Abstract

The contribution starts from a description of the functioning of the criminal system of the Vatican City State and highlights the progressive changes of a legal system which, at least until 2000, had been characterized by extreme static and refractory to mutations. The turning point of this turnaround is identified in the signing by the Holy See of the 2009 Monetary Convention: this act initiated a general phenomenon of legislative renewal which, although focused on the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing international, then went on to innovate and expand the entire criminal system of the Vatican State, adapting it to the international conventions that had in the meantime been stipulated, until it became a penal system substantially adequate to the protection needs of the period.