Understanding the latest Vatican scandal: A clash of tradition against reform

By Joseph Brean
National Post (Canada)
November 03, 2015

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/understanding-the-latest-vatican-scandal-a-clash-of-tradition-against-reform

Pope Francis, background centre, arrives to celebrate a Mass for cardinals and bishops who died in the past year, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Nov. 3, 2015.

Public admiration for Pope Francis’s expressions of loving tolerance on everything from homosexuality to divorce has helped conceal turmoil in the Vatican, where his push for transparency has set powerful traditionalists at odds with eager reformers. Now, the publication of two books based on leaked and possibly stolen documents, and the arrests of two senior Vatican officials on allegations of leaking the documents, have cast a rare light on the darker corners of the Holy See. The National Post’s Joseph Brean spoke with John L. Allen, Jr., a leading American Vatican watcher and author of papal biographies, about the latest Vatileaks scandal.

Q: What do these new books claim to reveal?

A: What is not clear to me is how much of the scandals documented in these books are genuinely new, versus stuff we already knew about  …  What we’re getting is maybe additional details. Bear in mind that the primary source material for both books, as we understand it, are documents from the study commission that Pope Francis created back in 2013 to lay the groundwork for the financial reform he’s now engaged in.

Q: Does this threaten the Pope reform agenda?

A: In general, although the Vatican has obviously launched a pre-emptive strike against these books by arresting a couple of people it suspects of being moles, I don’t think that the Vatican or Pope Francis personally has much to fear. If anything, I think it strengthens his hand in making the case for reform. He can point to these books and say, “This is exactly why you need me.”

Q: Arresting people and denouncing the leaks as a “grave betrayal of trust” seem rather high pitched if they reveal a system working as intended …

A: The Vatican has been down this road before. There was the Vatileaks scandal under Benedict XVI, which left a bad taste in everybody’s mouth. There was a feeling in many quarters that the Vatican’s response was kind of anemic and ineffective. They’re trying to get their retaliation in first this time … There is also an attempt on their part to shift the conversation away from what the leaks reveal and towards who leaked this stuff and what their motives were.

Q: How have Francis’s financial reforms been progressing?

A: If you talk to the architects of those reforms, they will tell you that historic change has been achieved and now it’s mostly a mopping up operation to make sure that everything is properly implemented. Critics will tell you it’s smoke and mirrors, that accountability and transparency have been widely promised but not necessarily delivered. It is a fact that what the new team has delivered to date is one annual financial statement from the Vatican that contains some more information than we got in the past, but not dramatically more. What they insist, however, is that that financial statement honestly reflects the internal reality of the Vatican in a much more thorough way than previous statements, which were kind of guesses. If that’s true, it’s certainly significant.

Q: Does this represent the clash of tradition against reform?

A: To some extent, yes, with the odd twist that the reformers and traditionalists on money in the Vatican are not the reformers and traditionalists on doctrine. The guy who’s in charge of this reform, an Australian cardinal by the name of George Pell, on virtually any political or theological issue you could name, would come off as a hyper-traditionalist, a very strong conservative. And yet, on this stuff, he clearly is the reformer facing off against elements of the Vatican’s old guard.