MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Herald
Sunday, February 15, 2015
By: Raymond L. Flynn
When Pope Francis was first elected to lead the Catholic Church, I believed the No. 1 issue he was facing was the Vatican’s finances — not just as an issue of fiscal solvency and accountability, but as a matter of restoring global confidence in the church leadership, and rebuilding a church that has been in crisis.
I advocated then for a thorough, independent audit of the Vatican’s books and said the results should be made public.
Well, now we know that the Vatican is sitting on $1.5 billion in assets it didn’t know it had, an amount far greater than it ever expected.
Australian Cardinal George Pell, the so-called Vatican financial czar, disclosed the windfall Friday, the initial findings of a one-year study that has concluded the Vatican has more than $3 billion in total assets.
The veil of secrecy about the Vatican Bank and its financial situation has been a neverending source of speculation, sensationalism and even scandal going back to World War II. Movies have been made, numerous books written and thousands of sensational expose-type articles have been written about secret accounts, as well as money laundering.
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