Catholic Church. 

The AIF, headed by Swiss lawyer Rene Bruelhart, Di Ruzza's boss, is the financial controller, with authority over all Vatican departments.

Hundreds of Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) accounts were closed at the bank, whose stated purpose is to manage funds for the Church, Vatican employees, religious institutes or Catholic charities. IOR, for decades, has been embroiled in numerous financial scandals.