Vatican bank fires newlywed couple for violating a new workplace marriage ban

ROME — The Vatican bank confirmed Wednesday it has fired two employees on the grounds that their recent wedding violates a new ban on workplace marriages.

The Institute for Religious Works said it took the ''difficult decision'' to fire the couple, who have three children, after neither one agreed to resign voluntarily to allow the other to continue working.

Their attorney, Laura Sgro, immediately challenged the firings in a letter to the bank chiefs and warned she would take the case to the Vatican civil court within 30 days. Sgro said the bank's notification of dismissal was ''null, illegitimate and gravely harmful of the fundamental rights of people and employees, and therefore devoid of any effect.''

The couple had met at the IOR while working in different departments, and had informed the bank of their plans to marry in February, Sgro said. In May, a new personnel regulation went into effect barring workplace marriages.

The bank said it in no way meant to question the right of employees to get married – a sacrament Francis frequently urges young couples to undertake in the face of dwindling numbers of Catholic weddings. But the bank said it needed to avoid any possible conflicts of interest in a small bank with just 100 employees in one location, and ensure impartiality in its operations.

''The formation of a married couple among the employees is in fact blatantly contradictory to the current regulations within the institute, the primary objective of which is to avoid the reputational risk of accusations of familism and consequently ensure impartial treatment among employees,'' the IOR said in a statement.

The couple had appealed to Pope Francis, seeking a dispensation in the enforcement of the new regulation, which went into effect once wedding plans were already under way and the official Catholic announcement made, Sgro said. They received no reply.

They were married in August and on Oct. 1 were notified that they no longer fulfilled the requirement to be bank employees, and told to turn in their Vatican ID cards and return their IOR bank cards, Sgro said in a statement.

Employment at the Vatican is often highly sought-after by Romans, since it usually involves income tax-free salary and benefits that can include below market-rate housing and access to the Vatican's health service and tax-free supermarket, department store, gas station and pharmacy.

The Vatican bank has long been mired in scandal but has spent the past decade cleaning up its books and ridding itself of its reputation as an offshore tax haven. Years of reform have slimmed down its client list to Vatican offices, employees, religious congregations and embassies. It currently has some 5.4 billion euros in assets under management and reported 30 million euros in net profits last year. The bank had previously donated around 50 million euros a year of its profits to the pope to pay for the Vatican bureaucracy, but profits have fallen in recent years.