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10 August 2019The Pope reforms the IOR by renewing the Statute. Among the main changes, the assignment of the control of the accounts to "an external auditor, natural person or company" with the simultaneous abolition of the body of internal auditors. Thus enters the Statute, then the norms, a de facto practice already followed for years by the Institute of Religious Works to comply with international standards.Thus, there are no longer three internal auditors in the Institute's bodies, whose office was always renewable.
The Statutes of the Institute for Works of Religion were approved in 1990 by John Paul II, who in turn had given a new configuration to the IOR, established in 1942 by Pius XII. The same Pope Pacelli had made the first changes in 1944.
In the new Statute launched by Pope Francis the figure of the Single Secretary of the Council is introduced, endowed with an adequate juridical formation, which is responsible for the verbalization of the council meetings and of the committees and the custody of the relative minutes. In this regard, more stringent rules are introduced on the verbalizations of "meetings": it is explicitly requested that the report be "faithful, precise and complete" and must be read and approved at the end of each meeting. Therefore, kept in the archive and available to guarantee the historical memory of the facts and the document traceability at any time.
It should also be noted that the institute has no branches or branches. The responsibility for the custody and administration of the goods received is governed not only by the rules of the Vatican City State, the Statute and the Implementing Regulation, but also by the norms of canon law. In cases of proven necessity, meetings of the Board of Superintendence may be held by telecommunication means.
Last June the IOR published the budget for the year 2018, which recorded a profit of 17.5 million euros (against 31.9 million in 2017): sum donated to the Pope. The result, albeit much lower than the previous year, a statement issued by the Institute stated, was achieved "despite the strong market turbulence" and "the persistence of still very low interest rates".