Official says deposits in Vatican bank are safe

A top official of the Vatican bank has offered assurances that its deposits are safe from the world financial meltdown, an Italian Catholic magazine said Monday.

Angelo Caloia said in interview released Monday, days ahead of publication in Famiglia Cristiana magazine, that the bank only makes safe investments.

"Our assets are solid and we have no lack of liquidity," said Caloia, president of the supervisory council of the Institute for the Works of Religion - the bank's official name.

The bank's depositors are religious orders, dioceses, Roman Catholic charities, other religious organizations and the Vatican itself.

In a rare interview, Caloia said the bank stayed away from derivatives - the financial instruments blamed for many of the steep loses in the current financial meltdown.

Caloia was also quoted as saying that the bank makes no loans and as a result "we have no uncollectable losses."

An Italian economist and banker, Caloia took the bank's helm in the 1980s after the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, which had the Vatican Bank as its main shareholder.

The collapse resulted in one of Italy's largest fraud cases, but the Vatican denied any wrongdoing while agreeing to pay $250 million to Ambrosiano's creditors.

Other officials have said 80 percent of Vatican investments are in low-yield government bonds and 20 percent in stocks.

Unlike the Vatican itself, which each year makes public its operating budget, the bank makes few disclosures.

The Rev. Thomas J. Reese in his book "Inside the Vatican" said a cardinal told him in 1994 the bank had $4 billion in deposits and annual income of $40 million.

The Vatican, in its annual financial statement issued in July, reported it had been hurt by the weak dollar as many of its contributions come from individuals and dioceses in the United States. It listed a deficit of some $14 million in 2007.