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Vatican Creates New Committee to Oversee Bank Corruption

On Wednesday, Pope Francis announced the creation of a new committee that will be responsible for overseeing the activities of the Vatican Bank in response to allegations of money laundering and corruption.

The bank, known officially as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), has been plagued with scandals of money laundering and tax evasion. Last year, Moneyval, the European anti-money laundering committee, determined that the IOR did not meet international standards to prevent money laundering. Last year, the Vatican announced that six attempts of money laundering using IOR were detected. This year there have already been seven discovered.

Further evidence of corruption was discovered in 2012 when the personal butler of Pope Benedict XVI leaked private documents to journalists.

The commission will have access to all internal documents, meetings, and management and report to Pope Francis directly.

Sources:

Al Jazeera 6/26/2013; International Business Times 6/26/2013; Reuters 6/26/2013

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