Head of Vatican Bank also chairman of warship company

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 announced to great fanfare that Pope Benedict XVI had signed off on one of the last major appointments of his papacy, approving Ernst von Freyberg as president of the Vatican’s bank, officially known as the Institute for Religious Works.