Word: ior
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...power struggle is said to be on over control of the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), the Vatican bank. The longstanding IOR chief Angelo Caloia is credited with cleaning up the bank's business after it was rocked by scandals in the 1980s. But some think Caloia has himself consolidated too much power. Italian magazine Panorama last week reported that Benedict would like to put former German Central Bank chief Hans Tietmeyer to run the Church's operation. That would shake things up almost as much as a German pope...
...Vietna, War, race relations, and other such topics. Nothing on the order of those disturbances now threatens free speech--at least openly. But try, at dinner or in a section, to start an argument against divestiture, or for U.S. military involvement in EI Salvador, or in favor of Reagan--ior against affirmative action, for that matter...
Secrecy breeds suspicion, and the Vatican's investments have caused serious questions over the years. In the mid-1960s, the IOR was discovered to have invested in firearms dubious concerns for a church. Examples: an Italian firearms factory and a Canadian pharmaceutical company that manufactured contraceptives...
These change prompted Pope Paul VI in 1969 to make the first major change in the interest investment policy. He liquidated its controlling interest in many Italian firms and shifted several million dollars in proceeds into the IOR...
...seek advice on ways to invest this new cash, the IOR called on its lay financiers, like Michele Sindona, who urged the Pope's bank to invest in many of his deals. When Sindona's empire collapsed in 1974 with the failure of New York's Sin National Bank, the Vatican lost an estimated $70 million. Sin dona is serving a 25-year prison sentence...