Vatican court upholds decision: Former officials to pay 40 million euros

Two former Vatican officials of the Institute for the Works of Religion (commonly called the Vatican bank) were sentenced to pay millions in damages for mismanaging investments.

The former director-general of the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), Paolo Cipriani, and his then deputy Massimo Tulli, were sentenced on January 18 by the Vatican Court of Appeal to pay about 40 million euros for their mismanagement and “harmful” investments made between 2010 and 2013, said a statement from the Vatican bank on January 21, 2022.

Cipriani and Tulli had resigned from their posts at the head of the IOR in July 2013, a few months after the election of Pope Francis. A wide-ranging investigation into the operation of the Vatican bank was launched in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI.

“The Court of Appeal fully recognized the arguments of the IOR and ordered Cipriani and Tulli to pay compensation of approximately 40 million euros,” explained the bank that manages the accounts of religious orders and Catholic associations.

Confirming the conviction in the first instance of 2018, the Court asks the two former bankers to compensate the IOR for the damage caused – 35,740,587 euros as damages, and 4,799,445 euros as lost earnings.

“The judgment concerns the mismanagement with which Paolo Cipriani and Massimo Tulli organized some of the Institute’s investments between 2010 and 2013, which were immediately found to be harmful because they were problematic and, in several cases, also illegitimate and were the subject of criminal proceedings,” the statement further said.

For the IOR, this judgment follows “a profound work of renewal and transformation of the Institute in application of the important reforms of the financial sector of the Vatican and the Holy See.”