VATICAN CITY
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor February 28, 2015

Over the centuries, court politics at the Vatican sometimes have had a seriously nasty side. If anyone was wondering whether that aspect of its culture had been killed off in the Francis era, or had simply gone dormant, late February 2015 provided a fairly clear answer.

In a word, the nasty is back.

The focus this time is Cardinal George Pell of Australia, the pope’s chosen fix-it man on Vatican finances. Francis tapped Pell a year ago to end a cycle of scandal and corruption in money management, and in the year since he took over a newly created Secretariat for the Economy, he’s become a lightning rod of the first order.

This week the Italian newsmagazine l’Espresso published leaked receipts from Pell’s new department purporting to show that it has racked up more than…