VATICAN CITY — Vatican prosecutors have indicted the former president of the Vatican bank and his lawyer on embezzlement charges, holding them responsible for losses of more than $62 million from real estate sales.
The trial of Angelo Caloia, 78, and his lawyer, Gabriele Liuzzo, 94, will begin March 15. A third suspect died while under investigation.
The bank, formally known as the Institute for Religious Works or IOR, said late Friday that Caloia and his lawyer were charged with embezzlement and laundering between 2001 and 2008, when the bank disposed of ‘‘a considerable part of its real estate assets.’’
The scam allegedly involved the suspects selling Vatican-owned real estate at under value prices to offshore companies that then resold the buildings at market rates, with the suspects allegedly profiting from the difference, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
The IOR is joining a Holy See civil case alongside the church’s criminal trial to try to recover some of the losses.
The Vatican announced the church’s investigation into Caloia, the IOR president from 1989-2009, attorney Liuzzo, and the late bank director general, Lelio Scaletti, in 2014 after bank officials discovered irregularities in IOR accounts and operations.
The suspects have denied wrongdoing. They have not commented on the indictments.
The new prosecution is the latest attempt by the IOR to try to recover money it claims it lost due to the crimes or bungled decisions of its former managers.
Just last month, the Vatican’s civil tribunal found two other former bank heads, Paolo Cipriani and Massimo Tulli, liable for mismanagement for bad investments during their tenure and ordered them to repay the institution. The two resigned from the bank in 2013.
The IOR launched a massive internal overhaul and reform of its operations as part of a process launched by Pope Benedict XVI to clean up its reputation as a scandal-plagued offshore tax haven.
In a separate development, Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s leading expert on clerical sex abuse, wrapped up his fact-finding mission to Chile last week and went to Rome to brief the pope.
Scicluna plans to present a report about Bishop Juan Barros, who is accused by victims of witnessing their abuse and ignoring it.
Scicluna also brought back testimony from Chilean victims of other abusers in the Marist Brothers, Salesian, and Franciscan religious orders and how their accusations were mishandled.
Expectations in Chile are high that something has to change, and that the problem isn’t just about Barros and Francis’ 2015 decision to appoint him as bishop of Osorno, Chile, over the objections of many Chilean bishops.
Barros had been a top aide to Chile’s most prominent predator priest, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, but he has denied victims’ accusations that he witnessed and ignored their abuse.
Pope Francis dispatched Scicluna and a Vatican expert on abuse in the region, the Rev. Jordi Bertomeu, to Chile on Jan. 30 after Francis’ problematic visit to Chile and even more problematic press conference coming home.
Francis had strongly defended Barros, pronounced himself ‘‘certain’’ that Barros was innocent of a coverup, and said no evidence had been presented.
But the Associated Press reported that Francis had received a letter in 2015 from Juan Carlos Cruz, a Karadima victim, detailing his abuse, Barros’ failure to acknowledge it, and questioning Barros’s fitness to lead a diocese as a result.
The letter was delivered through Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who heads the pope’s commission on clergy sex abuse.
