‘Astonished’ by Warrants for 3 Bank Officials: Vatican

The Vatican today expressed “profound astonishment” at reports of arrest warrants being issued for three Vatican bank officials and cited a treaty barring Italian interference in the city-state’s affairs.

The official communique also said American Archbishop Paul C. Marcinkus will cooperate with magistrates investigating Italy’s biggest financial scandal since World War II.

A Milan judge investigating the 1982 collapse of Banco Ambrosiano and its dealings with the Institute of Religious Works, the Vatican’s bank, has said warrants were issued for the arrest of Marcinkus, longtime head of the bank, and two of his colleagues. The warrants reportedly charge the three men as accessories to fraudulent bankruptcy in the Ambrosiano scandal.

Authorities said earlier that Marcinkus, a native of Cicero, Ill., avoided arrest by leaving a villa in Rome’s southern hills for the safety of Vatican City.

“Within the Vatican . . . one cannot but feel profound astonishment at the news of measures that are reported taken by Milanese magistrates against the president and two high officials of the Institute of Religious Works,” the Vatican said.

The communique pointed out that Article 11 of the 1929 Lateran Pact between Italy and the Vatican was invoked. The article says: “Central organs of the Catholic Church are free from every interference on the part of the Italian state.”