Former IOR head Caloia: in favour of recognising the Vatican judges’ conviction in Italia
According to the bank’s former senior management, this was the result of proceedings that did not comply with the guarantees of a fair trial. The Court of Cassation ruled that the judges from across the Tiber had acted independently and impartially
The Vatican’s judicial system is impartial and independent. It complies with the criteria for due process laid down by the European Convention on Human Rights. And although the judges are appointed by the Pope, they are subject only to the law.
The Court of Cassation has thus given the green light to the recognition in Italia, for civil purposes, of the judgement by which, in 2023, the Vatican City State Court of Cassation upheld the conviction, imposed by the Court of Appeal of the Vatican City State, on the former president of the Institute for Religious WorksAngelo Caloia, born in 1939, to eight years and six months’ imprisonment and a fine of 12,500 euros for money laundering and embezzlement, with an obligation to pay compensation.
The first conviction for financial offences
In 2021, however, the first-instance conviction was handed down, whenfor the first time the Holy See had imposed a sentence on the head of the IOR, the so-called ‘Vatican Bank’, for a financial offence committed within the Vatican walls.
Caloia succeeded Monsignor Paul Marcinkus as head of the IOR, a position he held for twenty years from 1989 to 2009.
The story
The case that has come to the attention of the courts concerns the sale of 29 propertiesowned by the Vatican Bank and its subsidiary Sgir (Società per gestioni di immobili Roma). According to the prosecution, during the disposal of these assets, the defendants had misappropriated sums totalling over 57 million euros, of which they had embezzled 16 million.
