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Pope poised to decide the future of his financial reform
By John L. Allen Jr.
Any day now, Pope Francis is expected to issue a new legal framework for three financial oversight bodies in the Vatican he created last year:
Strictly from a political point of view, the decision will be taken by many observers in Rome as a thumbs up or thumbs down for Australian Cardinal George Pell, who took the Vatican by storm a year ago as the pope’s chosen financial reformer and who has played to mixed reviews ever since. For fans, including a wide cross-section of fellow cardinals who recently gathered in Rome to receive a progress report, the 73-year-old Pell is just what the doctor ordered: a tough, no-nonsense administrator capable of bulldozing through established patterns of doing business and ushering in a new era of transparency and accountability. For critics, including some long-time Vatican insiders, Pell seems more interested in accumulating power than in achieving reform. They see him as blithely indifferent to legal limits on his freedom of action, and sometimes replicating the very cronyism and secretiveness he was intended to dislodge. The fact that much of this criticism is unfolding in Italian has led some to suspect a clash of cultures, pitting the Vatican’s Italian-speaking old guard against a new English and German-speaking financial regime. That impression was reinforced recently when Italian Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, suggested amendments to the looming statutes that would impose significant new limits on Pell and his staff. (Here’s one indication of cultural issues at work: When the Secretariat for the Economy was established, both Italian and English were designated as working languages in order to expand the international talent pool. Coccopalmerio proposed eliminating English, arguing that if non-Italians need translation they can get it.) At the big-picture level, there are four major decisions Pope Francis has to make. Observers will read how they’re resolved as a referendum on Pell’s future as the point man for the pope’s reform project. 1. Control over Pell In his recommendations, Coccopalmerio suggested creating a four- or five-member council of cardinals to supervise the prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, meaning the job held by Pell. The idea would be to create a body of cardinals to exercise oversight similar to the one responsible for the Vatican bank. Such a move, however, would be at odds with the original vision for the structures launched by Francis a year ago, in which the prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy reports directly to the Council for the Economy, a 15-member body composed of cardinals and lay financial experts. (It’s actually the only decision-making body in the Vatican where cardinals and laity enjoy full equality as voting members.)
One observer suggested that the actual motive for Coccopalmerio’s recommendation was to empanel “a group of Italian cardinals who can control this Australian,” thereby, perhaps, preserving at least some aspects of past practice.
If the idea of a new supervisory council is adopted by Francis, it would be seen by most insiders as a significant defeat for Pell; if it’s rejected, it would be seen as a vindication.
2. APSA
Last July, Francis approved transferring the “ordinary section” of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, known by its acronym APSA, to Pell’s secretariat. The “ordinary section” is responsible for personnel, procurement, and real estate, as opposed to the “extraordinary section” that manages the Vatican’s investment portfolio.
In practice, that means Pell’s office is both responsible for managing a chunk of the Vatican’s financial activity and also supervising that management, which critics see as a conflict of interest. As a result, some have proposed returning the ordinary section to APSA.
There’s another problem: Much of the Vatican’s real estate is legally titled to APSA, and its status is governed by treaties between the Vatican and Italy. It’s not clear ownership can be unilaterally transferred. If the pope were to recognize APSA as responsible for real estate, therefore, it wouldn’t necessarily signal a lack of confidence in Pell.
Bottom line: If Francis puts the entire ordinary section back under APSA, it would be seen as clipping Pell’s wings. If it stays with the Secretariat for the Economy, it will be seen as victory for the Australian prelate. If part of the ordinary section stays and part of it goes, the verdict will be a mixed bag.
3. The lay role
Lay members on the Council for the Economy include a veteran Maltese economist named Joseph F.X. Zahra; George Yeo, the former minister of trade and industry for Singapore, and John Kyle, a Canadian and a former oil executive.
For fans of the new system, the appointment of such individuals reflects a laudable willingness by the Vatican to tap world-class expertise. Critics, however, worry about uncritically embracing secular principles and assumptions, not to mention putting cardinals in a position in which they simply rubber-stamp whatever the laity recommend because they’re intimidated by their credentials and backgrounds.
Coccopalmerio made two suggestions, both of which would affect the lay role.
First, the draft statutes refer to the “lay experts” on the Council for the Economy. Coccopalmerio suggested making that simply “experts,” opening the door to the idea that some of them in the future could be clergy.
Second, the statutes establish a quorum that needs to be present in order for decisions to be official. At present the statutes refer only to “members” in setting that quorum, while Coccopalmerio proposed establishing a minimum number of cardinals who need to be present. Council members, however, insisted that if they’re truly equal, then it shouldn’t matter how the quorum is achieved.
Given that most lay members of the council are perceived as Pell allies, a decision that appears to water down their role likely would be seen as a snub, while keeping things as they stand would be an endorsement.
4. The big fish
From the beginning, there’s never been any real pushback against the idea that Pell’s Secretariat for the Economy should oversee budgets and accounting for, say, the Vatican Observatory or the Pontifical Academy for Sacred Music. Those are small operations with a limited financial footprint, and most are probably glad for the help.
The issue is the relationship between the new Secretariat for the Economy and the Vatican’s big fish, meaning its major financial centers: the Secretariat for State, the Government of the Vatican City-State, APSA, and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (the Vatican’s powerful and wealthy missionary department, better known as Propaganda Fide.)
The original idea was that the Secretariat for the Economy would not “take over” those entities, but would be responsible for collecting information from them for purposes of budgeting and consolidated financial statements, and also organizing regular audits.
In other words, the plan was for what business management experts would call a “dotted-line relationship,” a diluted form of supervision that falls short of direct control.
Some insiders have chafed at even that level of oversight. They’ve proposed having the big fish report directly to the new Council for the Economy, thereby bypassing Pell’s office altogether.
If Francis approves such a move, it would be seen as a setback for Pell’s ambition to impose uniform practices across the board. If the current arrangement is maintained, the takeaway would be that no one will be exempt from Pell’s oversight.
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