IRELAND
Irish Examiner
By Joe Gill
First, a confession. I’m not much of a Catholic and have a limited relationship with religion.
A succession of awful stories about the Church’s role in destroying so many young lives over recent decades did not help. The material trappings that evolved around the upper levels of the institution were also in conflict with what I assumed Catholicism should be all about.
Against that backdrop there have been two interventions in the financial world by Pope Francis that have caught my eye in the last month. Both point to a different and more encouraging impulse within the Church and, if replicated in other parts of its moral sphere, may resuscitate belief in its ability to do good.
The first notable engagement by the Pope was to gut the Vatican Bank and the second was his opinion about commodity speculation.
For years, the Vatican Bank has been mired in controversy and a suspicious odour has emanated from it for decades. A lack of transparency was a core problem and it has been difficult to ascertain what purpose it had aside from providing power for certain individuals.
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