Pope Benedict XVI committed the Vatican of maintaining European Union rules against money laundering and financial fraud in the midst of an Italian probe into the Holy See’s banking operations.

In an apostolic letter which got published today on the Vatican’s website, the pope stated that one special Vatican authority will start working in the month of January for implementing legislation to enforce the European laws. The step comes in the midst of a money-laundering investigation by Rome prosecutors into the Vatican Bank and its top two executives.

Benedict stated in the letter that after the Monetary Convention got signed by the State of Vatican City with the European Commission on Dec. 17, 2009, he had approved the issue of the Law designed for the prevention and countering of laundering of proceeds from criminal activities and of the funding of terrorism.

He further stated that the implementation of the new Vatican legislation will be overseen by A Financial Information Authority .Vatican judicial officials will be charged with prosecuting any alleged breach of the new law, which will take effect on April 1, 2011 as per the statement.

The implementation of the new rules will certainly ask for great commitment, as stated by Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, in an e-mailed statement. Vatican organizations will not be that vulnerable in the face of the continuous risks that inevitably arise in the handling of money.

The Holy See is looking for greater financial transparency following scandals that involved the Vatican Bank, called the Institute for Religious Works, or IOR. It was caught up in the fraudulent bankruptcy of Banco Ambrosia no in
1982. Italian prosecutors in the month of September confiscated twenty three million euros from a Rome bank account registered to the IOR in the midst of suspicions of money-laundering breaches.