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of Bernini's colonnade,
past the Church of Santa Anna on the right and the Swiss Guards barracks on the left. The tower stands beside the wall of the Apostolic
Palace facing the Vatican Polyglot Printing House. It was built nearly
650 years ago as part of Pope Nicholas V's plans for the defense of the Holy See against republican uprisings. Only a select few may
enter. The entrance remains protected by Swiss Guards. The Vatican
Bank remains closed to outsiders, even many high-ranking members
of the Catholic clergy.

    In recent years the Vatican Bank has become the source of international scandals involving billions of dollars and a considerable
amount of bloodletting. It has been the subject of numerous investigative reports and sensational best-sellers. The Vatican Bank
remains the target of hundreds of lawsuits, several filed by Holocaust
victims over the Vatican's possession of Nazi gold, its operation of
Nazi "ratlines,"and its laundering of ill-gotten gains.
    Yet the Vatican Bank remains impervious to lawsuits and charges
of criminal misconduct. It represents a fiscal agency of a sovereign
state. As such, it cannot be compelled to redress wrongs-not even
the most egregious violations of international law. The only way it can
be made vulnerable to litigation is by the designation of Vatican City
as a "rogue state" and the Vatican Bank as a "rogue institution." This
requires that it be established that the Roman Catholic Church is a
corrupt organization and, as such, subject to prosecution under Racketeer and Corrupt Organization (RICO) statutes, which in recent history have been enacted against members of organized crime families.
    Despite its claims otherwise, the Vatican Bank is not a branch of
the State of Vatican City (Stato Bella Citta del Vaticano). It exists as an
entity unto itself without corporate or ecclesiastical ties to any other
agency within the Holy See. It is under the direct supervision of the
pope. He is the one and only stockholder. He owns it; he controls it.'
    Unlike any other financial institution, the Vatican Bank is audited
by neither internal nor outside agencies. Its worth remains a matter of
conjecture, even for members of the College of Cardinals. There is not
a scrap of its papers among all the other bureaucracies of the Roman
Church-not even ecclesiastical financial agencies-that attests to its
assets or accounts. In 1996 Cardinal Edmund Szoka, the internal
auditor of the Holy See, told investigators that he has no authority
over the Vatican Bank and has no knowledge of its operations.2
    Even more bizarre, the Vatican Bank destroys all records every
ten years so that its workings will remain free and clear of public and private scrutiny. Anyone seeking information regarding the bank,
even its corporate structure, will discover little more than empty file
folders within the Vatican archives.

    The inner workings of the Vatican Bank are incredibly complex
with trails of paper flowing among three separate and distinct boards
of directors. One board consists of high-ranking cardinals, the second
of prominent international bankers, and the third of Vatican financial
officials. Its bylaws, called chirographs, are filed with the Holy See.
But even these records cannot be subpoenaed for inspection. They
remain confidential matters of the sovereign state that may be
inspected only by special permission from the pope.3
    The Vatican dutifully publishes financial reports on a yearly basis.
The reports, displaying modest gains and losses, appear to be exhaustive. They contain meticulous records of the incomes and expenditures of every agency within the Holy See-every agency, that is,
except the Vatican Bank. The name of this agency never appears on
any balance sheet. From all published reports, it would seem that this
ecclesiastical corporation is nonexistent and the Roman Catholic
Church exists as a charitable, hand-to-mouth institution. In 1990, for
example,