VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider
The Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts has suggested keeping monitoring tasks separate from tasks relating to the direct management of finances. The C9 is taking this consideration into serious thought. Francis has the last word on the Secretariat for the Economy’s new statutes
ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY
Must financial transparency involve the unification of all relevant powers under the dicastery headed by Cardinal George Pell? This is a question many in the Vatican are asking in light of the observations made by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts with regards to the draft statute of the new economic dicastery headed by the Australian cardinal. These observations were presented at a number of meetings held last week and Vatican Insider is in a position to describe them.
The Consistory’s unexpected “lesson”
The long and articulate proposal presented to cardinals by the Australian cardinal and Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy and especially his two right-hand men, Jean-Baptiste de Franssu and Joseph Zahra, at the Consistory last Friday, certainly had an effect. The presentation was entirely in English, all statements were illustrated by slides containing graphics and text. The two lay speakers made frequent reference to the work carried out by COSEA (the Commission for Reference on the Economic-Administrative Structure of the Holy See), which they had been members of before it was dissolved last year: they explained how, in their new roles, they are putting into practice what they themselves had decided when the reference commission was still up and running. Zahra and de Franssu were not initially expected to attend the Consistory. Pell decided that they should be there at the last minute.
Fox Napier’s cutting remarks and Pell’s interviews
The Consistory presentation – which illustrated what has been done to reform the Vatican financial system – was followed by three interviews given by Pell. The first was with The Boston Globe, the second with Corriere della Sera and the third with La Croix. In these interviews, Pell, who is also known as the “superminister” or “tsar” of the Vatican economy, expressed pride at the results achieved, the discovery of millions of euros that did not initially appear in the consolidated balance sheets. He also mentioned internal “opposition”. A key member of the Council for the Economy, Wilfrid Fox Napier, had also spoken about opposition, the day before the economic reforms were presented at the Consistory. Having mentioned the Propaganda Fide congregation among those who had showed resistance to reform, the South African cardinal made a significant and deliberate cutting remark directed at the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, which he claimed had overstepped the mark and acted “outside of its duties”. Pell has continued to uphold these views over the past few days in the Vatican.
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