More Vatican scandals--this time apparently without sex

Just off the internets: Italian police seize $30 mln from Vatican in probe By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer VATICAN CITY – Italian authorities seized euro23 million ($30 million) from a Vatican bank account Tuesday and said they have begun investigating top officials of the Vatican bank in connection with a money-laundering probe. Money laundering?? At the Vatican?? But wait! There's more! For real rich hypocrisy, get a load of the name of the bank: The Institute for Works of Religion! Isn't that a howl? Lastly, today anyway, check this out: In the 1980s, it was involved in a major scandal that resulted in a banker, dubbed "God's Banker" because of his close ties to the Vatican, being found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London. It sounds like a ready-made movie for Tom Hanks and/or Leonardo DiCaprio. Not to be left out, there seems to be a US connection, too: In Tuesday's case, police seized the money from a Vatican bank account at the Rome branch of Credito Artigiano Spa, according to news agencies ANSA and Apcom. The bulk of the money, euro20 million ($26 million), was destined for JP Morgan in Frankfurt, with the remainder going to Banca del Fucino. Check out the details of the 1980's scandal, too: The Vatican bank was famously implicated in a scandal over the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano in the 1980s in one of Italy's largest fraud cases. Roberto Calvi, the head of Banco Ambrosiano, was found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982 in circumstances that still remain mysterious. London investigators first ruled that Calvi committed suicide, but his family pressed for further investigation. Eventually murder charges were filed against five defendants, including a major Mafia figure, and they were tried in Rome and acquitted in 2007. Banco Ambrosiano collapsed following the disappearance of $1.3 billion in loans the bank had made to several dummy companies in Latin America. The Vatican had provided letters of credit for the loans. While denying any wrongdoing, the Vatican bank agreed to pay $250 million to Ambrosiano's creditors. The late Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, an American prelate who headed the Vatican bank at the time, was charged as an accessory to fraudulent bankruptcy in the scandal. Let's see, the Vatican wasn't guilty but did pay a quarter of a billion dollars at the end of this scandal. Sounds pretty guilty to me--how about you? Then there's this sticky little problem for the Vatican: Last year, a U.S. appeals court dismissed a lawsuit against the Vatican bank filed by Holocaust survivors from Croatia, Ukraine and Yugoslavia who alleged it had accepted millions of dollars of their valuables stolen by Nazi sympathizers. My first thought was, the Vatican would say they were totally clean and no way guilty of this, right? Oh, no. Instead, they took this path, to "clear" themselves: The court said the bank was immune from such a lawsuit under the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which generally protects foreign countries from being sued in U.S. courts. How pathetic is that? They did not--apparently could not--undeniably say they did such a disgusting thing as take Jewish valuables during the Holocaust so they just said they had diplomatic immunity, instead. So much for doing right by one another, eh, Pope? Finally, there's this: News of the investigation came just after Benedict wrapped up a difficult trip to Britain and as the Vatican still reels from the fallout of the clergy sex abuse scandal. Ain't dat a dang shame? Pass the popcorn! This just gets better and better. Link to original post: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100921/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_vatican_bank