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 stated that it made the “difficult decision” to terminate the employment of the couple, who have three children, after neither party agreed to resign voluntarily to allow the other to remain employed.

Their lawyer, Laura Sgro, immediately challenged the dismissals in a letter to the bank executives. She warned that she would take the case to the Vatican civil court within 30 days. Sgro argued that the bank's termination notices were “null, illegitimate, and severely detrimental to the fundamental rights of individuals and employees, rendering them ineffective.”

The couple had met at the IOR while working in different departments and informed the bank of their wedding plans in February. In May, a new personnel rule came into effect prohibiting marriages between employees.

The bank emphasized that it did not intend to question the right of its employees to marry - a sacrament that Pope Francis often encourages young couples to participate in due to the declining number of Catholic weddings. However, the bank stated that it needed to avoid any potential conflicts of interest within its small organization, which has only 100 employees in a single location, and to maintain impartiality in its operations.

“The formation of a married couple among the workforce is directly at odds with the current regulations of the institute. The primary objective of these regulations is to prevent the reputational risk of accusations of favoritism and to ensure impartial treatment among employees,” the IOR explained in a statement.

The couple had appealed to Pope Francis, seeking an exception to the enforcement of the new regulation. The regulation came into effect after their wedding plans were already underway and the official Catholic announcement was made, Sgro said. They did not receive a response.

They were married in August, and on October 1st, they were informed that they no longer met the requirements to be bank employees. They were instructed to surrender 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 residents of Rome, as it typically involves a tax-free salary and benefits that can include below market-rate housing, access to the Vatican's healthcare services, and a tax-free supermarket, department store, gas station, and pharmacy.

The Vatican bank has been entangled in controversy for a long time but has spent the past decade cleaning up its finances and shedding its reputation as a place to avoid taxes. Years of reform have reduced the number of its clients to Vatican offices, employees, religious congregations and embassies. It currently manages assets worth 5.4 billion euros 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 cover the costs of the Vatican administration, but profits have fallen in recent years.