Vatican City • Last week, the Vatican released a mysterious statement acknowledging a raid by Vatican police on the offices of its Secretariat of State and of its financial watchdog agency, saying it was carried out by judicial order by the Vatican tribunal and with permission from unspecified “superiors.”
The Secretariat of State is the most powerful department in the Vatican bureaucracy. The Financial Information Authority, or AIF, was created in 2010 by then-Pope Benedict XVI to combat money laundering after the Vatileaks banking scandal.
The communique stated that Vatican police “acquired documents and electronic devices” in the raid, presumably having to do with the secretariat’s financial dealings, in the wake of charges presented last summer by the Institute for Religious Works, commonly known as the Vatican bank, and the office of the Revisor General, which is responsible for investigating corruption.