"No loan to the Maribor Archdiocese was meant to be or will be granted by the IOR and there was also no letter from the Holy Father to the IOR," Lombardi was quoted by the website of the Slovenian desk of Radio Vatican.

The Italian weekly L'Espresso quoted on Monday unofficial sources as saying that the IOR had issued to the Maribor Archdiocese an interest-free loan to help it cover the debt resulting from the collapse of two of its financial firms.

The paper, which first broke the news in January 2011 that the Maribor Archdiocese had run up EUR 800m in debts, added that Pope Francis himself had asked the IOR to help.

The report was immediately questioned by Maribor Archdiocese administrator and Bishop of Celje Stanislav Lipovšek, who said on Tuesday he was not aware of any such developments.

"Nobody said anything to me. Thank god if this was true, but I don't know nothing about it although I'm probably the reference point for such information," he told the STA.

Lipovšek feels that it is more realistic that a solution will come from ongoing talks with the Graz Diocese, which has offered to buy some of Maribor Archdiocese's real estate to help it avoid bankruptcy.