Vatican bank takes hard line with its version of Romeo and Juliet

ROME – As he has multiple times over the years, in early May Pope Francis once again came out in defense of marriage, in this case in remarks to an international movement that works with Christian couples.

“It is a true mission today to accompany couples!” the pope said.

“To safeguard marriage, in fact, means to safeguard an entire family, it means to save all the relationships generated by marriage: the love between spouses, between parents and children, between grandparents and grandchildren,” he said.

In a grand irony, that principle seemingly applies everywhere except the pope’s own bank, where getting married, it turns out, is now a fireable offense.

In a recent note to the media, the Institute for the Works of Religion, popularly known as the “Vatican bank,” defended a new regulation which stipulates that if two employees decide to marry, their work contracts will expire thirty days from the wedding unless one of the two decides to resign beforehand.

It’s not a hypothetical matter, as a young couple, whose names have not been made public but who have dubbed in the media as the bank’s “Romeo and Juliet,” are currently on the clock for being let go after getting married in a Roman parish Aug. 31.

Their appeal to the bank’s directors has been turned down, leaving a direct papal intervention as the only way for the couple to keep their jobs. Francis is currently on a Sept. 2-13 trip to Asia and Oceania, making it unlikely he’ll address the case before he returns.

Even once he’s back in the Vatican, many observers regard it as a longshot that he’ll overturn the decision, since he was the one to approve the bank’s new rules, intended to combat nepotism and conflicts of interest, in the first place.

Here’s the rule in question, which has been described as “bizarre” by the Roman newspaper Il Messaggero in light of the Church’s generally staunch defense of marriage:

“In order to ensure equal treatment, the celebration of a canonical marriage between an employee of the Institute and another employee of the Institute, or of other administrations of the Vatican City State, constitutes a cause for loss of hiring requirements.”

“The loss of employment is considered to have been overcome, however, for one of the two spouses if the other ceases his or her employment relationship with the Institute and with other Vatican administrations within 30 days of the celebration of the canonical marriage.”

Not only are “Romeo and Juliet” thus facing the imminent loss of their paychecks, they also were recently suspended for several days, according to the Il Messaggero account, for having made their situation public, although many observers argue that the leaks didn’t necessarily come from the couple themselves but from other employees disgruntled by the situation.

In their note, bank officials defended the new policy.

“The objective of the Institute is exclusively that of guaranteeing conditions of equal treatment of all employees during their entire period of service, in addition to the hiring phase with respect to external candidates,” the note said.

“Given that the Institute has a little over 100 employees in just one location, without any branches, this rule is fundamental for preventing inevitable conflicts of interest of a professional sort among potential spouses, as well as possible doubts about family-related management among its clients and the broader public,” it added.

For those reasons, the bank insisted, the interests of sound management have to outweigh personal considerations.

“The Institute has to protect the prevalence of the public interest of which it is the bearer as a central entity of the Church,” the note said. “Those interests, necessarily, must take precedence over the personal interests of individual employees.”

Officials also said the new policy had been in the works for some time, and they waited to apply it until one spouse of the last remaining married couple among its workforce retired.

The controversy at the bank comes at a time when Vatican employees generally are expressing concern over the impact of financial reforms on their compensation and working conditions, as well as a lack of dialogue with their superiors.

RELATED: After traveling the world for dialogue, will Francis talk to his own workers?

“All is silent,” claimed a recent protest from the Association of Lay Employees, the closest thing in the Vatican to a union.

“We write, but those in charge, when questioned, struggle to give answers,” the association said.