His autocratic style as leader of the Jesuits in Argentina was a chastening experience that shaped Pope Francis’ life and led to his transformation as champion of the poor, Paul Valley reports.

First, a confession. I’m not much of a Catholic and have a limited relationship with religion.

The Vatican bank has blocked the accounts of more than 2,000 clients and ended some 3,000 "customer relationships" as part of a clean-up process that nearly wiped out its profit, its 2013 financial statement showed yesterday.

A taste of some of the interesting, important and quirky happenings in Europe from our Europe Correspondent, Ann Cahill.

Two men toting a briefcase stuffed with false bond certificates purportedly worth trillions of euro tried to bluff their way into the exclusive Vatican Bank in a foiled fraud plot.

Two men toting a briefcase stuffed with false bond certificates purportedly worth trillions of euro tried to bluff their way into the exclusive Vatican bank in a foiled fraud plot, Italian police said.

Pope Francis has announced the first major overhaul of the Vatican’s outdated and scandal-plagued bureaucracy in a quarter-century, creating an economics secretariat to control all economic, administrative, personnel, and procurement functions of the Holy See.

Pope Francis has created a new Finance Ministry to oversee the Vatican's economic affairs.

Pope Francis is proving to be one of the great reformers of the Catholic Church and may even prove more radical than Pope John XXIII, according to Redemptorist priest, Fr Tony Flannery.

Over the past few weeks, Italy has been back at the heart of events.

The Vatican took another step in its efforts to be more financially transparent by publishing a first-ever annual report for the Vatican bank.

Pope Francis today recruited a veteran Vatican diplomat to be his top aide, replacing the Holy See’s secretary of state who in recent years increasingly became a divisive figure in a church hierarchy mired in embarrassing scandal and financial probes.

The director of the embattled Vatican bank and his deputy resigned yesterday, following the latest developments in a finance scandal that has landed one monsignor in prison and added urgency to Pope Francis’s reform efforts.

A senior Catholic cleric arrested in a plot to smuggle millions of euro into Italy controlled vast amounts of money and felt he could act with impunity because of his connections to the Vatican bank, claims a judge’s investigative document.

A senior Catholic cleric with connections to the Vatican bank was arrested for plotting to help rich friends smuggle tens of millions of euro in cash into Italy from Switzerland, in the latest blow to the Vatican’s image.

Pope Francis has named a commission of inquiry to look into the activities of the troubled Vatican bank, amid a new money-laundering probe and continued questions about the secretive institution.

The Pope has set up an inquiry to look into the activities of the troubled Vatican bank amid a new money-laundering investigation and continued questions about the secretive institution.

It is a horrendous insult to every taxpayer that 19 of our ministers were jaunting around the world on St Patrick’s Day, and beyond.

Catholic cardinals have gathered at the Vatican for their final day of talks before the conclave to elect the next pope.

The Vatican has been drawn into a new controversy after acknowledging that its bank’s new president is also chairman of a shipbuilder involved in the construction of warships – a significant conflict for an institution that has long shunned ties to military manufacturing.

The Vatican’s best kept secrets have been divulged in a spate of leaks, the latest culminating in the trial of his butler Paolo Gabriele. Peter Popham examines the background to the personalities and controversies

Vatican police found thousands of documents hidden inside the home of the pope’s butler, including original documents signed by the pontiff with indications they should be destroyed.

THE firing on May 24 of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the president of the Vatican Bank, because of a failure to “promote transparency”, must have sent a frisson of fear through the upper echelons of the Roman Curia, coming as it did three decades after another scandal involving the same institution.

The Pope’s butler has been arrested in its embarrassing leaks scandal, adding a Hollywood twist to an already remarkable tale of power struggles, intrigue and corruption in the highest levels of Catholic Church governance.

Coroners and medical technicians swarmed the crypt of a Roman basilica to exhume the body of a reputed mobster as part of an investigation into one of the Vatican’s enduring mysteries: the 1983 disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee.

The Vatican insisted today it has done everything possible to try to resolve the 1983 disappearance of an employee's teenage daughter and has no objections to allowing inspection of the basilica tomb of a reputed mobster from a gang purportedly linked to her presumed kidnapping.

THE Vatican has created a financial watchdog agency and issued new laws to try to comply with rules to fight money-laundering and terrorist financing.

The Vatican said the seizure by police of €23m from a Vatican bank account and the investigation of two top bank officials was due to a simple misunderstanding that should be clarified quickly.

AN “error of procedure” at the Vatican bank is being exploited to attack the Vatican with a money- laundering investigation, the bank’s president said in an interview published yesterday.

A Vatican bank official, who is under investigation over allegations of money laundering, has said the inquiry centres on a mistake.

JUST when the Catholic Church didn’t need another scandal, Italian authorities have seized €23 million from a Vatican bank account and begun investigating top officials of the Vatican bank in connection with a money laundering probe.

THE Vatican defended the late archbishop Paul Marcinkus, the head of the Vatican Bank whose tenure was marred by financial scandal, from reports yesterday that he ordered the killing of a 15-year-old girl in 1983.

AS the life of Pope John Paul II entered its final hours the Irish Examiner dedicated several pages to this wonderful man, including reports of his historic visit to our country in 1979.

POPE John Paul II’s successor won’t just face falling church attendance and an ageing priesthood.